Press Review

NATO madness continues today - all the papers herald the imminent arrival of the leader of the free world in the Czech capital - "Bush on his way to Prague" trumpets MLADA FRONTA DNES, and that sentiment is echoed on all the other front pages as well. Even the left-wing PRAVO features a front-page interview with the U.S. president - the headline reads "I'm really looking forward to Prague." Profound stuff.

The interview was conducted in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday, and just four European newspapers were invited - PRAVO being one of the lucky four. The Czech Republic is a valued member of NATO, President Bush told them, and President Havel is highly regarded in the United States. He says the American people were deeply grateful to the Czechs for their support after September 11th.

The paper also carried details of the unprecedented security surrounding the Bush visit. President Bush will be accompanied by an entourage of 700, and the Secret Service, says PRAVO, has spent the last few months checking every nook and cranny of every hotel room they're due to stay in, and every twist and turn of every road they're due to travel down, in preparation for a possible emergency.

There are already thousands of extra police walking the streets, says the paper. "If only there were always this many policemen on the streets," one elderly man told PRAVO. "I feel safer already."

Some of the security arrangements for President Bush's visit are straight out of a James Bond film, says MLADA FRONTA DNES. The paper carries a diagram of the presidential car, a souped-up Cadillac de Ville, made to order by General Motors. The windows are made of see-through armour-plated steel, rather than glass, and the doors are hermetically sealed to prevent an attack by chemical weapons. The whole thing weighs four tonnes.

And even if you see the presidential convoy cruising through the streets of Prague, says MLADA FRONTA DNES, it's not even certain the real Mr Bush will be in it. At least one decoy convoy will be driving around the city during the summit, in an attempt to confuse any potential assassins.

There's more James Bond stuff in LIDOVE NOVINY today - the paper says the country's senior army and defence ministry officials have been given special mobile phones which can't be intercepted. One of the officials was so pleased with his new toy that he was willing to tell the paper more about it - on condition of anonymity of course.

"It's like a normal mobile," he tells the paper, "but after you dial the number, there's a few second of silence, then it beeps three times, and then a voice comes on in English saying 'Secret, NATO, Secret'". If the mobiles are a success, says LIDOVE NOVINY, the defence ministry intends to put in an order for a few hundred.