Last week 34/08

After a suspenseful week-long wait, the Czech public finally heard a statement on the Russian-Georgian conflict from President Václav Klaus - according to the head of state, both sides are at fault; Mirek Topolánek then supported Georgia in an article for Mladá fronta Dnes and wrote that it belongs in NATO. Vinnetou visited the Czech Republic. The police reported that they had arrested two employees of Bögl & Krýsl, the company responsible for repairing the bridge in Studénka that collapsed recently, causing a tragic train accident. „I'll tell you the unpleasant feeling I have from our political scene. I am convinced that it is such an astronomical amount that it will essentially be swept under the carpet because nothing will happen. That is why I am not so interested now about who is to blame. This government should concentrate above all on minimizing the loss. Then it is up to the criminal authorities and to you, as a reporter,“ replied Deputy Prime Minister, Senator, and Christian Democratic Union-Czech People's Party (KDU-ČSL) Chairman Jiří Čunek when asked by a Česká televize (Czech Television) reporter, „Who will bear the consequences of the Czech Republic losing the arbitration with Diag Human and having to pay almost nine billion crowns, and what will those consequences be?“ A group of people who cannot go unnoticed - men over two meters tall and women over 180 centimeters tall - met in Prague. Slovak rescue workers freed a group of Czech speleologists who could not extract themselves from the Hučiaca Vyvieračka cave. Kateřina Emmons won her second Olympic medal, this time silver. The media reported that Poland reached agreement with the US administration on building a military base on its territory. Most music critics were unimpressed with Alanis Morissette's concert in Prague. The Czech prime minister arrived at the Olympics in Beijing, where he wore a VIP badge instead of a little Tibetan flag pin. Prague Mayor Pavel Bém called on the director of the national library, Vlastimil Ježek, to step down because the European Commission had called the tender for construction of the new library faulty. „In the case of both structures, the final verdict regarding cultural preservation was handed down a year ago when the Culture Ministry backed the decision by City Hall, which handles building permits,“ said the head of Prague's historical preservation committee and well-known lobbyist Jan Kněžínek, explaining why the city will not take into account UNESCO's demand that skyscrapers in Prague's Pankrác neighborhood be a maximum of 70 meters tall instead of 100. The police launched a tender for the purchase of 70 motorcycles received no applications for the contract. Architect Jan Kaplický presented a fascinating proposal for a new concert hall in České Budějovice. The constitutional court rejected Ludmila Brožová-Polednová's argument that she cannot be convicted for her part in the trial of Milada Horáková because the statute of limitations had run out on the case. According to Green Party First Deputy Chairperson Dana Kuchtová, a referendum should be held on the completion of the Temelín nuclear power plant. In a report on its own activities, the supreme state prosecutor's office declared that the fight against economic and financial criminality is in jeopardy because the police are mishandling the reorganization of the operation and the court does not have enough manpower.

„I would expect those behind the media sensation - from the ranks of both politicians and journalists - to apologize, provided they have at least a little decency,“ former Interior Minister Stanislav Gross told Právo after the police declared that he had not committed corruption during the suspicious acquisition and sale of shares that brought him tens of millions of crowns. Director FA Brabec's latest film, Máj (May), premiered in Czech cinemas. Frosts came to the Krušné mountains. Jiří Paroubek published an ad in Právo saying that we are witnesses to a „targeted campaign and manhunt directed against the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD).“ According to STEM public opinion polling agency, 76 percent of Czechs are against compensating the Church as the government has planned. Alexandr Pícha, the only candidate for the position of director of the Český rozhlas (Czech Radio) station Radiožurnál, withdrew his application because he did not feel there was enough support for his vision; the station has been without a director since the dismissal of Barbora Tacheci. „It has started to improve; today I can even walk a few hundred meters on crutches,“ 20-year-old Jakub of Strakonice told Mladá fronta Dnes; the young man was stabbed in the neck by a skinhead a few months ago when he told the neo-Nazi not to raise his arm in a Nazi salute; for some time after the incident it seemed that he would be paralyzed for life. In the second week of August, 28 people died on Czech roads. President Václav Klaus vetoed an amendment that would have forced companies to register the chemical substances they use.