Press Review | All stories

All the newspapers today devote several pages to the results of the Senate and local elections, describing them as a triumph for independent candidates and a great success for the opposition right-of-centre Civic Democrats led by Vaclav Klaus. The results are clearly a rebound for Klaus and his party which came in second in general elections last June.

All the papers report today on the deaths of dozens of schoolchildren in southern Italy, who were killed when their school collapsed during an earthquake. Also on today's front pages, the central bank slashes interest rates for the fifth time this year, and a Czech scientist invents a groundbreaking new treatment for hepatitis B.

More than one whistle-blowing farmer is shown on the cover photographs of most of today's dailies, after some 3,000 protested at the Office of the government in Prague on Wednesday for fear of worsening economic conditions in the agriculture sector. Pravo shows a crowd of angry farmers holding up a banner that, roughly translated, reads "You've given us the boot".

There is no one story which dominates Wednesday's Czech press, though all the papers do feature photos of Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla meeting Tony Blair in Downing Street. The aftermath of the theatre siege in Moscow also receives a lot of attention.

There were no papers on Monday due to the public holiday, and so today's dailies report on Saturday's grisly end to the Moscow hostage crisis. Meanwhile the gale force winds which battered the Czech Republic at the weekend also make headlines today, as well as the first round of the Senate elections, in which only 24 percent of the electorate bothered to vote.

Details of the Russian hostage crisis fill the front pages of all the papers. There are snapshots of two medics carrying out the body of the first victim - whose fingers had reportedly been broken - and shocking eyewitness reports from people who were freed or managed to escape from the theatre. "We are scared to death. These people mean business. Please don't do anything rash" is one of the SMS messages which one of the hostages reportedly sent in the first hours of the crisis.

The Moscow theatre hostage crisis dominates all the dailies today - news that Chechen rebels are holding hundreds of theatregoers in Moscow's Palace of Culture is splashed across the front pages, accompanied by photos of Russian security forces arriving outside the building.

Wednesday's Czech papers carry a mixed bag of stories, though a good deal of attention has been given to the question of the pension Vaclav Havel will receive when he retires as president at the end of January. PRAVO reports that Justice Minister Pavel Rychetsky has proposed a pension package that amounts to over 210 thousand crowns a month, the equivalent of almost 7,000 US dollars.

One of the main items making headlines is the consensus reached by the Czech coalition government in preparing its state budget proposal for 2003 - all the papers report on negotiations involved within the coalition to settle on a proposed yearly deficit acceptable for all its MPs, especially Hana Marvanova, whose voice is crucial for a slim government majority in parliament. Under pressure by Ms Marvanova an initial deficit proposal of over 150 billion crowns, was renegotiated to a lower number of 111.3. Ms Marvanova has also stipulated written

"The Irish have given the green light to enlargement", "The Irish have opened the door to the EU" - these and similar headlines dominate today's front pages. Nearly all the papers also feature photos of a group of young Irish EU enthusiasts waving the European Union flag.