Babies switched at birth verdict: hospital to pay 3.3M

(c) Getty Images

Two couples from the town of Trebic, Czech Republic brought home and raised a baby that was not theirs [The Czech Daily Word had the story way over a year ago]. The couples switched the babies back. They underwent therapies. They gave their “real” girls second names they originally had thought they wanted for them.

They sued the hospital and the court had the verdict Friday. The hospital was ordered to pay CZK 3.3 million, i.e. $165,000, even though the couples had wanted 12 million.

Both the defendant and the plaintiffs brought up the issue of emotional harm and how to measure it, or how to convert it into money, to be exact. One of the couples is experiencing huge problems and they are practically inches away from a divorce.

The hospital had initially offered only half a million. This is one of the reasons any of the parties still might appeal the verdict. However, the presiding judge recommended them not to.

This entire scandal started when pub-and-beer buddies of one of the fathers had made fun of him that his baby girl looked nothing like him and that he was not the father. And so he went and took a secret DNA test…

Jobless foreigners stay here. With no bright future

(c) Getty Images

Several thousand foreign workers who had been employed by Czech companies prior to the financial crisis did not have their employment contacts prolonged on January 1. In other words, they were the first ones (or among the first ones) to lose their jobs.

They are staying in the Czech Republic with little or no money at all. The agencies that found them jobs and collected hefty fees do not feel the moral or legal responsibility to help them. In terms of the law, once their employment status ceased to exist, they do not have the right to stay here and they should go home. De iure, that is…

These are personal tragedies. The people often had to borrow money to be able to pay for airline tickets and premiums to the agencies that brought them here. The amount that they had to pay does not correspond at all to the “situation of the country they come from”: i.e. mostly Mongolia, Vietnam or the Ukraine. If one converts the amount into the average monthly salary in Mongolia (and these people did NOT have the average), it is not a pretty number that pops up.

Unfortunately, it is the law and all countries, even the most civilized ones, deport illegal immigrants and illegal workers: the U.S., Australia, etc.

I am well aware of the fact that construction workers from the Ukraine built the apartment building where my future apartment is going to be – as of April. If the companies building it only employed Czechs, it would be more expensive. Just like hotels in Florida can have better prices for American guests thanks to cheap “Work and Travel” summer job seekers from the Czech Republic.

Now the police are stating the obvious, and it has nothing to do with race, or stereotype. It is a matter of survival. Jobless and broke people from Mongolia or Vietnam who have no money to fulfill their statutory obligation to leave the country will start committing crimes.

And according to a friend of mine from the Foreign Ministry, a calculation is being made, as to what is cheaper: fly them home at the expense of taxpayers, or prepare for and bear the social and other costs of having the illegal jobless workers here… Tough, either way. For everyone.

Teacher-student sex scandal: footage taped by a fifteen year-old

The scandal of the amateur sex tape of a young English teacher and a young man from the Czech town of Znojmo has an interesting development. According to a certain tabloid, the author of the footage is fifteen. The young man admitted to have done so to the police, the daily claims.

That changes the originally “it-was-not-illegal” argument. Whereas the age of consent IS indeed 15, there are certain laws that protect minors aged 15 to 18 (“moral development endangerment” is the most interesting translation of the penal code provision I can come up with now….)…

Future Ryanair cabin crew in Brno

Another batch of future Ryanair cabin crew arrived in Brno for their training. There are 30 to 40 of them but from what I have heard they have some smaller and bigger tests, and both kinds sort it out and some of the course participants “fail”. I have seen the Ryanair CRM handbook. Some things are extremely hard to learn, you just have to memorize, but most of them make a lot of sense, if you just think about it and use, well, the common sense approach…

Sky Europe loses yet another aircraft

The Slovak low-cost Sky Europe airline is down to FOUR aircraft. It originally operated FOURTEEN Boeing 737 (many of which were NG) but the owner, a leasing company, took them back because the airline failed to pay installments on time, the Planes.cz server reports.

The image of the company is now really awkward because many charter airlines from Southern Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia,…) have to help Sky Europe by lending their aircraft and crew. Sky Europe have cancelled hundreds of upcoming flights, which includes my March 17 trip to Amsterdam. They had to change the reservation.

So instead of comfy 737-700NG’s people have to accept old MD-83’s. Not to mention the uncertainty: you don’t want to depend on such a company if you travel for a business meeting. Sure, any flight can be delayed or cancelled, but the case of SE is a huge bummer waiting to happen…

Due to WordPress internal error no spellcheck performed…sorry about typos, if I missed any…

Wine cellars collapsing in Southern Moravia

(c) Getty Images

UPDATED JAN 27

Several wine cellars collapsed in the village of Boretice, Southern Moravia, Czech Republic, burrying valuable wine archives and supplies. Their owners say damages are estimated at several million crowns.

The Southern Moravian Region is probably the most famous wine region in the country. There are wine trails across the region as well as many other forms of wine tourism. The owners of the cellars and other locals say that melting snow is the phenomenon to be blamed. It has caused soil to move and the walls and ceilings could no longer hold the moist…etc.

Now people fear that other cellars will start collapsing too, as there are many of them built right next to each other, plus heavy trucks passing by make the ground shake even more. Authorities claim that many of the owners have build extensions (upper floors) using heavier bricks and concrete and the basic structure of the early 20th century-built cellars were too weak for that…

UPDATE: MEP Jana Bobosikova and the South Moravian governor are involved now, they are trying to come up with some solution. It is definitely a good thing, but the help should not be provided to those who had been stupid and had built their cellars while violating construction regulations. Only innocent victims should get help, i.e. those wine makers whose legal cellars collapsed because the neighboring “illegal ones” did… Apparently, some investigation is underway…

Authorities seek legal ways to fire the “pornstar teacher”

The teacher from the Czech town of Znojmo who was taped having sex with a student is under fire.

In legal terms concerning the sex as such, she didn’t do anything wrong. Her partner was adult, so no sex crime there. Originally the school principal claimed having no legal instrument to fire the woman immediately, because she did it in her spare time, and it did not take place on school premises.

However, it does not look good for her in terms of labour law. The governor of the South Moravian Region (because regional administrations cover high schools) says the teacher should not go back to school as she can not have any moral authority there. The South Moravian Regional Department of Education is now seeking legal ways to “fire” the woman immediately, as her employment contract expires on 30th June.

A certain lawyer says that “a teacher shall behave in a way that promotes legitimate interests of their employer” (I guess he is saying that a teacher shall set some moral examples, what ever that means).

But the woman did not do anything de iure illegal. She just proved that teachers are normal people. Just like president Vaclav Klaus who was caught with what the media called “his girlfriend”. The governor of the region decided that this witch hunt will win him some political points. What does the fact that a teacher tapes herself having sex has to do with her abilities to teach English?

A certain daily quotes a famous Prague lawyer as saying that: Immediate termination of employment would be possible if the teacher shot porn on purpose [for money] or if she distributed it purposefully. Plus, specific labour act provisions that the teacher violated would have to be named, which is questionable in case of “moral issues”.

Teacher taped having sex with a student

Updates and links below…

A 35-year old high school English teacher was taped having sex with a pupil. The footage can now be seen all over the Czech (and even Slovak) Internet, the iDNES.cz news sever writes.

Well, to be exact,
all
news
servers write.

It was not illegal. The young man was adult at the time they had sex, because high schools seniors are all eighteen. The principal is quoted by the dailies as saying that there is no way he can fire the woman.

The Czech society is very tolerant when it comes to private lives. We do not associate private lives with moral grounds for a job that often. We do gossip and we do point fingers. Well, in case of some politicians, maybe. But this is sex. And the Czech society in general does not have a problem with sex. Pardon my French, but even teachers fuck. But there should be no damnation, as there would be, let’s say in the U.S. or other more conservative societies…

Plus, contrary to some claims of two of the cited dailies, the student was not a student of HER school. Maybe the one who taped it was, but there is nothing wrong about it either.

The ONLY problem is that this took place in a small town. And her last name was quoted in the media, so it is fair to say that the media did play some part in ruining her life, but she did the main part, of course when she let the other punk tape her… And when she became “friends” with students. There has to be some “moral distance”.

But then again, when I said that Czechs do not have a problem with this issue, I wonder what would happen if this was a male teacher and a female 18 year-old student.

UPDATE: The woman reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown and she stays home “on sick leave”. And according to discussion forums underneath news article, the video is really everywhere. Sounds like a huge mistake she will have to live with. But definitely not in the same town.

UPDATE: try this link, if you really want to see it…
…and according to discussion forums, this one should work, too…

Gas and millions

We got gas. Russia and the Ukraine have reached an agreement and according to the main Czech natural gas distributor “it arrived to the Czech Republic”. After two weeks of gas crisis… Now, diplomats have about eight months to resolve this problem. Before the “next winter”, that is…

Meanwhile, somebody in Slovakia has won 10 million euros in a lottery. People from four countries participated in the lottery by guessing six numbers, as it is less than a two-hour drive from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria to get to Bratislava…

US Airways Hudson ditching USCG footage

Focus at 2:06 and onwards…