Last week 29/08

A decline in supplies from Eastern Europe raised the price of escargot in France. The crown broke the 23.50-per-euro threshold. In Velehrad, thirty thousand people celebrated the state holiday marking the day the “apostles to the Slavs,” saints Cyril and Methodius, arrived in the Great Moravia. The 593rd anniversary of the burning of Jan Hus was commemorated in Husinec. Media carried the news that Boeing had begun manufacturing a giant airliner. Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and his American counterpart Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement paving the way for building a U.S. radar base in Brdy. Immediately afterwards, Russian threatened the Czech Republic with unspecified “military-technical moves,” and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev labeled radar reason for “extreme concern.” “We are considering retaliation,” Medvedev, commenting on the Czech-American deal for collective defense against hostile missiles. The new iPhone entered the market. Sinéad O’Connor performed in Ostrava. Several thousand people had to be evacuated by ladder during a fire in an apartment building on Dornych Street in Brno; two had to be hospitalized. “Do you know that patients at local health care facilities receive less attention than customers do at hair salons or car repair shops?” Health Minister Tomáš Julínek asked citizens in a promo flyer he is hoping will convince the public that the current reforms will improve how doctors treat patients; in light of frequent and ongoing complaints about hospital employees, the medical chamber has begun holding behavioral training courses for doctors. Ryanair decided to cancel its regular route from Brno to Girona, Spain. The Prague Stock Exchange took another big dive. Statistics showed that the number of overweight children in the Czech Republic had risen again. Harvest season began in the Vysočina (Highlands). Kroll, a U.S. detective agency, finished auditing the assets of Minister Jiří Čunek, who has faced allegations of corruption for more than a year now; another minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, hinged his future in the cabinet some time ago on the results of the audit yet has not had time all week to read Kroll’s report due to his busy schedule, which included an official visit to the Caucasus and the signing of the radar treaty with the USA. “I don’t understand it. If I had had that report, I would have opened it up the second I got it and looked at the results,” President Václav Klaus remarked concerning Schwarzenberg’s heavy workload. “Where does the president’s curiosity come from? Perhaps he wants to make up for what he missed when he received a similar file from Kroll in the past. That was about a man named Viktor Kožený, and if Klaus had paid more attention to that, a lot of things could have turned out differently,” commented Lidové noviny columnist Martin Weiss on the head of state’s impatience. The “Otesánek” sculpting symposium started in Český Krmlov. A gallows and three crosses returned to the former execution site at Hora u Bystřice nad Pernštejn. Representatives of anti-corruption forces from six countries—including the Czech Republic—met in The Hague regarding their investigations into a potential multi-billion-crown corruption scandal involving the arms maker BAE Systems, which has sold and rented its Gripen aircraft to a number of countries’ armies in recent years. The legendary Czech swing singer Karel Hála died at the age of 74. The chemical company Spolchemie announced that it had paid its shareholders dividends for the first time in post-war history. “I’ve already started adhering to that—I will use planes and trains more and limit my contact with cars to a minimum,” remarked Communist MEP Miloslav Ransdorf after he continued to drive even after suffering an apoplectic stroke and hit an 18-year-old woman on a crosswalk. The Czech Food Inspection banned distribution of organic beans from China due to moldy packaging. Jaromír Jágr departed New York and went to play in Omsk, Russia. The all-day Tractor Show in Zvoli nad Pernštejn ended in a showdown between a tank and a tractor; the tractor won. A massive marijuana growing operation was discovered in Děčín. Miloš Knorr, a hero of the Czech resistance during the Second World War and holder of the British Imperial Service Honor, passed away in New York at the age of 89. Iranian ayatollahs test-fired nine long-range missiles that are capable of reaching Ukraine and the Balkans. Burger King set its sights on the Czech Republic.