Last week 9/08

The price of a barrel of American crude leaped over the hundred-dollar threshold. Temperatures rose to fifteen degrees Celsius and meteorologists noted than there will likely be no more winter this year. The UN warned consumers that tea, coffee and cocoa will see record price increases due to unrest in their countries of production. John Rambo returned to movie theatres after twenty years. We will wait for the European powers and then we will assess it too, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg answered in response to a question from Lidové noviny as to if and when the Czech Republic will recognise the independence of Kosovo, a province populated by an Albanian minority that broke away from mother Serbia in spite of protests from Belgrade. Ski-lift operators calmed down an uneasy public that in spite of the warm temperatures there will be snow on the slopes, albeit artificial. The management of Telefónica O2 stopped sponsoring the Czech national hockey teams. An exhibition of Miloš Forman’s lifelong work took place in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Alain Robbe-Grillet died in Caen. The head of the Supreme Court, Iva Brožová, submitted a disciplinary action against her Deputy, Pavel Kučera, for allegedly putting pressure on the public prosecutor, in secret meetings, to put the case of the Government Vice-Chairman at the time, Jiří Čunek, under suspicion of fraud and bribery, on ice. Václav Klaus is a person that I have admired for a long time now, he is a substantial economist, who means an awful lot to me: his statement that money knows no sentiment is perfect for me, the head of the Slovak nationalists and Chairman of the Slovak National Party, Ján Slota, expressed his joy at current President Václav Klaus’ re-election; Slota then called Klaus’ rival candidate Jan Švejnar an “American interloper and dung, dung.” The Vizovice-based Rudolf Jelínek distillery purchased a factory for the production of fruit spirits in Chile. Several fossilised remains of a frog that evidently fed on newborn dinosaurs in the distant past were discovered in Madagascar.

It could happen that something green, large and unbelievable that doesn’t exist anywhere else will go up here, Architect Jan Kaplický commented on the offer of Brno’s City Hall for him to build any of his buildings in the South Moravian metropolis, even if it „were only to be a park bench,“ Brno Mayor Roman Onderka stated. The new Dacia pick-up entered the Czech market. After its inspection of meat and dairy products, Hospodářské noviny stated that while the price of food has risen, its quality has not. An excavator operator removing soil for the construction of a new waste dump in Znojmo grazed a bomb from the Second World War, ending up in hospital after it exploded. Lego once again took over its factory in Kladno that it had left almost two years ago. Officials continued in discussions over a two-million-crown fine hanging over the local organiser of the World Alpine Skiing Championships for sending a column of lorries and excavators to scoop up snow in the fields of the most strictly-protected zone of the Jizera Mountains in an attempt to find enough of the white gold for its races in the forests near Liberec. In spite of all his rhetoric Castro still holds his power in his dying hands and isn't going to pass it on to anybody. Fidelism will die at the same time as its creator – let’s pray that it is soon, Cuban dissident and recently-released political prisoner Héctor Palacio commented for the daily MF Dnes regarding news reports that the ailing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has decided, after 49 years of totalitarian rule, to not run for the highest state function of President of the Council of State. Kofola purchased Slovakia’s Vinea. The Ministry of Justice promised dissatisfied non-government organisations that it will catch up on its unfulfilled international commitments by the end of the year and provide enough attorneys for the poor in the Czech Republic. The two thousandth iPhone arrived in the Czech Republic. A man driving a car without a driver’s license killed a pedestrian crossing the street in Vizovice. Unknown perpetrators stole a railway bridge on the route between Cheb and Starý Hrozňatov. Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation awarded the Czech Republic a medal for “an excellent transition to democracy and a market economy.” 170 years have passed from the birth of Ernst Mach, the physicist that inspired Einstein, in Chrlice.