Press Review | All stories

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.

One topic shared by most Czech dailies on Tuesday is the continuing heat wave. LIDOVE NOVINY carries a story about a north Bohemian village whose water sources have dried out for the first time in history. According to the paper, a total of twenty-four villages in the region have problems with water distribution. Drinking water has to be carried to the villages in cisterns and fire-fighters fetch service water for watering gardens and house work.

The Pope praying for rain, a Greenpeace protest at a Czech chemical factory, and Czech soldiers on guard against angry mobs in Iraq - all feature prominently on today's front pages. MLADA FRONTA DNES has pictures of Czech troops standing near burning tires, the result of local Iraqi unrest on Sunday. In several incidents Czech soldiers received minor injuries from stones thrown by local inhabitants. Worse was an incident in which one Iraqi man - attempting to jump a vehicle leaving the Czech base - slipped under the wheels and later died from his

The photo of the Austrian-born American actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has announced he is going to run for governor of the state of California, dominates the front pages of all major Czech dailies on Friday. "The Terminator wants to be governor, the Terminator runs for governor", read the inspired captions.