CIAO, ITALIA! TOPOLÁNEK LIVE FROM ITALY. Any top politician deserves to take vacation far away from the attention of media and omnipresent public eye. But what should media do if they learn a politician spends his private time in the company of influential lobbyists?
Are they authorised to publish photos showing former PM Mirek Topolánek and current head of the Civic Democrats (ODS) plus some other top politicians on holidays together in an Italian resort?
Most of the Czech media, if not, thought they were.
Topolánek's argument that he was spied on by the opposition Social Democrats seems entirely wrong. Again, Czech former prime minister misunderstood the issue here: The question is not who took these pictures but why Mr. Topolánek and his fellow political friends happen to spend their free time alongside the country's richest lobbyists.
***
LEGENDARY CROONER - A SEXUAL DEVIANT? Who really was spied on was legendary crooner Karel Gott. Declassified files have recently shown that the singer's psychiatrist in 1971 told the communist-era secret police, StB, that the pop music star suffered from a sexual deviation.
The discovery of the interrogation transcript by Aktuálně.cz suggests that the regime may have used the information to blackmail Gott and to enforce his return to Czechoslovakia from West Germany, where he had emigrated shortly before.
***
COMMUNIST INJUSTICES. A Czech family that has fallen victim to the Communist regime will be compensated CZK 500,000, the Brno regional court ruled on Friday.
In 1973, Karel Kořínek and his wife Jindřiška were persecuted by the regime over their political views and religious beliefs, having ended up in a psychiatric ward. Their children were taken away from them. Three of them grew up in an institutional care, the fourth was brought up by their relatives.
Hanuš, Renata, Marek and Aleš have sought justice after their parents died. The Brno regional court ruled that each of them will receive CZK 125 thousand plus an apology from the Justice Ministry.
The surviving members of the Kořínek family first filed the case in 1992, demanding nine million in compensation.
But the issue is far from being simple. The family did not enjoy good reputation neither with the dissidents nor with the Church they were supposed to be members of. More in our report.
***
LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED HELP OSTRAVA GHETTO. The Ostrava long-term unemplyoed are helping to make the city of Ostrava look better and cleaner.
Under the new bill on material poverty, they are forced to clean and paint the streets which are listed among the socially excluded areas.
And what more, some "volunteers" are playing with the kids in a leisure activity centre to keep them away from the streets, in other words from troubles.
***
SADDAM HUSSEIN AND DAVID ČERNÝ. Not many people had heard of Czech artist David Černý before Entropa stirred controversy around Europe this spring. But Černý (41) has been here before and there has always been a flair of provocation in his art.
Černý's piece titled Saddam Hussein has recently opened a new gallery of modern art Dvorak sec contemporary. Have a look at the artist's art displyaed in the gallery:
***
ROMANIAN GYPSY PRINCE DIES. A Romanian Roma boy died last week in a hospital in Prague-Vinohrady, according to the hospital officials.
The 17-year old son of the Romanian gypsy king almost drowned when swimming in a lake in Stará Boleslav, about 50 km outside Prague 13 days ago. He was immediately hospitalized but his condition was serious and eventually led to a brain seizure.
***
NATÁLKA MAKING CONTACT. And now, something on a more cheerful note: A 2-year-old baby girl who almost burnt to death during an attack on her family in Vítkov five weeks ago has been woken up from induced sleep by the doctors and made first contact with her mother.
„I am thrilled. I trust the doctors completely and I think Natálka will live," her mom said.
It seems like a miracle as burn injuries covering 80% of Natálka's body are in most cases fatal, especially when the victim is so young.
The battle for Natálka's life has not been won yet but there signs of improvement and high chances she will survive, as Jarmila Tymolová, a head surgeon of the hospital's burn department.
Meanwhile, the police are still looking for the attacked. No clue yet, as they say.
