Last week 33/08

The Prague Stock Exchange was put up for sale. Three combine harvesters caught fire in the Znojmo Region in the last three months, burning a total of 25 hectares of land. The municipal court for Prague 2 announced that the entire file on the well-known CS Fond asset-stripping case had gone missing, which means that all of the evidence will have to be compiled again. A high-speed train heading to Prague from Kraków (Cracow) crashed into a collapsed bridge near Studénka, killing seven people and injuring almost 60. Councilors in Nové Heřminovy approved the holding of a referendum on the government's plan to demolish the town and submerge it beneath a reservoir. The media reported that Alexander Solzhenitsyn had died. Fewer and fewer tourists are coming to Prague - according to the association of Czech travel agencies, there has been a 30-percent drop in revenues. „I'll give you an example. When a locksmith hits his finger with a hammer, even though it's a work injury, he doesn't notify his supervisor,“ František Vaštík, the dismissed director of Ostrava's public transport company, told Česká televize (Czech Television) when asked how it was possible that his employees did not notify him or even the railway inspectorate that in 2004–2005 there were incidents on Ostrava tram routes similar to those that led to three people dying and dozens being injured this year. Wallachians reported a good plum harvest for slivovice (plum brandy). The schools inspectorate proposed closing down Prague's Pod Vyšehradem high school because of school-leaving exam frauds there. It was reported that radars won't measure driving speeds in Hradec Králové because a lower court ruling saying that private companies cannot measure speeds was upheld by a higher court and the city lacks funds to operate the radars. Automatic check-out counters went into operation in smaller Tesco stores. Barbora Snopková, the Social Democratic Party's (ČSSD) former administrator and former deputy finance minister, was released on probation after serving three and a half years in prison after being convicted of asset-stripping wheelchair manufacturer Mělník Liberta. Miloš Zeman declared his interest in becoming president but said there would have to be general consent. City councilors in Chomutov decided to deal with an increase in prostitution in the city by photographing clients negotiating trysts with prostitutes and sending the photos home for their wives to see.

„Due to the strengthening crown, a businessperson can say, ‚I'll either close down the company, reduce my employees‘ salaries, or ask them to carry the burden of the currency risk with me,'“ Jaroslav Míl, the president of the Svaz průmyslu a dopravy ČR (Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic), told Hospodářské noviny; and some companies really did begin to consider offering their employees the option of receiving part of their wages in euros. The Czech National Bank reduced interest rates and the crown subsequently weakened slightly. Česká televize canceled its license-fee reminders because it had accidentally also sent them to people who were paid up. The makers of the film Bobule (Grapes) announced that they would shoot a sequel. Václav Klaus and Přemysl Sobotka agreed that the Lisbon Treaty was finished and that Czechs should set high ambitions for the country's presidency of the European Union. TV Nova revealed its hit for this fall - it is planning to broadcast a show about celebrities hosted by Sagvan Tofi. At the beginning of last week, České dráhy (Czech Railways) announced that it was planning to completely reconstruct Prague's Masarykovo nádraží train station; later in the week, Prague city hall announced that it would demolish the station, pull up the tracks and use the space for a new, undoubtedly profitable building. „I am not a fan of forms of protest like tying yourself to a tree; in fact, I wholly abhor them, but in extreme cases I would do it,“ said Mladá Boleslav Mayor Raduan Nwelati, who refuses to cut down 108 trees in the last forested area of the city; according to one study, they are infested with bark beetles, according to others, that is nonsense. ČSSD announced it would not support the Green Party's proposal to radically restrict truck traffic in Prague on the weekends. Experts declared that the capital was experiencing a hepatitis epidemic. The European Commission found that the competition for designing the new national library to be built in Prague contravened the law on public competitions. Czechs began buying large numbers of homes in Spain. The police arrested a man in Brodce who had stolen the roof structure from a former agricultural collective, and while they were questioning him another thief stole the robber's car. Both the Olympics and China's advertising campaign began.