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Ilan Pappé / Mojmír Kallus - start discussion - Ilan Pappé is a professor of History and Political Science teaching at the University of Exeter in Great Britain, and a director of European Center for the Palestinian Studies. Professor Pappé will debate Mojmir Kallus who is a president of the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem in Prague, known as ICEJ. A christian Zionist Kallus and a Jewish anti-Zionist Pappé will discuss moral and historical issues connected to the creation and existance of the Israeli state. This will also include a question of democracy in the Jewish state, which Ilan Pappe sees as an oxymoron. "You cannot have an apartheid, decades of a military occupation, discriminatory laws, policy of ongoing ethnic cleansing and call yourself a democracy," says the Izraeli historian. Our guests will examine the past and possible future.
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You and your family are cordially invited to the statue unveiling in celebration of Jan Antonin Bata, founder of Martfű.
Location: Bata Square
Date: 1st May 2013, Wednesday, 10 am
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The Natioanal Security Archive - 5 Documents: Record of Conversation between Thatcher and Gorbachev from 1987 and 1989!
… Conclusion
Overall, the documentary record suggests that Margaret Thatcher played a complex role at the end of the Cold War. Her conversations with Gorbachev on general issues of arms control helped make him more open to compromise with the United States, and to carrying out deep unilateral conventional arms reductions in Europe. However, her influence worked in the other direction on nuclear weapons policy, because of her close relationship with Reagan. Her strong stance in defense of nuclear weapons was one factor that prevented the historic breakthrough that Reagan and Gorbachev almost achieved in Reykjavik, and kept trying to return to afterwards. This deep and principled disagreement between Gorbachev and Thatcher on the value and role of nuclear weapons ultimately meant her influence on Gorbachev was stronger in the sphere of domestic politics, and especially the economy, but not as strong on overall foreign policy and arms control.
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... we would like to express our thanks for the support of Karel Schwarzemberk during the last presidential election – for the signing of Three-King Challenge, and for the votes cast for this candidate. We did lose, but we lost honorably. The other side won, but thanks to using tactics in many cases un-honorable and bellow the belt. Let’s be proud that we were part on the honorable side of the election campaign…
... I recall one very important meeting early in the morning in the presidential residence of Lany at the end of nineties. My friend staggered in, and instead of a normal greeting, he immediately started with the nasty verbal attacks on everyone present, including me, and ostentatiously ignored our host, the President himself. I was totally surprised, because till that moment we were always on friendly terms. President Vaclav Havel, standing behind my friend’s back, gave a waiter a hand sign to quickly put a full glass of Becherovka in front his guest. My friend immediately emptied it, then the second and then the third one. After that we were finally able to start the meeting. How many Becherovka shots he disposed of till the lunch break I do not know, I lost count. But, his mood was great. His opinions and comments during the debate started to change with growing level of alcohol in his blood. When we finally left that afternoon and stepped in front of a squad of reporters, he was holding me around my shoulders like his best friend and I was not able to escape his squeeze even in front of buzzing cameras; that made me quite uncomfortable. Next to me now stood, in the body of my friend, somebody totally different, and that made me quite sad. After this meeting I started to avoid him and on meetings with him I usually sent one of my deputies. This sadness I feel every time when I see him, on the TV screen, heroically assuring the public that he stopped drinking Becherovka, because he switched to Slivovitz. So, he exchanged one hard liquor for even harder one. ...
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VALDICE Prison: On Sunday, April 7th, I went on to visit Mr. Gilbert F. McCrae, an American citizen imprisoned in this infamous prison (that housed hardest criminals and most political prisoners during the Communist tyrannical rule) for the murder he did not commit. I brought him dozens of well-wishes and apologies for crude behavior of our so called “officials”, coming from the scores of our members and my readers who are following his odyssey through our so called “Czech judicial system”. After about three-hour meeting with this man, I was leaving him with my confusing feelings: our help could come too late. I remember him from two years ago, and what I have seen now – the change how he looks - is quite shocking. When I had seen him for the first time when he stepped into the visitor’s room, I could not believe that this is the same man I knew – the first what came to my mind was a vision of my father in his coffin – he posted a vision of a walking dead. He lost a lot of weight, he looks like a skeleton, but the most worrisome is the loss of his will to fight – the loss of his energy and stamina. Two years ago, in the Pankrac prison, he was a man, convinced of his innocence and for that reason full of fighting spirit to face his adversaries, but today he is more or less a broken wreck not fully understanding why this is all happening to him, and moving on a mental roller-coaster – as he himself confided in me – going from one extreme of raging anger to the opposite of total helplessness and self-pity.
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