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A mix of headlines on the front pages - Mlada Fronta Dnes leads with a new opinion poll claiming support for Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla has fallen from 75 percent in September to just under half that today. Meanwhile Lidove Noviny says flat prices have risen by 25 percent in the first quarter of this year. And Hospodarske Noviny warns of a brain drain to Brussels as the nation's finest look for new jobs with the European Union.

The front pages feature a variety of domestic as well as international stories today, including ex-minister Jiri Rusnok's resignation from his parliamentary seat, President Vaclav Klaus's visit to neighbouring Austria and the latest measures introduced in China to fight the deadly SARS virus.

Today's papers offer a broad selection of cover stories, ranging from recent developments in Iraq to a new study that reveals that almost 40 percent of Czechs use bribes to get what they need from bureaucrats, doctors, police, and judges, to name but a few. notes that some 40 billion crowns in cash or goods are secretly given in bribes each year, and writers that a quarter of the Czech population thinks bribes are perfectly normal. Not a pretty picture.

Following a relatively quiet Easter weekend, many of the papers have given prominence to international stories - the situation in Iraq and the spread of the killer virus SARS in China. Lidove Noviny reports that although there is no confirmed case of SARS in the Czech Republic security measures remain in place and the management of Prague's Ruzyne Airport has acquired masks for all its employees. At this point wearing them is not compulsory but we are advising caution, a spokesman for the airport said.

The front pages of most of the Czech dailies are today dominated by colour photos of Prague's Slavia hockey team, which defeated Pardubice on Thursday in the Extra League final. And the other celebration being covered by the papers is Easter: Hospodarske noviny is the only newspaper that doesn't include a big photo of the Slavia hockey team on its front page, but instead has a picture of the Pope praying at an Easter mass.

The signing of the EU enlargement treaty in Athens is the main news story on all front pages. "History-making signature in Athens", " A new era for the Czech Republic" and more cryptically: "We're in" - those are some of the lead headlines in today's papers.

Both MLADA FRONTA DNES and LIDOVE NOVINY lead on Wednesday with the arrest of judge Jiri Berka on charges of declaring the bank Union banka bankrupt on the basis of false documents. The judge could face ten years in prison if found guilty of abuse of power.

"War at an end" that's how most of the Czech papers today size up the fall of Saddam Hussein's last bastion in Tikrit, showing photos of US soldiers celebrating as they wave both US and Iraqi flags, while LIDOVE NOVINY shows the cover of this week's Time magazine: a portrait of Saddam Hussein, crossed out with a bleeding "X". Meanwhile, on the home front, stories making the headlines concern several growing legal scandals in the Czech Republic...

The situation in Iraq, the Hungarian referendum on the country's accession to the European Union and the tragic fate of a two year old boy who had gone missing for three days - those are the main stories on today's front pages.

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