EARTHQUAKE IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC. The 46-year-old and 39-year-old Polish miners died in a mining accident which occurred before Sunday midnight in a mine near Ostrava city.
The accident was caused by a tremor of 3.3 degrees on the Richter scale. The Polish miners worked about 700 m below the surface together with 19 more miners, which were eventually evacuated.
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VIOLENCE ON VELVET REVOLUTION DAY. Last week marked the 19th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Some took this day and a place at Národní třída which is infamous for police clashes with anti-communist activists in the past as their chance to voice their criticism against the government´s planned radar base and public finance reforms.
But those who came to pay honour to the 1989 Velvet Revolution were not very happy about it and it resulted in skirmishes and a couple of protesters being taken away from the spot by the police.
A much more violent clash took place about 200 km northwards of Prague. In what many called the most violent Czech rally since the 2000 protests against an IMF summit in Prague, far-right sympathisers clashed with riot police in the north-Bohemian town of Litvínov.
Some 600 supporters of the far-right Workers' Party (Dělnická strana) arrived in Litvínov on Monday to protest against the government's policy and the influx of immigrants on the main square. Later the crowd started marching towards Janov, a neighbourhood where most Litvínov Roma live. It was not a pretty sight, you can have a look at what happened that day.
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BAN IT. A few days later PM Mirek Topolánek added his support to Interior Minister Ivan Langer's proposal to ban the Workers´ party. He is not convinced that banning the party will resolve the uneasy issue of the Roma community but excessive behaviour is not to be tolerated.
Education, he believes, is the answer. Perhaps of both sides?
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CZECH CROWN PLUNGING. After a long and steady growth of the Czech crown, last week saw the currency plunged against euro and US dollar.
"The risk aversion in the world is pending and European stock markets are around zero. Following the prolonged weekend, the Czech stock market is deep in minus. These circumstances are expected to cause further slide of the Czech crown as well as other currencies," says Patria Finance analyst Tomáš Vlk. In other words, tighten your belt and start saving.
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CZECHS NOT AFRAID. But Czechs are generally not afraid of the financial crisis looming all around the world, as the latest poll conducted by STEM/MARK agency shows. They will just skip holidays abroad and start saving money. But not on food, as most of the respondents said.
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REVOLUTION IN POSTAL SERVICE. Czech Post holds in talks with a retail chain to provide basic postal services at supermarkets in smaller municipalities. The potential franchise partner is believed to be Flop, Coop or Žabka.
Czech Posts plans to close 178 branches in smaller municipalities and is looking for alternative ways to provide postal services there. Franchising postal services to local supermarkets is one of the options. The company is also testing mail delivery by a scheduled postal vehicle.
But as shown by recent weeks, elderly people find the postal vehicle as very unreliable, let alone the fact many of them receive pension allowances and cannot physically come to the delivery post to sign their payment checks.
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REVOLUTION IN BABY CARE SYSTEM. Czech fathers may in the future be able to take an extra week off to stay at home with their partner and newborn baby and get paid 70 percent of their normal salary by the government.
And there is plenty more in a pro-family package proposed by Labour and Social Affairs Minister Petr Nečas and approved by the cabinet.
"Every individual should be perceived not as a part of the workforce, but also as a parent, who invests their time, energy and financial means to rearing children, who are our future human capital," said Nečas.
But what about those who cannot or do not want to rear children, one wonders. Are they doomed to be perceived as a part of the workforce only?
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THE X-FILES IN ČR. At a time when the secret service has intensified its warning against the activities of Russian spies on Czech territory and the relations with Moscow are tense because of the planned construction of the radar, the influential lobbyist Miroslav Šlouf regularly visits the buildings of the Russian Federation.
The Security Information Service has warned in its recent report that Russians are trying to acquire "influential channels" among politicians in Prague, among other things.
Miroslav Šlouf did not deny his visits to the buildings, but he tried to trivialise them. For some reason he could not remember precisely his last visit to the Russia-owned buildings.
"Can't you tell that I don't even know when I've been there for the last time? I would say that I have not even been there this year," Šlouf said.
Loss of memory? It looks like it is time for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully come to investigate.
