In the News 11.8.08

Written by Naďa Straková
Aktuálně.cz CzechNews

Prague – Last Friday saw a terrible accident that still is the major headline in the Czech media this week.

The international Eurocity express train, travelling from the Polish cityof Krakow to the Czech capital Prague, crashed at nearly full speed into a collapsed bridge obstructing the railway near the town of Studénka close to the Moravian city of Ostrava, some 400 kilometres east of Prague.

„The place was a mess. The workers drank alcohol. My kids saw the workers with a bottle of vodka and our neighbor who has already talked to the media has got anonymous threats but I won’t want keep silent,” said the local man who wants to remain anonymous.

If you thought you know everything about the August 21, 1968by now, then you better watch public broadcaster Czech Television broadcast on August 20.Czech TV has prepared a special program to commemorate the 40th anniversaryof the Warsaw pact troops´ invasion on August 21, 1968.

There is a chance you may discover new facts and figuresif you watch the program, dubbed The August Night, which will be broadcast live using pre-filmed memories, archives and live entries. The program is also to interlink the TV broadcast with its web page, viewers’ reactions, archives, testimonies of the witnesses and commentaries of the historians.

Have you ever wondered why communist East Germany had much more informantsthan Czechoslovakia?

Did you know that StB aka state securityhad the largest number of informers, as much as 100,000, at the turn of 1959and 1960, while it decreased down to 15,000 around the 1968 Prague Spring reform?

The liberalization trendof the regime was halted by the armed intervention of the USSRand its Eastern European allies in August 1968.

And were you aware of the fact that under communismif you were beaten by your wife, you could not work as an informant for the secret police?

You can find answers to the these issues and more in an interview Aktuálně.cz conducted with Pavel Žáček, director of the The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, here.

Vigils were held across the world to remember one of the biggest tragedies in the history of humankind but hardly any one remembers the creator of the only building that survived the Hiroshima atomic bomb attack. His name was Jan Letzel and he came from Czechoslovakia.

The bomb flattened the entire city centre, except the Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall, nicknnamed A-bomb Dome later on, which was designed by Jan Letzel.

Two Czech scientists who were arrestedin India for what the local authorities called illegal bug collectionare now awaiting charges before their trial begins. According to local laws, they could receive prison sentences of three to seven years.
Finally, after more than a month in prison, Petr Švácha and Emil Kučera were released on bail on July 25.

Petr Švácha and Emil Kučera talked to Aktuálně.cz about their time in the Darjeeling prison, difficulties with local lawyers, arrest by local foresters and much more.

Czech audience and critics often grumble that the local film industryproduces only romantic comedies, while historical films, for example, are missing from the screens. Now, they will have less reasons to complain, as three films about World War II are being released.

Václav Marhoul’s “Tobruk”, a story of Czechoslovak soldiers fighting in Tunisia in the early years of the war, is going to premier.
Marek Najbrt has been filming “Protektor”, with financial support from the fund, about the life of a Czech actress around the time of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination in Prague.

Another ambitious project “Lidice” will also returnto this turbulent period in the wartime Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Now for something completely different. There are millions of trees growingin the Czech Republic, yet only twelve of them made it to the shortlist for the annual “Tree of the Year” contest, held by Nadace Partnerství (Partnership Foundation).

Independently of the contest, Aktuálně.cz has prepared its own The Tree of the Yearcontest for its readers. See the chosen trees and read the legends that are closely related to them.

And with trees we’ll stay for a while. We have millions of trees in our own forests but apparently, we import millions of treesillegally felled in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Therefore Czech environmentalists have prepared a TV ad called Forest Love that is to draw attention to the problem of illegal wood imports from tropical zones.

It may not seem so at first but this topic concerns each and every one of us, as producers of toilet papers and napkins and tissues are said to ignore the origin of the imported material. It is estimated that every day some 270 thousand of healthy trees are flushed down the toilet or thrown into the garbage in that way.

Now, the Radioactive Waste Repository Authorityhas come up with an solution – they would pay a volunteer that would help the state counter the opposition of citizens who refuse to have nuclear waste deposited near their houses.

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