Last week 48/2005

Christmas fever began in shops. Meteorologists informed the public that the current mild weather will hold out at least until Christmas Eve. A fire demolished a ski lift on Klínovec. Culture Minister Vítězslav Jandák vaulted to the top of the list of the most popular politicians. Parliament passed a law introducing fingerprints in passports. Scubadiver Pavel Říha immersed himself 170 meters below the surface of the lake at the bottom Hranice Gorge near Přerov and made a new Czech record in deep diving.

“The prime minister will be forced to choose: he’ll either want to work with us or with former StB members,” KDU-CSL (Christian Democratic Party) chairman Miroslav Kalousek was quoted by newspapers in reaction to Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek’s pronouncement that he agrees with the Communists’ proposal to lift the lustration law that bans participation in the government for former top functionaries of the totalitarian regime and members of its political police force; after Kalousek’s comment, Paroubek backed down and said the lustration law would not have to be changed “for at least a year or two.” Oil leaked from an unknown source contaminated the Elbe River near Poděbrady. Exhibited on Prague’s Jungmann Square under a project called Silent Witnesses were ten paper figures symbolizing women who have been murdered by their husbands in the Czech Republic recently. The cabinet discussed a government report on sustainable development in the Czech Republic revealing that local companies use twice as much energy and primary commodities as those in western European countries. The UN’s atmosphere protection agency warned the Earth’s inhabitants that greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase dramatically and that the planet is truly fatally endangered. Released statistics showed that this year’s Czech big consumer hit was “mobile entertainment”: Czechs spent one billion crowns on ringtones and wallpapers for their mobile phones. Snowfall blocked most roads and highways. “I saw the truck, hit the brake, and started flying from guardrail to guardrail. When the car came to a stop, I got out with a smile on my face, but then someone told me to turn around and see what happened,” said actor Marián Labuda, describing how he killed two women waiting by the guardrail for a tow truck to come for their wrecked car on the D1 highway. The Ceské Budějovice regional authority called on survivors to remove roadside memorials for the victims of fatal car accidents by spring 2006 because there are so many that they distract still-living drivers and endanger traffic safety. Miroslav Červenka died. Phil Collins played in Prague. Former government representative for human rights Petr Uhl asked the state prosecutor’s office to investigate why the police are not prosecuting Communist Europarliamentarian Miloslav Ransdorf for saying “as a historian, I know there was never any real concentration camp in Lety u Písku,” by which he committed the crime of denying the holocaust, for there was a concentration camp in Lety since 1942 for holding Roma Czechs, under the watch of Czech guards, waiting to be transported to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. “If a normal citizen had done what they did, he’d be taken to the police station and nobody would bat an eye,” President Václav Klaus assessed on TV the recent attempt by musician Michael Kocáb and artist Bořek Šípek to hang an EU flag next to the Czech flag at the Prague Castle; at the president’s orders, the duo was prevented by the castle guard force, which subsequently filed a criminal complaint against them; the police suspended the complaint immediately with the verdict that “hanging the EU flag is neither a crime nor a misdemeanor in the Czech Republic.” Amateur actors gathered in Nová Ríše. Commercial inspection authorities warned the public that more than three-fourths of cheap lighters sold on the domestic market do not meet basic safety standards and can seriously harm the health or life of those who use them. A Přerov court ended the long-drawn-out trial against former BIS agent Vladimír Hučín with acquittal. Health Minister David Rath called on Parliament to establish an investigative commission to identify all the politicians’ ties to General Health Insurer (VZP). Sweden appealed to the European Union to follow its lead and take a much harder position to fight alcoholism. Archaeologists excavated a 3000-year-old burial ground near Turnov. The Interior Ministry Inspection continued its investigation into where missing property worth several million crowns disappeared to and who stole it from the police presidium building.