Press Review | All stories

One story dominates the headlines of the Czech press this Tuesday - the United States occupation of the centre of Baghdad. Indeed MLADA FRONTA DNES, HOSPODARSKE NOVINY and LIDOVY NOVINY all carry the exact same photo of a group of six US soldiers in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces.

As US troops enter Baghdad for the final showdown with Saddam Hussein, both MLADA FRONTA DNES and LIDOVE NOVINY carry identical front-page photographs of two Iraqi soldiers racing past a burnt-out American tank on a Czech-made Jawa motorbike. Meanwhile the financial daily reports that European firms are worried about losing out in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq, as U.S. companies eye lucrative development projects.

The allies' advancement on Baghad, President Klaus's visit to Poland, the dismissal of the Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting and yesterday's explosion in the city of Olomouc - those are some of the main stories in today's Czech papers.

All of the country's papers are dominated by the same three headlines: two separate suicides cases when students set themselves on fire, the ongoing war in Iraq, and the parliament's decision to dismiss the council for radio and television broadcasting. Pravo chooses the dramatic option with a graphic picture of one student's body on its front page.

Several domestic stories vie for attention on today's front pages, most of which still focus on the ongoing war with Iraq. The Foreign Ministry's SARS warning -urging Czechs not to travel to south east Asia - has received considerable attention as has the interior and defense ministers claim that they are being spied upon by the country's intelligence service.

Iraq continues to dominate the front pages of today's papers, which look into the latest developments in the war, including the sacking of a US reporter who told Iraqi television that the United States' military plan had failed. On the domestic front, it is the Czech government's decision to terminate its contract with the Israeli firm Housing & Construction to build a new motorway that's making the headlines. The leading political story in several papers speculates on the future of Prime Minister and Social Democrat leader Vladimir Spidla.

"Lightning strike runs into problems", "Allied offensive slows down": those are two headlines in today's dailies that sum up recent developments in the US-led war against Iraq, with the papers offering the same front-page photo of refugees fleeing Iraq's southern city of Basra. Here in the Czech Republic the top story is Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's lean victory at his party's convention over the weekend - Mr Spidla was able to retain his Social Democrat chairmanship in spite of inner-party criticism to his leadership and a fair challenge from former

The war in Iraq continues to dominate front pages and the papers note that what was supposed to be a short and sharp conflict may now drag on for months. President Bush has asked congress for war funds which would last for at least six months, Lidove Noviny says.

The war in Iraq continues to dominate all the papers today, leaving little space to domestic news. Remarks on the recently released list of former communist secret police collaborators, an analysis of what's to come in the upcoming party congress of the Social Democrats, and the country's anti-chemical unit in Kuwait are the main Czech stories.

One of the numerous articles in Wednesday's dailies on the war against Iraq concerns, as the headline puts it, how Defence Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik is "selling" the war. Parts of his daily meetings with the press, says MLADA FRONTA DNES, resemble a carefully planned show.