Last week 40/08

After summer came autumn. Czech Ambassador to Pakistan Ivo Žďárek died in the center of Islamabad during an attack by an al-Qaida suicide bomber. The Paralympics came to an end in Beijing. Meteorologists informed citizens that the current cool and rainy weather would last until October. Lidečko was named village of the year. A missile launched by Taliban militants at the Czech base in the Logar province of Afghanistan injured three soldiers. Seventy years passed since the signing of the Munich Agreement. Participants of a memorial meeting commemorated the Holocaust victims at the cemetery in Terezín. „This epidemic is behaving strangely - instead of children, it is attacking adults, often managers and clerks, simply quite clean people - and we have no idea why,“ epidemiologist Zdenka Jágrová told Mladá fronta Dnes, commenting on the current surprising spread of hepatitis in Prague and regional cities. The Czech Republic sold its unused air pollution credits to Japan. The government approved a budget proposal for next year with a 38 billion-crown deficit. Iggy Pop played in Prague. Agencies carried a report that a Russian fleet had sailed to the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with the navy of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who called himself the contemporary chief warrior against the West. US Defense Minister Robert Gates warned EU members in London not to continue their destructive trend of disarming and reducing defense spending, and to instead start renewing their defense capacities as soon as possible in this age of uncertainty and fear of Russia's plans. „Our goal is to avoid the situation in which only two possibilities would remain - confrontation or resignation,“ said Gates, explaining America's wishes to the military commanders of NATO forces; the American minister and his Czech colleague, Vlasta Parkanová, then signed a contract in London enabling American forces to remain in the Czech Republic. Miroslav Šlouf celebrated his 60th birthday. Pensions were raised; the change will take effect in January 2009. The Germany DEGI fund bought an office center in the Prague neighborhood of Chodov for 10 billion crowns. The HealthCare fund launched its annual patients' vote for the best Czech hospital. After an 18-year search, Kyrgyzstan authorities found the bodies of six Czech mountain climbers who were buried in an avalanche during an attempt to climb to the summit of Pik Lenin in the Pamirs. Václav Havel received this year's Jaroslav Seifert prize (Cena Jaroslava Seiferta) from Nadace Charty 77 (Charter 77 Foundation). The Roma Cup 2008 football championship was won by Real Brno, comprised of black students studying at Masarykova univerzita (Masaryk University) in Brno.

„The crisis is far from over. The stock markets received symbolic news they were waiting for, but symbols cannot resolve the real condition. This is far from the end,“ remarked former Czech National Bank Vice Governor Luděk Niedermayer regarding the media's optimism after it was reported that the US government would help financial institutions there, based on which MF Dnes had asked Niedermayer: „Didn't this crisis end fairly quickly?“ Glass giant Crystalex declared bankruptcy. Rising prices of computer parts were replaced by moderate discounts. The crisis and accompanying decline in demand for new cars led to Škoda Auto reducing production. Czech journalist and television reporter Tomáš Etzler received an Emmy for his contribution to developing new information technologies. The Prague auction house Woxart offered local collectors works by Andy Warhol and Robert Indian in an auction. Profits from state-owned forests fell. Czech President Václav Klaus rejected a proposal from Supreme State Prosecutor Renata Vesecká to pardon former procurator Ludmila Brožová, 86, who is to serve a six-year prison sentence for her participation in the Communist judiciary's murder of opposition politician Milada Horáková in 1950. The Czech ministers of health, social affairs and human rights agreed at a public debate that care for the elderly in the Czech Republic is bad but, according to them, there is still no clear recipe for change. „Starting in mid-October, we're going to have 27 snow cannons and six snow bars at the Vesec resort, and three cannons and two bars on Ještěd mountain - so we can produce all the snow we need within 14 days,“ said the government's cross-country skiing commissioner Kateřina Neumannová, detailing how her office is prepared for the upcoming Cross-Country Skiing World Cup, which is gaining a tradition of being held in northern Bohemian locations where it doesn't snow. The World Congress of Psychiatry was held in Prague.