Czechmatediary

Prague is not a very ecology-friendly city. That is what came out of a recent British study which worked out the so-called Green City Index. Among the 30 participating metropolises Copenhagen (Denmark) came out as the most ecological city in Europe. Second place was won by Stockholm and third place belongs to Oslo. Prague, on the other hand, ‘won’ th 24th place (the whole list can be found below).

The cities were rated on 30 various indicators such as the energy consumption, CO2 emissions, trash handling, public transportation usage and the government’s attitude toward the environment. (more…)

The Canadian broadcast CBC NEWS published the results from a recent poll where Czechs were rated as the  4th biggest complainers in the world when they spoke up about the quality of public services. The poll included questionnaire answers from 23,000 corespondents from 23 various countries. When it comes to our country, every 2nd Czech was unsatisfied with various public services in the Czech Republic, which made them out to be complainers no. 1  in the whole Europe! Even the Hungarians, the Polish and the Russians (!!) are complaining less! So what is the deal? Do Czechs have the right to feel unsatisfied or do they just like to complain?

Well, as far as beer services go, there is some validity there. You see, every forth Czech restaurant is serving a lesser quantity of beer than what they are supposed to (where restaurants in Ostrava and Brno are supposedly the biggest cheaters of all). The refunds are also quite bad since almost half of the respondents claim that most of them seem shady, plus one usually has to get into a fight with the  clerk in order to get somewhere (or not). (more…)

Yesterday evening the Czechs finished their 6-month chairmanship to the European Union (the time sure flew by quickly!). The Czech government put on the last cultural event (in this case it was a party) out of the 700 other events that were held during their ‘reign’ over Europe. At first the party was supposed to be out-of-this world show at the main Brussels square but thanks to the world wide recession the Czechs decided to settle for something less grandiose and moved it over to the little more ordinary Carol Street. About 6000 visitors flooded this street and danced to the grooves of Czech bands such as Clou, Mig 21 and Krystof. Many of them were holding a Czech wine in one hand and a slice of traditional Czech cheese or salami in the other. And of course, the biggest line was registered at the Czech beer stand. (more…)

Hello everyone!

Many of you wanted some further information about Barack Obama having Czech roots so here is the detailed SVU article about it (click here).
CZ: Ahoj, mnoho z vas chtelo dodatecne info o Obamove ceske krvi, tak tady je o tom cely clanek (kliknete zde).

Hi Everyone,

less than 24 hours after his arrival to Prague Obama is leaving the Czech Republic again, this time heading to Turkey, the last European country before he returns back to the USA. In case you would like to listen to the full speech that Obama gave at the Hradcany Castle here it is (click here):

CZ: Ahoj, tak Obama ztravil v Cechach necelych 24 hodin a uz je zase na cestach, tentokrat miri do Turecka, posledni evropske zajizdky pred tim, nez se vrati zpet do USA. Jestlize mate zajem poslechnout si cely Obamuv proslov na Hradcanskem namesti, tak tady to je (kliknete zde):

The European statistical agency ESPAD 2007 has recently released some sad data: compared to the other European countries, the Czech teenagers are the most experienced as far as drugs go. About a half of the Czech 16-year-olds who participated in the study (total of 3,914 teenagers) have used an illegal drug in their life, mostly marijuana or hashish. Every 11th student has tried a hard drug such as cocaine or speed. Drug abuse has improved within the last 10 years in all of the 26 participating European countries except in Czech and Slovakia. What is even more unnerving is that ever since 1995 the amount of drug usage in these 2 countries has actually doubled. The ‘good’ news is that since 1999 our kids do not use as many of the hardcore drugs (heroin,pervitin..) as they did in the past and ever since 2003 even the ‘dancing drug’, ecstasy, has decreased in popularity almost in one half.

The ESPAD project has interviewed more than 100,000 students from all over Europe (26 countries). Overall, the study reveals that on average  23% of all of the boys have tried an illegal drug in their life, while only 17% of all of the participating girls have followed their foot steps. The Czech Republic ‘won’ the study, where 46% (!!) of students have experiences with illegal drugs. (more…)

Today collapsed the government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek after losing a vote of no-confidence created by the opposition party of Social Democrats. The ODS party has lost by the bare minimum of 101 votes. Although the Czech Republic  currently has an important role of  presiding the European Union, the prime minister  believes the EU leadership can function in terms of administration, even without a stable government. The EU committee itself also hopes for the best, believing that the Czech Republic will solve its internal political turmoil and will continue leading the European Union for next 3 months.

CZ: Dnes konci vlada Mirka Topolanka (ODS) a to pote, kdy ji snemovna vyjadrila neduveru skrze prestne potrebnych 101 hlasu (stalo se to tak poprve v samostatne historii Ceske Republiky). Topolanek od Klause ocekava, ze ho znovu poveri do sestaveni noveho kabinetu jako sefa strany. Jestlize se ODS nepodari sestavit vetsinovou nekomunistickou vladu, ODS odmitne “urednickou ci polopolitickou vladu, ktera navrhuje CSSD” a predcasne volby by se konaly v lete. Evropska komise ale plne veri, ze Cesi si tuto prekerni situaci vyresi a ceske predsednictvi EU bude nadale funkcni. Za poslednich 10 let nezazila EU situaci, kdy by v prave predsedajici zemi nastala rozsahlejsi obmena nebo pad vlady.

(more…)

The Czech president Vaclav Klaus strongly criticized the EU during his speech an the European Parliament last Thursday. His fearless speech was greeted by an applause of many but also by disapproving boos by other members of the EP (see the 1st YouTube video bellow) . Believe it or not, but some of these oposers even demonstratively left the room! Why did people have such a passionate response? The main points of his speech are given bellow:

• “The EU is a revolutionary experiment which tries to improve the decision making in Europe by having its significant part transferred from individual states to European institutions”.

• “The current economic system of the EU suppresses competitive market and constantly strengthens the centralized economy”

• “The EU creates a great distance (and not just geographical distance) between the people and the political representatives of the EU; this distance is much greater than the one existing in the EU countries themselves” (more…)
  
  If you liked this post buy me a coffee! (Suggested:$3 a latte $8 for a pound) Thanks!

The European Parliament fears that the Czechs will make all of the EU women  become unappreciated stay-home moms. It fears that all of the women will end up locked up in the kitchen for the next 6 months, barefoot and with their kids, while all of their belongings will be taken away, except for the wooden spoon and an apron. Why? Because the Czech presidency dared to propose ‘children to be considered an adequate alternative to a professional career’. The EU wrote in its informal discriminatory report that ‘this vision points to the traditional division of work between a man and a woman, where the man works full time and the “invisible hand” (woman) takes care of his needs, the household and their children’ (man, someone’s unhappy wife must have written this document). These harsh comments were not taken well by some Czech members of the Europarliament like Mr. Jaroslav Zverina, who responded accordingly: ” I believe that this critique comes from a pure feminist ideology, where the woman’s anatomy is equal to the man’s, without a uterus and that woman’s reproductive organs are really not that important to the world”. (more…)

The total of 147 Czechs were infected with the HIV virus within the last year, which is the biggest increase ever since the the 1980’s. The highest numbers of infected individuals are registered in Prague (466) and Ustecko (NW of Prague). The lowest numbers of HIV-infected Czechs can be found in the Pardubice area (9) and Vysocina (11). According to the European center for infectious diseases, about 1/4th to 1/5th of  of HIV-infected individuals actually do not know that they have the virus, which makes it approximately 300 extra individuals affected with this horrible virus.

Since 1986 the total of 265 Czechs have gotten sick with AIDS ( i.e. HIV turned into AIDS) and 142 of them have already passed away. Those numbers are of course extremely low compared to other European countries such as Portugal with about 30,000 HIV-positive individuals, which is  about 25-times higher than in (more…)