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Both MLADA FRONTA DNES and PRAVO lead with a story about Czech police vice-president Miroslav Antl. Mr Antl was involved in a traffic accident in the town of Pardubice on Thursday morning, when he entered a crossroads in his car and crashed into another vehicle. No one was injured in the accident but police officers wishing to remain anonymous suggest Mr Antl had been drinking before the crash.

The top headlines of most of the major Czech dailies today deal with the diplomatic scandal caused by a Polish parliamentarian who took it into his own hands to arrest a Polish murder suspect on Czech soil last Sunday. The Czech Foreign Ministry filed an immediate protest with the Polish Ambassador in Prague, but PRAVO writes that so far Warsaw has not expressed an official stance over the incident.

The face of the Czech Formula 1 driver Tomas Enge - a new teenage idol in the Czech Republic - looks out from most of today's front pages. "Enge stripped of title because of marihuana" read the headlines. In an interview for Lidove Noviny Enge maintains that he has no idea how traces of marihuana got into his system and says the verdict which allows him to carry on racing is a huge relief.

Under almost identical headlines, both MLADA FRONTA DNES and LIDOVE NOVINY lead with a story about the potential presidential candidates of the ruling Social Democrats, ex-Prime Minister Milos Zeman, ombudsman Otakar Motejl and former Justice Minster Jaroslav Bures.

A new case of BSE - the country's third - makes the front pages today - "Mad Cow Disease Returns" thunders MLADA FRONTA DNES. Right next to that story is a photo of Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, head of the Czech Catholic Church, holding up the skull of the Czech patron saint St Wenceslas. Thousands of Catholics attended a mass in Prague's St Vitus Cathedral on Saturday to celebrate St Wenceslas Day - or Day of Czech Statehood as the new holiday is officially known.

One of the prevailing themes in today's newspapers is that of increases, either in wages or in monthly pensions: PRAVO's lead story covers Education Minister Petra Buzkova's decision to raise Czech teacher's wages by 9 percent next year, 2 percent higher than other civil servants.

The dossier on Iraq published by the British government is the lead front page story in all the Czech papers. Iraq could reportedly launch weapons of mass destruction, within 45 minutes -says Mlada Fronta Dnes. According to the British dossier - these weapons are capable of reaching Europe and some of them could arrive on Czechoslovak-made military fighter planes sold to Iraq during the communist era.

The front pages today are dominated by a photo of two smiling former communist bosses, Jozef Lenart and Milos Jakes, walking free after a Prague court acquitted them of treason charges on Monday. MLADA FRONTA DNES comments on the verdict, saying that after a weeklong trial - and seven years after the charges were first pressed, the court ruled the two men were not to be punished for their activities in August 1968 immediately after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

German and Slovak elections without exception dominate all the headlines in today's Czech papers: Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder narrowly the victor thanks to the success of the Green Party in Germany, Mikulas Dzurinda successful in his bid to lead Slovakia for four more years with pro-European policies.

There is a wide mix of topics in today's Czech papers, many of them with a legal slant, but before we look at perhaps the top story in the news is President Vaclav Havel's trip to the United States. Mlada fronta Dnes features the president in a warm embrace with the former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is herself of Czech descent.