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November 22nd, 2008
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August 6th, 2008 | Current Issue

State of play: Beijing Olympics 2008
Activists raise human rights awareness during opening ceremonies

Record weddings set for Aug. 8
Town halls report boom in ceremonies for the ?lucky' date

MPs decry VKR archive listings
Five officials deny roles in military counterintelliengence

Three locals buy tickets to space
Two Czechs, one Slovak to be among first space tourists

Activists defend railroad against highway
Transport, environment ministries continue to debate proposed highway project

Murder inquiry yields few results
Death of Chinese man leaves family members desperate for answers

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BRIEFS


FRANCE A tornado hit a small town in northern France, killing three people and injuring nine, the BBC reported Aug. 4. Trees were uprooted, cars overturned and roofs ripped off houses as about 600 homes were damaged.

ITALY Soldiers were deployed throughout Italy Aug. 4 to subway and railway stations and embassies as part of a government measure to fight violent crime, for which illegal immigrants are largely blamed. When the initiative takes full effect, 3,000 troops will be flanking regular police officers and military police The New York Times reported.
AUSTRIA There has been a plutonium leak at a site run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Austria, the BBC reported Aug 3. Officials say no one is at risk and the leak has been contained in the lab. However, last November, IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei said the site, constructed in 1970, did not meet UN safety standards.
RUSSIA Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed Stalin’s prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, has died near Moscow at the age of 89, the BBC reported Aug. 4. The Nobel laureate suffered a heart attack, according to his son. While living in the United States in exile as a recluse, Solzhenitsyn also criticized what he saw as the moral corruption of the West.
UK A letter written by former Prime Minister Tony Blair strongly criticizes current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, calling his government, “a lamentable confusion of tactics and strategy,” Reuters reported Aug. 3. Polls show that Brown is the second most unpopular prime minister in modern British history.
GREECE Police on the Greek island of Santorini have shot and injured a knifeman who allegedly decapitated his girlfriend after a domestic fight, the BBC reported Aug 3. The suspect was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and passenger. According to witnesses, one police bullet ricocheted off the road and hit a bystander.
GEORGIA Troops from the former Soviet republic of Georgia fought separatists of the rebel republic South Ossetia Aug. 1–3, killing at least six and wounding more than a dozen others, NYT reported. Violence between the two sides has flared recently after months of relative calm.
TURKEY A number of people have been arrested over double bombings in Istanbul that killed 17 people, the BBC reported Aug 2. Turkey’s interior minister, Besir Atalay, blamed Kurdish separatist rebels for the blasts, and said most of those involved had been detained. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has denied any role in the attacks.
FRANCE Authorities in southern France banned two nonlethal bullfights involving a child matador said to have killed 60 young bulls in Mexico, the BBC reported Aug 3. The matador, called Michelito, age 10, had been due to face calves in Fontvieille and Arles until the shows were stopped for security reasons.
RUSSIA Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for re-establishing Russian influence in Cuba and elsewhere, the Czech News Agency reported Aug 4. Experts say Russia wants to station several nuclear bombers on the Caribbean island just 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the United States as a response to the missile shield expected to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic.
UK A secret deal between the United Kingdom and the notorious al-Mahdi militia prevented British Forces from coming to the aid of their U.S. and Iraqi allies for nearly a week during the battle for Basra in March, the British daily The Times reported Aug 5. The deal, which aimed to encourage the Shia movement back into the political process and marginalize extremist factions, dealt a blow to the British reputation in Iraq.

PROTEST Environmental activists in Brno are protesting the construction of a new Bauhaus supermarket, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reported Aug 4. They have handed out hundreds of postcards and asked citizens who are against the construction to send them to the investors as a form of opposition. Because of the new supermarket, some 54,000 square meters of greenery is set to disappear.

MEDICINE The Teaching Hospital in Brno began testing an anti-cancer substance developed by Czech chemist Professor Antonín Holý, Hospodářské noviny (HN) reported July 31. Patients will participate in clinical tests of the substance, which battles lymphatic nodes and chronic leukemia cancer, and is being co-produced by U.S. firm Gilead Sciences. Further clinics in Prague, Hradec Králové and Olomouc will join Brno in the course of August.
CONCERT Some 400 people attended a neo-Nazi concert in Ochoz u Brna Aug. 2 that ended without incident, ČTK reported. About 100 policemen monitored the event but did not have to intervene. The concert, promoted as “Rock and Metal,” began hours after its scheduled start time because some of the scheduled performers did not arrive.
BRIDGE A team of experts from Charles University is looking for a sandstone quarry that would be a suitable source of material for the reconstruction of Charles Bridge. Builders are currently using sandstone mined from the Kocbeř quarry in east Bohemia, HN reported Aug. 5.
PARTNERSHIP The number of same-sex couples entering into registered partnerships in the Czech Republic has declined since 2006, when the law allowing such unions took effect, ČTK reported Aug. 1. This year, 105 couples entered into registered partnerships, down from 235 in 2006. The only exception is the city of Karlovy Vary, where the number of registered couples increased.

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