Word: czechs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Concentration: Applied mathematics and philosophy. Hometown: Prague, Czech Republic...
VACLAV HAVEL, former President of the Czech Republic, called him a "Maoist, a Trotskyist ... a phenomenon unto himself." Starting in the 1950s, rebel philosopher-poet Egon Bondy drew followers with his surreal fiction--published and distributed covertly--which offered veiled, witty critiques of his country's Stalinist government. But the weirdest and most influential role the vocal Marxist played was as the inspiration and lyricist for a seminal Czech underground rock band, the Plastic People of the Universe. The arrest of the Plastics at a 1976 rally sparked Charter 77, the Havel-led protest movement that in 1989 toppled...
...Passage through Eastern Europe is secured by Ukrainian and Vietnamese gangsters. "These routes used to be for drugs and weapons," says the snakehead, who does not accompany his clients on their journey. "Now they're for Chinese people, too." On average, the snakehead can sneak three people through the Czech Republic a month, but he says a network of traffickers from Sanming brings in a total of 1,400 Fujianese a year, in addition to 600 others from Zhejiang, another coastal Chinese province. "It's a good business, more lucrative than textiles," he says. "But if the people get caught...
...From the Czech Republic into Germany and beyond - the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Britain - the migrants are switched from minivans to sedans. The Dover disaster alerted police to bigger vehicles, says the snakehead, so it's wise to opt for small cars. The drivers he uses are German, and not a single one, he says, has ever been stopped. The journey takes about two months door-to-door. Once the customer gets to his destination, he calls his family, who then hand over to the snakehead's local contact the smuggling fee - usually a combination of savings and money borrowed...
...says his journey was easy. First, he took an economy-class flight to Prague - Big Lin's sister already lived in the Czech Republic, where she ran an import-export clothing company. She pulled the right strings and procured him a business visa. Then, all Big Lin had to do was invest $10,000 in a Prague business venture. It's not clear who pocketed that money, but less than six months later, Big Lin says he received a Czech residence permit. The Czech document enabled him to get a tourist visa to England, which he overstayed. Six years...