The Chamber of Deputies (Poslanecká sněmovna) approved a 2010 budget with a deficit of 167 billion crowns. Astronomers warned the public that the current strong eruptions on the Sun could cause an unprecedented magnetic storm on Earth. Radovan Karadžić's trial began in The Hague. Prime Minister Jan Fischer told the media that President Václav Klaus had said he would sign the Lisbon Treaty. The Czech population participated in sending enthusiastic congratulations to London, where John Cleese celebrated his 70th birthday. News agencies reported that a Taliban suicide bomber had killed at least a hundred people at a market in Peshawar, Pakistan. Novelist Miloslav Švandrlík died.
"The protection of personal data absurdly prevailed over protecting human health, public resources and the fight against organized crime," Health Minister Dana Jurásková commented on the Office for Personal Data Protection (Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů) order abolishing the central database of pharmaceuticals and thereby allowing medicines containing pseudoephedrine to be sold in domestic pharmacies, which makers of illicit drugs began to use in bulk; Minister Jurásková also promised to move quickly to draft legislation remedying the situation by the spring. The Office for the Protection of Competition (Úřad pro ochranu hospodářské soutěže) launched an investigation into why the Czech Republic has been building highways for twice the cost as neighboring Germany. Regional officials tested new trains on the Velim railway test circuit. The government rejected the plan to sell Czech Airlines, and announced that the situation is even worse than expected. Czech Communist party (KSČM) chairman Vojtěch Filip and the head of the Přátelé Miloše Zemana ("Friends of Miloš Zeman") association, Miloš Zeman, participated in the "Dialogue Among Civilizations" conference, organized by the Kremlin on the Greek island of Rhodes, as invited guests.
"We came to see them in Český Brod, and as soon as we drove through the entrance gate, they were pointing machine guns at us," a bodyguard for the son of murdered businessman Antonín Běla told the media, describing the scene when his boss arrived at a fortified villa to discuss mutual relations with the son of another murdered businessman and godfather – František Mrázek; the visit ended with one of Mrázek's bodyguards being wounded and two other charges. TV Nova's profits dropped by half in the first half of the year. Czech judo wizard Lukáš Krpálek defended his Junior World Champion title in Paris. The price of annual highway permits went up from 1,000 crowns to 1,200 crowns. The longstanding trade war between ČEZ and United Coal ended with a trade under which the former acquired the Dolu Československé armády brown-coal mine and the latter the Počerady brown-coal power plant. The Czech Television Council (Rada České televize) protested against actor Jan Kraus's show Uvolněte se, prosím ("Relax, Please"), outraged that studio guest Helena Vondráčková was allowed to talk of her litigation with Marta Kubišová without interruption; Kraus, who had previously called the councilors "incapable of earning enough for chow," considers the complaint a form of censorship and an attempt to destroy entertainment in the country. The Divadlo Semafor theatre celebrated its 50th anniversary. After a rare Cinereous vulture died after being poisoned by badly chipped paint in its aviary, Prague zoo staff rebelled against popular director Peter Fejk and accused him of not taking care of the animals, of not doing enough to ensure their comfort, and of putting tourists and his own fame before the best interests of the zoo.
"We believe that companies with a large proportion of women in management have significantly better results than those with an overwhelming prevalence of men," announced the Swiss investment company Naissance Capital, quoted in Hospodářské noviny, justifying its strategy of investing in enterprises managed by women. Analysts concluded that the worst of the recession is now behind the Czech economy. ČD Cargo turned a profit again. The Civic Democratic Party (ODS) caught up to the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) in the opinion polls. The Czech police's organized-crime unit, the Útvar pro odhalování organizovaného zločinu, rounded up a group of local neo-Nazis who had been schooled on how to attack crucial public infrastructure in a secret training camp led by military experts on terrorist attacks. The Czech Republic's only exhibition of the winners of the Index Award design competition was prematurely closed down after unknown vandals damaged two works on display in the center of Brno. ING has decided to sell its Czech insurance and pension fund. Meteorologists announced that warm days were coming to an end and that it would be a chilly late autumn.
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