Press Review
There are few surprises in the Czech newspapers today - like yesterday, most of their pages are taken up with coverage of the NATO Summit. The newspapers focus on the statements made by US President George Bush in Prague yesterday, last night's gala ceremony at Prague Castle at which heads of state honoured Vaclav Havel, and the anti-NATO protests that are expected to take place today.
The front pages of Lidove noviny and Mlada fronta dnes are both dominated by the same photo of President Havel receiving a copy of NATO's founding treaty and the Czech Republic's accession document from French president Jacques Chirac. This presentation to Mr Havel was made at a ceremony at Prague Castle last night, where officials attending the NATO Summit honoured Mr Havel's contribution as a dissident and president. "Statesmen Have Parted With Havel," reads the headline of Lidove noviny, and it points out that more heads of state than ever before in Czech history visited Prague Castle yesterday. Several pages of the newspaper also read like the social pages of the NATO Summit: big colour pictures of heads of state and their spouses in elegant dress, toasting each other and having a jolly good time...
In the "who's who" of the NATO scene there is one figure who really stands out: a man by the name of George W. Bush. While Mlada fronta dnes' front page has the headline "World Leaders in Prague" alongside passport-size photos of Bush, Blair, Chirac, Schroder, Robertson and Berlusconi, Mr Bush is the only world leader to receive extensive coverage in the paper. Reports on his meeting with President Havel - whom he calls "a good friend" - and with Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla appear in the newspaper with two pages of excerpts from the American president's press conference yesterday. Messrs Havel and Spidla also promised President Bush that the Czech Republic would support an attack on Iraq if Saddam Hussein does not disarm.
And while Presidents Bush and Havel may have been speaking a lot about international security yesterday, Pravo gives much attention to security in Prague for the NATO Summit. It writes that police have been randomly waiving down cars on the motorways around Prague with traffic backing up for kilometres, and that these checks will continue today and tomorrow. The newspaper also reports that police searched for a bomb yesterday in the Hilton Hotel, where over seven hundred members of the American delegation are staying - but they found nothing.
Whole supplements to Lidove noviny and Mlada fronta dnes are dedicated to the opponents of NATO. The six-page guide in Mlada fronta dnes gives information on the groups that will be demonstrating against NATO in Prague, and lists the places where demonstrations are expected. It also includes photos of previous protests around the world against the EU, G8, IMF and WTO. And above a photo of a group of protesters standing behind a burning barricade of chairs and tables, taken in Sweden last year during the EU summit in Gothenburg, it has the headline: "The Police are Preparing for War."
Walking through Prague this morning, one wonders whether the current quiet in the city is just the calm before the storm. Mlada fronta dnes writes that "Prague has experienced an usual thing: quiet," but adds that this will change with the big anti-NATO protests that are expected today. People have disappeared from the streets of the Czech capital, writes Hospodarske noviny, fearing violent protests, and the number of police on the streets almost equals the number of everyday citizens...
