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It's all smiles on the front pages today - MLADA FRONTA DNES features a grinning Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who saw his record deficit budget passed in the first reading on Tuesday evening. Meanwhile it's a laughing Mirek Topolanek who graces the front page of LIDOVE NOVINY - the newly elected Civic Democrat leader celebrated his unexpected victory with senators on Tuesday.

Most of the main papers, with the exception of PRAVO, lead with the government's decision to increase the wages of civil servants. PRAVO, on the other hand, features the consequences of the professionalisation of the army on its front page and reports on the wage increase in a small article on its second page. On the international front, there is a mix of headlines ranging from the latest developments regarding the weapons inspections in Iraq to a case in Germany where a man confessed to having eaten human beings, adding he was not the only one

Two topics dominate today's front pages, the EU summit in Copenhagen and Sunday's election of the new chairman of the opposition Civic Democratic Party at the party's congress in the West Bohemian spa town of Frantiskovy Lazne.

The EU summit in Copenhagen dominates all of today's front pages. "Expansion has turned into a battle over funding" reads the lead headline in Mlada Fronta Dnes. "The EU's message: take it or leave it" says Lidove Noviny. "Farmers block EU border crossings in protest of bad deal" writes Pravo.

There's no single theme that would dominate the headlines today - each daily leads with a different top story from economic slowdown in the Czech Republic to the latest Austrian protest against the Temelin nuclear power plant. But, we begin with a look at PRAVO which writes about the growing hullabaloo surrounding investigations into the Office of the President. A police anti-corruption unit has been investigating the possibility that some key documents may have been distorted in connection with presidential pardons, although evidence, so far,

All the Czech newspapers today carry reports from Brussels, where the European Union's 15 foreign ministers are discussing the final agreements in accession talks with 10 EU candidates expected to join the Union in spring 2004. All the papers say the message from Brussels for the Czech Republic is still unclear, as no final decision has yet been made on the EU's financial contributions to the newcomers.

All of the papers today write about Monday's eleventh hour talks between the Czech Republic and the European Union in an effort to remove the last obstacles in the country's accession talks. They also compare the state of the Czech Republic's preparations for EU membership to that of the other nine front-runner candidates.

There's no business like show business, if you go by the front pages of today's Czech dailies. All of them, with the one exception of Hospodarske noviny, carry reports on the two big entertainment events of the weekend: the Miss World beauty contest and the annual Czech music awards, Cesky slavik. But the world is not always a beautiful place: alongside this news, we can also read about fears of Al Qaeda terrorist attacks in Prague.

In today's papers the usual photos of politicians have taken a back seat to pictures of St. Nicholas - that's right, it's "Mikulas" in the Czech Republic again, a special holiday here that acts as a run-up to Christmas. On the day many adults and teenagers dress up as St. Nick or devils and angels, to visit small children around the country to give them token presents and find out if they've been good or bad. And while tourists on Prague's Old Town Square are sometimes taken aback to see little kids bawling for fear of the devil, all ends well:

All the Czech newspapers today cover two main stories on their front pages: they feature a photo of a man in a pig mask illustrating reports on Wednesday's protest demonstration by Czech farmers in Prague. The other story is a sad one: it informs readers that after eight years of proceedings at various courts a murderer of a little girl is not behind bars yet.