Press Review | All stories

The plight of Czech holidaymakers in Croatia, the closing night of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and Health Minister Marie Souckova's plans for improving the health sector -those are some of the main stories on Monday's front pages.

News that the Czech Republic has been ordered to pay compensation for a court case that dragged on for almost ten years features heavily on the front pages today - "Czechs pay up for slow courts once again" reads the headline in LIDOVE NOVINY. Meanwhile reports of what could be the country's first death from new variant CJD - the human form of mad cow disease - also make headlines today.

There are a number of different curious stories covered by today's press, one of the most interesting the re-emergence of a legal battle involving the Church vs. the State to determine ownership rights of Saint Vitus' Cathedral. The cathedral, whose foundation stone was laid in 1344, but was only fully completed in the early 20th century, is the most dominant feature in the Prague skyline rising above famous Prague Castle, recognisable to anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes in the Czech capital.

A variety of faces appear on the front pages of Wednesday's newspapers. Ice hockey player Dominik Hasek "dominates" the dailies; the 38-year-old has just announced he is returning to the NHL and his last club, the Detroit Redwings. Popular skier Katerina Neumannova is also in the news: several papers picture her and her new-born baby daughter.

The arrival of American actor Morgan Freeman at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival has made all of today's front pages, and cinemagoers who have failed to make it to the West Bohemian spa resort for the annual film festival can take comfort from reading up on all the latest news and gossip about the films and VIPS in the cultural pages.

The dailies offer quite a mix of stories with none clearly dominating the front pages. MLADA FRONTA DNES leads with today's government meeting expected to reduce corporate tax and state support for deposits in building societies. The paper says that more than five million Czechs have savings in building societies and the state contributes 4,500 crowns or 150 euros each year to every one of them.

LIDOVE NOVINY writes today that Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla wants to change the Constitution to stop ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after the war from reclaiming confiscated property. The government says it's been forced to act following a successful restitution claim from Frantisek Oldrich Kinsky, a descendant of the famous noble family of that name.

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