Last week 51/08

Newspapers carried the news that Martha von Bulow, who was in a coma for 28 years, had died. Parliament approved the budget. The constitutional court ruled that it is legal to grow marijuana in the Czech Republic. According to detailed data from the Czech Statistical Office (Český statistický úřad), the domestic economy has slowed down more in recent times than expected. „It has been shown that the height of the economic cycle has long since passed,“ said UniCredit Bank analyst Pavel Sobíšek, commenting on the news. „And it's going to get worse,“ well-known economist and former Czech presidential candidate Jan Švejnar told newspapers. The crisis reached the Czech Republic: three-fifths of all domestic companies announced plans to end production early this year. The international ratings agency Moody's downgraded the Czech Republic's rating from „positive“ to „stable.“ Scientists reached the conclusion that Jesus Christ was born in July. Sixty years passed since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed. An international comparative study revealed that Czech school children had dropped to below-average in comparative tests; the Education Ministry then issued a report that it was because there is too little money to pay truly high-quality teachers. Another international study in the same timeframe found that Czech teachers are among the most dissatisfied in the world. At the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) convention, Mirek Topolánek won his battle with Pavel Bém for the party's leadership, and President Václav Klaus gave up his post of honorary party chairman. Representatives of the EU member states agreed to remove all traditional, energy-hogging light bulbs from its market by 2012. „The biggest action was the one that I had originally carried out in the center of Prague in 1977 - I tried to touch as many people who walked by me as I could; it wasn't meant to be aggressive, just a little uncomfortable – like an invasion of the personal space that surrounds us. While physical contact does occur, making real contact is impossible. It's just a fleeting touch,“ said Czech artist Jiří Kovanda, describing what he did as an invited participant at one of the most prestigious art fairs in the USA, Art Basel Miami Beach. Astronomers came to realize that there is a huge black hole in the middle of the Milky Way. Director Helena Třeštíková won a European Film Academy award for her documentary René, making her the first Czech female filmmaker working in the Czech Republic to receive the prize. The management of the Šumava national park opened several heated log cabins, providing tourists with a warm place to observe deer walking by the windows on the way to feeding racks. The multiplex cinema in Prague's Novodvorská Plaza shopping center closed its doors because of low ticket sales.

„Choose the same chairman constantly, every time, until death? We’ve already had that here before,“ said famous javelin thrower Jan Železný, commenting on the news that, owing to a lack of other candidates, Milan Jirásek, 72, will evidently become the head of the Czech Olympic committee (Český olympijský výbor) again, for the fourth time in a row. The privatization of Prague’s Ruzyně Airport has piqued the interest of Swiss prosecutors in connection with suspicions of money laundering. The media reported that Ireland is repeating its referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Shockwaves on the real estate market halted construction of new apartments in Prague. This year's Dětský čin roku („Child's Act of the Year“) awards were given to Petra Škrabalová, 13, for rescuing a drowning man; Zdeněk Lerch, 14, for finding and returning a wallet with 100,000 crowns in it; and Viet Phuong Nguyen, 14, for providing exemplary support to his parents by helping out in their retail stand for several hours every day. It surfaced that the government gave 1.5 billion crowns from state coffers to the organizers of the 2009 Nordic World Ski Championships, to be held in an area near Liberec where there is almost no snow. „We will take advantage of every moment during freezes to produce artificial snow directly in the ski venue, and besides that, in an emergency situation, we are capable of bringing snow in from parking lots and empty surfaces in higher-elevation areas,“ said the spokesperson of the world championship's organizing committee, Zdeněk Soudný, explaining how the preparation team surrounding former cross-country ski racer Kateřina Neumannová intends to cope with the lack of snow using taxpayers' money. Mladá fronta Dnes notified readers that Oprah Winfrey had gained so much weight that she has no idea what to wear. Právo sought out the information that Czech women gain two to three kilograms on average over the Christmas holidays and reported it in a front-page story.