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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

Almost two weeks ago, the Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg presented sixteen individuals and three organizations with the Gratias Agit award in appreciation of promoting the Czech Republic abroad. The award was given in a form of a crystal globe.  One of the recipients was Paul Rausnitz, a Czech citizen living abroad but always proud of his country.

Paul Rausnitz was only 11 years old when he was put in prison in Ostrava, North-East of the Czech Republic. It was right after the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938 by Germans. Then he was thrown to Poland, where he was waiting, along with his parents and two brothers, for visas to America. During that time the war broke out and instead of traveling to the United States, he continued to move the opposite direction - to the Eastern part of Poland.

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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

Less than a month ago Jan Pociatek, Slovakia’s Finance Minister, stated that the Slovakian financial sector mostly invested in the domestic economy and not risky mortgage markets. Based on this statement, loses on these markets would have only a small effect on their financial market.

In addition, the Slovak government wanted to assure the public that there was no financial crisis threat and recently also approved a legislative proposal to protect money deposits in Slovak banks to a full 100 percent instead of the original 90 percent — up to ~600,000 Sk (~$27,000). The Slovak parliament must approve this initiative later this month.

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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

How many of you visit your homeland frequently? Maybe you travel back to the Czech Republic only in the summer or only for Christmas. Well, now you can see your favorite places any time of the year and you don’t have to travel anywhere! How? You just need your computer and an internet connection.

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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

Today, the Slovak republic president, Ivan Gasparovic, and the president of the United States, George Bush, met in Washington in the White House. They discussed the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) as well as the financial crisis and steps that need to be taken in order to overcome it.

The major requirement for eligibility for this program is to reach no more than 10 percent of rejected visa applications, which Slovakia achieved. Also, Slovakia provided fingerprints and DNA profiles of all convicted criminals that won’t be allowed to enter the United States. Bush stated that Slovakia made the major step in order to cancel visas to the US and he declared that the official announcement could be as soon as in the middle of November.

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  CzechFolks Survey HERE (CzechFolks Dotaznik ZDE)

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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

It is hard to live abroad and speak a second language. We do speak English at home but sometimes we just miss watching Czech and Slovak movies or reading books and periodicals that our family members bring over during their visits. We were also very happy when we found out that we could also find some very priceless pieces of Czechoslovak history right here in the United States.

One of the places where you can find Czech and Slovak publications is The University of Chicago Library. Their Archives of Czechs and Slovaks Abroad (ACASA) consist of several thousands of books, brochures, almanacs, periodicals, and personal papers of Czechs and Slovaks, who have lived outside of Czechoslovakia for a while. Most of them were published in North America in the past 150 years. Their collection, however, also includes titles originating in Western Europe, Australia, or South America.

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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

We hope you all have tried the Czech bread recipe from our last posting. You can always make it more suitable to your taste by adding other ingredients, such as cheese, garlic, or even chocolate as a filling. Just let us know how it went by posting your comments to our articles.

And here is a little bit more information about Czech cuisine. Czechs love soup. We believe it is because of the cold weather. Almost every restaurant offers a garlic soup (Cesnecka “CHESSNAYCHKAH”) or onion soup (Cibulacka “TSIBULLACHKAH”); however, we would like to introduce to you a more exotic soup called Drstkova polevka “DIRCHKOVAH POLEHVKAH” (tripe soup). We did not like it in the beginning but we got used to it later on. Czechs are one of the nations that try to use all resources to make food, thus, they are accustomed to making Tripe Soup.

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Clanek v CESTINE dole.

Not even a month ago we talked about the Prague Stock Exchange mentioning its loss of 4.92 percent. Today the situation even worsened creating a new record loss of 8.46 percent. This has been the biggest fall in one day since 1993. The PX index fell to the lowest level (1,102.9 points) in the last three years, generating the overall decrease of 41.38 percent in one year.

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Our October calendar lists all activities for Czechs and Slovaks around the world. One of them is a concert of a Czech band called Plastic People of the Universe (PPU). We have to admit, at the time we were preparing our calendar of events, we did not know the band or its contribution to the freedom of all Czech and Slovak citizens.

A couple of days ago we decided to find articles about the band and to watch their video clips. What we found was great music and a remarkable life story of their pride and resistance to the Czechoslovakian Communist party.

The band was formed by bassist Milan Hlavsa right after the Soviet invasion on August 21^st, 1968 in attempts to stop the Prague Spring, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia. The name was taken from Frank Zappa’s song entitled Plastic People. The same year Russians initiated a “normalization” program to reestablish moral and social behavior to make it more appropriate for a Communist country.

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As our site and audience grows, we need to make necessary changes to accommodate your needs. Currently we are working on evaluating new options for our site. We plan to improve personal advertisement submissions and we will also include forums for use by our members. We are trying to avoid spam or unrelated and derogatory messages on our site; thus, only members would be able to use our forums to post their messages.

We may occasionally ask you to fill out a questionnaire or give us your feedback to help us to make right choices for this site. We are here for you and only your feedback will help us to tailor the site to your needs.

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Christmas time is always special in the Czech Republic. You can watch many great Czech comedies, family movies, or fairy tales. Many new fairy tales are purposely premiered on Christmas Eves. This year, Czechs will have a chance to see a new fairy tale musical, this time on New Year’s Eve, which is also featuring one unforgettable celebrity of American fables - Tami Stronach.

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