CCCCC AA RRRRR OOOO LL II NN N AA CC AA A RR R OO O LL II NNN N AA A CC AA A RRRRR OO O LL II NN N N AA A CC AAAAAA RR R OO O LL II NN NN AAAAAA CCCCC AA A RR R OOOO LLLLLL II NN N AA A STUDENTS' E-MAIL NEWS FROM CZECH REPUBLIC School of Social Sciences of Charles University Smetanovo nabr. 6 110 01 Prague 1 Czech Republic E-mail address: carolina@n.fsv.cuni.cs Fax: (+422) 231 7391 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* C A R O L I N A No 73, Friday, April 30, 1993. FROM LAST WEEK EVENTS (April 21-28) Superzero is not the issue of the day "The super-zero variant is really a marginal, final and extreme solution for us, and it is not the issue of the day", said Premier Vaclav Klaus after negotiations with I. Mjartan, Slovak Ambassador in the Czech Republic. The negotiation was initiated by the Slovak side. They demaned an explanation of the term "super-zero". As early as last week, the Slovak premier indicated that Slovakia would accept this variant in case it would correspond with the "Slovak zero variant." This variant assumes mutual recognition of property claims between both republics. Since the Slovak claims include compensation of 40.000.000.000 Kc for the former federal flag, the "Slovak zero" is unacceptable to the Czech representatives. According to premier Klaus, most of the agreements are ready to be signed. Some unresolved issues are caused rather by clerks' laggardness than by political ignorance. He also said that the super-zero variant was only a feeler set off just to find out a contingent passage-way of this solution. Vaclav Havel in the USA and Germany One of the possibilities to achieve peace in Bosnia and Hercegovina is air attack. Czech president Vaclav Havel said this at his several-day visit to the USA. He also said that if the international community accepts a remarkably forcible decision when solving this problem, stronger than until now, the Czech Republic will support it. The situation in Bosnia was one of the issues Bill Clintion mentioned during his one-hour talk with V. Havel. The Czech side expressed its disappointment above the fact that the office of the American commissioner for trade negotiations ranked the former Czechoslovakia to the list of 44 countries which in 1992 created obstacles to the trade with the USA. Czech president also participated at a celebral opening of Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. On Saturday president V. Havel started his three-day visit to Germany. His introductory meeting with Richad von Weizsacker concerned mainly the development of Czech-German relations and the possibilities of the integration of the Czech Republic into the European Community. On Saturday V. Havel received, in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart, Award of Theodor Heusse which is attributed since 1965. This award named after the first president of Germany was given to V. Havel for his exemplary fight for freedom and human rights during a public opression. After a meeting with enterpreneurs from Hamburk, president Havel went to Bonn where he finished his official visit with talks to premier Helmut Kohl, minister of foreign affaires Klaus Kinkel, and German president Richard von Weizsacker. More than 60 percent of the public for reforms Nine percent of the inhabitants to the Czech Republic regard the basic principles of the economy transformation as completely right, 52% more or less right, 18% more or less wrong, 4% of the respondents deny it completely, and 17% do not know. These are the results of a fresh published public poll carried out by the Institute for Public Poll in mid March. The 17% are mostly young people and people above 60 years of age. Only a half of oldish inhabitants regards the transformation steps as right. The opinion that the speed of the reform is right is shared by 26% of the respondents, 36% say it is slow, 20% think it is too fast. The changes carried out so far are succesfull of rather succesfull for 25% of the participants to the survey. Ecology protests against the nuclear power plant The main gate of the Temelin nuclear power plant was on Monday blocked by a live chain of activitists of several ecology associations. This activity is according to them the first of many to come. They want to change the government decision on the final construction of the power plant. The demonstrators refused to show their identity cards and clear out the space, and they were escorted by the police from the region administration to a police station in Brezi. According to the latest news all of them have already been set free. At the occasion of the International Earth Day, ecology activists hold on Thursday in Prague several protest activities, for example at the Old Town Square they built a sarcophagus for the Temelin nuclear power plant, in Havlicek orchards they prepared a symbolic "Wailing Wall" for children who could draw on it all their troubles. Czech acid rains Mean acidity of rains in Czech is approximately ten times higher than their usual acidity. These are the results of international project "Blue from the sky - are you interested in what you breath?" whose coordinator is Norish Association for Nature Protection. Also in the remaining twelve states who took part in the research, the acidity exceeded the norm. EXCHANGE RATE OF THE CZECH CROWN buy sell USA 1USD 27.52 28.92 BRD 1DEM 17.53 18.45 GB 1GBP 43.55 46.39 CAN 1CAD 21.54 23.32 FRA 1FRF 5.13 5.53 AUT 1ATS 2.49 2.61 TURIST RATE OF THE SLOVAK CROWN (100 Sk) buy sell Agrobanka 90.00 95.00 Ceska sporitelna 87.00 93.00 Investicni banka 87.00 92.00 Komercni banka 83.00 87.00 The rates are valid as of April 27, 1993 SPORT Basketball The first winner of the Czech basketball man league became University Sport Club Praha. In the final they beat Sparta Praha in three matches. The third finished Bioveta Ivanovice. Football Five put off league matches were played this week. Sparta Praha (36pts) wan 4:2 on the turf of Ceske Budejovice and thus ensured itself a promising advantage for the remaining league rounds. The second candidate for the title, Slavia Praha (34pts) draw a tie 1:1 in Trnava. Dukla Praha (12pts) contributed a bit to its rescue with a tie 1:1 on the turf of Banik Ostrava. FROM THE HISTORY OF CZECHOSLOVAK SPORT Hockey - the second most popular sport According to the audience turn-out at winter stadions, hockey seems to be less popular than football, but the reality is probably somewhere in the middle. We can say that the representatives of the quickest world team game have won more medals for us than football players - 4 silver Olympic medals (1948,1968,1976,1984), three bronz medals (1964,1972,1992), and six world master titles. The last time they won at the Prague Championate in 1985. Presently 57th world mastery takes place in Germany and for the first time in history the Czech Republic is represented with its team who remained in the elite A group as a succedor to the team of Czechoslovakia. The Czech team is very well off so far - they won the basic group with a loss of only one point and succeed to the guarter-final. For Slovakia long negotiations of International Hockey Federation on the successorship finished ill-favouredly. In October 1993 they will play a qualification to succeed to C group. If they win they will participate at world mastery of C group in March 1994 in the Republic of South Africa. A question remains - who will play for Slovakia. While Czech put up a quality team from home players and European "compatriots", the best Slovakian hockey players play Canadian-American national hockey league. Though they promised their participance in the representation, they will hardly be released by their clubs at this time. If the separation of the former federal representation will not be shown in Czech, for Slovakia it will surely mean a big decrease. Theoretically speaking, Slovakia can get to A group as early as in 1996\97 season. The league will also be played separately after 50 years. The best Slovakian hockey teams will have in the new year much weaker rivals than they have had until now. This can mean another drop as far as quality is concerned. Jan Zvolanek WEATHER Though spring started only recently, weather in the late April is really summer-like. Night temperature hover around at least 10 degrees, sometimes they climb up to 15 degrees. Daily 25-degree hot has not been revealed in ice-cream prices yet - one portion is still for 3-5 crowns. In comparison with the last week it has not rained almost at all. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This news may be published only with "CAROLINA" designation. The subscription is free. Comments and remarks are appreciated. Send them please to the address: carolina@n.fsv.cuni.cs To subscribe to CAROLINA you send an e-mail message to the address LISTSERV@CSEARN.BITNET. The text of the message is: SUBSCRIBE CAR-ENG First name Last name for the English version or SUBSCRIBE CAR-CS First name Last name for the Czech version. To delete your subscription from the list you send the following message to LISTSERV@CSEARN.BITNET: SIGNOFF CAR-ENG or SIGNOFF CAR-CS Please, don't send automatic replies to our list. You can temporalily stop receiving of Carolna by sending the command: SET CAR-ENG NOMAIL The command should be sent to the address LISTSERV@CSEARN.BITNET