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The ubiquitous public broadcaster CT was out of place. Farmers would prefer to distribute the manure to all the offices of the country. Look at the "civic act" of the brave. If this happened in front of the same office in a country with a functioning police force, the men would not even be able to get out of the car. The helplessness of the police is desperate. Let's not wonder then at the amateurism at FF UK which cost the unnecessary loss of 14 people.
Yesterday I took the midnight train from Prague to Beroun. Suddenly, two policemen in full armour hurried through the train. The rear policeman was holding the collar of the front policeman with his right hand. I said, "What is this?" The answer, "I'm giving him cover." I didn't understand. They were trained that way. The request for an explanation was denied. The rear officer was "covering" and holding the front colleague with one hand, the other could shoot, and the front colleague was covering him with his body! JŠ
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I attach a small PHOTOGALLERY and three short videos. The atmosphere was great, full of positive energy. Surely the TV viewers would have been thrilled as well. Unfortunately, public media are not interested in cultural events of Ukrainians. In the third video the singing of a Ukrainian, Greek Catholic priest was something incredible. A big thank you to Ivanka Karpa, who is the soul of the organizers - a great little woman! JŠ
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Three national flags - the Czech Republic, the USA and Ukraine - have been flying in Bratri Nejedlých Street, No. 335, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The only Ukrainian one started to disintegrate at the end of 2023...
Three citizens indignantly warned me to take the flag down. I tried to explain to them that I understood their point of view, but I had a different opinion on the matter, to no avail. Another country, another morality. Criticism without correction and negative actions are still deeply ingrained in us. By the way, Tomas Bata did not use the word "problem", but "challenge".
The damaged flag also seemed to symbolize the suffering of Ukraine, while the flags of the Czech Republic and the USA, where there is no war, remained undamaged...
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Updated 26.1.2024: As long as I am here, the state exists, said Consul Vochoč, and continued to issue passports. He saved thousands of people during the war - Vladimir Vochoch was convicted in a mock trial after 1948. He was based on the principle that there is a legal norm, but there is also a human norm. He spent almost 7 years in prison. He died in obscurity. The Czech Embassy in France did not allow a memorial plaque to be placed at its headquarters. It was placed at the US Embassy building. JŠ
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Jan Antonín Bata saved dozens of Jewish families from death in Nazi concentration camps. Yet he was not awarded the Israeli title of Righteous Among the Nations. Bata is seen by Czechs as a legend of the shoe industry, but also as a collaborator with the Nazis - regardless of the court's acquittal last year. In the new Czech film ÚSVIT, Jan A. Bata is again slandered, like Tomas Bata in the film BOTOSTROJ by the communists in the 1950s...
Jan A. Bata saved 2000 Jewish families, Přemysl Pitter saved hundreds of Jewish and German children, Raul Wallenberg saved hundreds of Jews. The Czech Post did not issue portraits of Jan Bata or Přemysl Pitter on stamps, unlike Sir Winton.
We are still a country that does not like to acknowledge its great heroes, preferring foreign ones. A sad testimony to our smallness, immaturity and provincialism. 
Woe to the country that does not honour its heroes. When it needs them again, it will not, and deservedly so. Positive role models and examples create new heroes, the opposite of new cowards. JŠ
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In closing, I would like to leave a message to all the business people here and to those who are not here in person but are watching us from around the world. Don't be intimidated by the political caste or the parasites who live off the state. Don't surrender to the political class who only want to stay in power and maintain their privileges. You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we have ever seen. Let no one tell you that your ambitions are immoral. If you are making money, it is because you are offering a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to the general welfare. Don't give in to state support. The state is not the solution. The state is the problem. You are the real protagonists of this story, and rest assured that from now on Argentina is your loyal and unconditional ally.
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Unofficial translation of Argentine President Javier Milei's Davos speech from English with simultaneous interpretation from Spanish.
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Good afternoon. Thank you very much. I am here today to tell you that the Western world is in danger. And it is in danger because those who are supposed to defend the values of the West are infected with a vision of a world that leads inexorably to socialism and thus to poverty.
Unfortunately, in recent decades, motivated by some well-meaning individuals willing to help others and others motivated by a desire to belong to a privileged caste, the major leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom in favor of various versions of what we call collectivism. We are here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that plague the world's citizens. Rather, they are the root cause.
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Jan Palach: "There comes a moment in history when something has to happen" - "Something must be done against evil, fought by whatever means are possible" - "Even the fire that ended the life of a young Czech student in those difficult days came from the spark of Kostnitz." (unknown author)
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The Union of University Students of Bohemia and Moravia issued a message: 'Jan Palach did not utter a single word, and yet he addressed perhaps 14 million of this republic, each and every individual. And everyone must answer him. Actions can only be answered by actions."
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When evil comes to you, no one will protect you, Zelensky told the Russians
"I want to say to all (people) in Russia and from Russia who even now have not been able to utter even a few words of condemnation of this terror, although they see and know everything perfectly. Your cowardly silence, your attempt to wait out what is happening, will only end in the fact that one day these terrorists will come for you too. Evil is very sensitive to cowardice, evil will forever remember those who fear it and try to appease it. When it comes for you one day, there will be no one to protect you. All will be held accountable for terror: both those who kill and those who help to kill. Every day of Ukraine's resistance in the Donbas and every success of our defense are essential successes for the protection of our entire state."
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Traditional commemorative events without subsequent, concrete, resolving actions are somewhat lacking, an insult to the legacy of Jan Palach, a demonstration of our incompetence, helplessness and weakness. JŠ
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Updated 19.1.2024: European Parliament resolution (18.1.2024). JŠ
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(Berlin/Germany) As of January 14th, 2024, my father, Mr. Ding Yuande, has been illegally detained for more than 8 months in the Rizhao City Detention Center in China’s Shandong Province. The European Parliament is addressing the fate and safety of my father by setting an urgency resolution titled “The Ongoing Persecution of Falun Gong in China – Notably the Case of Mr. Ding Yuande” on the agenda of the next plenary session in Strasbourg. After a planned debate on January 17th, the resolution will be proposed for a vote on January 18th, 2024.
As his son and a victim of the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong in China, I would very much appreciate if the members of the different political groups in the European Parliament would vote “Yes” to pass the EU Resolution. This will not only help free my father, but also contribute to ending the ongoing crimes of China’s communist regime against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
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"Man is created by natural and social forces, and can be "uncreated" by them." - "I can, therefore I am." - "When we are in its power, we do not experience evil as evil, but as a necessity, even as a duty." - "A right that no one recognizes does not mean much."
Simone Weil
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There are not many, but there are among us. We call them "fools" and either shake our heads at them or silently admire them. People for whom responsibility is their own example more than life. Such as Václav Havel or the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil.
"The greatest human error is thinking instead of finding out," Weil declared, which is why she interrupted her career as a teacher in 1934 and instead claimed factory drudgery at machines that provided no respite. In short, one has to find out what it is really like, that relentless repetitive robotic process in which man himself eventually becomes a mechanically functioning tool as well. One can theorize without actually experiencing it, but not "really understand" it.
In The Plague, Camus teaches us - and rarely without the exaggerated pathos that might very well be on offer - that, absurd as human suffering is, personal identification with it leads to a greatness that is ultimately as futile as the suffering itself, yet represents the only meaningful path left to the man "surrounded by non-sense."
Once one is...
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The cover of the book seemed to be particularly problematic. The new edition was adorned with a noose wrapped around the first character of the emperor's name, with a large inscription underneath reading "the ruler whose actions brought the dynasty to ruin: he blindly made mistake after mistake, and the harder he tried, the closer the empire came to extinction." (NTD Television / Profimedia)
The analogy between Xi Jinping and an emperor with a tragic fate has multiple dimensions and has been debated among Chinese intellectuals for several years. History has a tendency to repeat itself in various permutations, and the archetypes of the ruler who refuses to listen to legitimate criticism and leads the empire to ruin, or the rejected loyal minister, are among the most common in Chinese dynastic chronicles.
This article originally appeared on the Sinopsis Project website.
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Of course, the public media was not present (the media silence on the case continues). I sat alone in the public seats with former diplomat Miroslav Belica, PhD, who came to support the prosecutor, Ms Lenka Dubovcova. The young judge, JUDr. David Štamberk PhD, arrived smiling 15 minutes late without apologizing for his late arrival. It was the third hearing in the case. The MFA was represented by a young lawyer Mgr. David Syka. He refused to introduce himself to me in the corridor (see photo on the right), saying that he did not know me (I mention him in Marocco Gate IX - see link below). In the course of further conversation it became clear that he knows me too well. He was quite arrogant at the beginning (he refused to shake my hand during the introduction). After the court hearing was over, he was calmer and did not oppose my arguments anymore.
After my announcement of making an audio recording, the judge paused for a minute, studied the papers (as if looking for the appropriate law) and then asked me to identify myself. A visit was not enough for him, he demanded an ID card (I preferred not to ask for permission to take an illustrative photo). He took over the case, recapitulated the prosecution, and quite quickly, formally, gave his verdict. After receiving it, the plaintiff will, of course, appeal. It was amusing how the judge conferred with one of the jurors, who, upon being addressed, immediately began nodding her head very actively in agreement, while the other nodded only after being heard. The judge never once looked at the applicant during the hearing, or averted his eyes or looked at the papers. It will probably go a long way in the current Czech justice system if it "solves" sensitive cases in this way, reaching too high and where justice comes last.
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