Press Review
The demise of Czech TV head Jiri Balvin makes the front pages of all the dailies today - Balvin Falls, says LIDOVE NOVINY, adding he has until midnight on Thursday to clear out his desk. Mr Balvin has apparently paid the price for failing to reorganise the monolithic public TV network.
The demise of Czech TV head Jiri Balvin makes the front pages of all the dailies today - Balvin Falls, says LIDOVE NOVINY, adding he has until midnight on Thursday to clear out his desk. Mr Balvin has apparently paid the price for failing to reorganise the monolithic public TV network.
Another man who's clearing out his desk is President Vaclav Havel, who steps down in February after 13 years in the post. MLADA FRONTA DNES writes that the president's wife, Dagmar Havlova, is determined her husband should go out in style. The First Lady is organising a huge party at the National Theatre, and has drawn up a list of 50 special guests who will appear on stage to honour the president.
But the list, writes MLADA FRONTA DNES, is top secret, because Dagmar Havlova wants it to be a surprise. Tickets go on sale next week, and will cost around 800 crowns. All the proceeds, says the paper, go to charity.
Moving on to LIDOVE NOVINY, and the two Russian extremists who threw tomatoes at NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson last week received a hero's welcome when they arrived back home in Moscow. Waiting for the two with open arms was the leader of the extremist National Bolshevist Party Eduard Limonov, who hailed the two as national heroes.
The two party activists - who are both called Dmitri - had actually hoped to throw tomatoes at US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or the enemies of all progressive people as they prefer to call them. But they had to hitchhike to Prague, and only arrived in time for the Robertson press conference. LIDOVE NOVINY says the two were full of praise for the Czech police, for not beating them up after the incident.
PRAVO covers the curious story of a woman in west Bohemia who amassed a small fortune from running a private bureau de change. The paper claims the 67-year-old woman manage to hide 1.7 billion crowns - that's almost 60 million dollars - in two bank accounts within the space of three years, without telling the tax authorities.
The police are now investigating just how the woman managed to amass so much money in such a short period of time, says PRAVO. Not surprisingly, writes the paper, they suspect foul play.
Meanwhile back to MLADA FRONTA DNES, and the paper says the husband- and-wife owners of a jewellery shop in Prague 5 are considering closing up for good after being robbed twice in the space of one week. Last Wednesday, says the paper, a pair of robbers burst into the shop, pinned the woman to the ground, and stole a large amount of jewellery.
Just six days later, says MLADA FRONTA DNES, a gang of three men burst in, brutally attacked the couple, and again made off with jewellery worth tens of thousands of crowns. We've been in the business for six years, and nothing like this has ever happened to us. I still can't believe it, the woman tells the paper, adding that they're now considering shutting up shop.
