Press Review | All stories

All of the main dailies report on a decision by the Lower House to increase the salaries of the Czech police as the top story today. PRAVO features a brief interview with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is currently in Prague attending the annual session of the International Olympic Committee. And staying with the Olympics, Vancouver winning the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics also makes the front pages.

A slew of legal and moral dilemmas - that could be one way of characterising the stories in today's papers: dilemmas faced by the Czech Republic. PRAVO takes note of calls for financial compensation for some of the Sudeten Germans expelled after World War II, while MLADA FRONTA DNES unravels the extensive legal case with Frantisek Oldrich Kinsky, a descendent of the former aristocratic family asking for the return of property confiscated after the Second World War. But, we begin first with LIDOVE NOVINY on a possible new arbitration case involving

One topic dominates all today's front pages: yesterday's trial of former high-ranking Foreign Ministry official Karel Srba. All the dailies show photos of Mr Srba before the court in the southern town of Ceske Budejovice. Mr Srba was sentenced to eight years in prison for ordering the murder of a journalist with the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes. The paper itself shows a photo of the intended victim, investigative reporter Sabina Slonkova, and LIDOVE NOVINY prints pictures of Mr Srba's three accomplices who were sentenced to between four and six years

Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's conciliatory statements in Austria on the post-war expulsion of the Sudeten Germans receive a mixed reception in today's papers: the story is headline news in PRAVO, but relegated to the inside pages of both LIDOVE NOVINY and MLADA FRONTA DNES.

There is no one dominating theme in today's papers, although there are several eye-catching headlines, not least the one that graces the cover of PRAVO. It reads 'Zeman declares war against Spidla', quoting an article the former prime minister has written criticising his successor.

There's a mixed bag of stories in today's papers - from prime ministers clashing with presidents, to Interior Minister Stanislav Gross threatening to resign over planned cuts in the police force. And also today, the Czech Republic at the top of the league table of European road deaths, but what to do about it?

People who like to eat their breakfast while browsing through Mlada Fronta Dnes are likely to choke over their coffee this morning. "The food you are eating may be full of poisons" reads one of the headlines. It is a disturbing article, in particular for those Czechs who live close to chemical plants.

The reform of public finance approved yesterday by the government and the following protest rally of trade unionists in Prague seize the headlines in all major dailies on Tuesday. The front pages of PRAVO and MLADA FRONTA DNES show photos of the same female demonstrator wolf-whistling. HOSPODARSKE NOVINY has a picture of another protesting woman, hooting a horn, while LIDOVE NOVINY shows Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla waving his fist while addressing the crowd.

Government reform plans and the future of the European Union dominate the headlines today. On the international front, the papers discuss whether the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was killed in the recent war and whether he had managed to destroy weapons of mass destruction before the US-led war erupted.

Fiasco is the best way to describe the end of yesterday's protests by trade unions in Prague against the proposed public finance reforms, say all of today's dailies. Prague wasn't turned upside down as promised by organizers, because far less protestors than expected showed up. But trade unions promise a higher turnout for new protests on Monday, reports MLADA FRONTA DNES.