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The face of the Czech Republic's Prime Minister designate, the Social Democrat leader Vladimir Spidla looks out from all of today's front pages. "The birth of a new Czech government" reads the lead headline in Lidove Noviny. " Sweden : Spidla's role model" says Mlada Fronta Dnes, referring to the future Prime Minister's ambition to build a Scandinavian-style welfare state.

The Japanese Emperor Akihito and his wife Michiko make it to the front pages of just about all today's Czech papers, with pictures from their tour of the sites of old Prague. But on the front pages the smiles of the imperial pair contrast dramatically with the grim expression of Hana Marvanova, last week's loser on the Czech political scene.

All the Czech newspapers today report on the conclusion of negotiations on the formation of a new cabinet. The papers write that now a battle over who will have which ministerial post will break out.

All the Czech newspapers today carry photos from Monday's plane crash in southern Germany, in which 71 passengers, mostly Russian children going on holiday in Spain, died. Another photo featured on front pages of all the papers is that of American millionaire Steve Fossett, who on Tuesday became the first man to fly round the globe alone in a balloon.

The talks on forming a new coalition government dominate Tuesday's front pages. " Just three more obstacles to be overcome" says the lead headline in Lidove noviny. Commentators note that the will to reach agreement is considerable and that the outlooks are optimistic. Freedom Union leader Hana Marvanova, whose liberal party is far removed in policy matters from the welfare programme of the Social Democrats , told Pravo she was "confident that the talks would produce a viable pro-European government" .

Complicated talks on the formation of a new government and Brazil's victory in football's world cup dominate the headlines in Czech newspapers today. Some of the papers also report on what could be called an ultimatum made by four EU membership candidates concerning financial matters after accession.

Well it's the Czech Republic's TV Nova in the headlines again as the situation at the country's most successful private TV station grows more and more serious. Yesterday it became clear, writes Mlada fronta Dnes, that more than twenty-five percent of Nova now belongs to a secret owner, a revelation that swept aside two weeks of complicated negotiations in which various players in the struggle had been scrambling to reach some kind of a compromise.

It's trouble at the country's TV stations that's making the front pages today, along with the release from prison of Milan Srejber, the former tennis player-turned businessman at the centre of the Civic Democrat funding scandal five years ago. And dodgy dealings at one the world's biggest telecoms companies - WorldCom - are mentioned on all the front pages.

The Czech newspapers today carry a lot of sports news - featuring photos from Germany's victorious match over South Korea at the World Cup, and of Dominik Hasek, the Czech ice hockey player who is considered one of the best goaltenders the history of the sport and who announced on Tuesday that he was ending his sports career and would return from the US to the Czech Republic. On the domestic front, the papers inform their readers about the on-going negotiations between the Social Democrats and the centre-right Coalition on forming a new cabinet.

How are the talks on forming a centre-left government coalition in the Czech Republic really going? Behind encouraging headlines of the type "Coalition agreement expected within a week" and snapshots of party leaders wreathed in smiles, commentators detect problems for the centrist Coalition grouping.