Press Review | All stories

All the main dailies today lead with reports of heightening tensions between the government and the trade unions nation-wide over the planed fiscal reforms. On the international front, the papers carry shocking photos from the Indian port city of Bombay, which was hit by two huge bomb blasts.

Today's papers make rather depressing reading - with little else happening, the grim road death statistics get front page coverage in Mlada Fronta Dnes. Lidove Noviny meanwhile leads with news that the investigation into the "robbery of the century" has collapsed through lack of forensic evidence, while Pravo claims that the Russian mafia is slowly but surely infiltrating the Czech authorities.

There's only one star of today's Press Review, and that is of course the Japanese robot Asimo. Yes, robot fever has hit the Czech Republic this week, and the papers are full of him. Asimo shaking hands with Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla, Asimo standing proudly by the side of Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi, Asimo declaring a toast of friendship between robots and humans: could this be the most successful official visit ever to the Czech Republic?

All kinds of different stories make the headlines today: shows an uncompromising Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary General, responding strongly to Tuesday apparent suicide attack in Baghdad that killed at least twenty-four and injured over a hundred. Meanwhile, highlights the return of weather-worn German tourists, kidnapped and held for five months by Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria. Reportedly 4.6 million euros were paid out to ensure their safe release.

The carnage caused by Wednesday's bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad is splashed across all the front pages. The papers carry eyewitness accounts of the massacre including a report from the senior Czech envoy to Iraq, who says she lost a close friend in the blast.

The lottery fever gripping the nation makes headlines today, as does news that teachers might strike for just one day instead of three, or perhaps not strike at all. Also on the front pages today, two high-profile murder cases - the killing of a priest by a seemingly unrepentant 29-year-old, and news that a young married couple from Kutna Hora have admitted to murdering eight elderly people for their money - the worst case of serial murder in Czech criminal history.

There is a mixed bag of headlines today, ranging from the suicide of a soldier serving in the elite Prague Castle Guard to the blackout in North America that hit 50 million people last Friday.

A new bout of illness for President Klaus makes the front pages today - "President Taken To Hospital" thunders MLADA FRONTA DNES, accompanied by a large colour photo of Mr Klaus kissing his wife. There's also a front-page photo of the presidential couple in PRAVO - there too the story is big news. Only LIDOVE NOVINY and HOSPODARSKE NOVINY take a more sober line - the former giving the story second place after the Greek earthquake, and the latter barely mentioning it.

The record temperatures which hit the Czech Republic on Wednesday make the front pages of all Thursday's dailies. carries a photo of a meteorologist measuring the temperature at Prague's Klementinum, where they saw the highest August temperature since records began in 1775.

One year after Prague was shaken by disastrous floods one man is back and his picture is featured on almost all the front covers this day: Sean Connery - returning for the premiere of his new film 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', which was partly shot in the Czech capital.