Press Review

There are a mixed bag of stories in Friday's papers, the first since Monday. As for photos, several of the Czech dailies feature front page pictures of Pope John Paul II, saying his traditional Christmas mass at the Vatican. LIDOVE NOVINY and MLADA FRONTA DNES carry the same photo of a smiling Pope, waving to the crowd. HOSPODARSKE NOVINY's photo, meanwhile, shows the aging Pope looking frail.

The extreme weather conditions make the main headlines in MLADA FRONTA DNES and LIDOVE NOVINY, with both reporting that Prague's streets have been struck by treacherous ice. Black ice like never before, says MLADA FRONTA DNES, cars can't drive and pedestrians are falling on the streets.

In LIDOVE NOVINY'S Friday Magazine there is a round up of the events of 2002. Not surprisingly, a lot of attention is given to August's floods, with some striking photos just to remind us all of how bad things were at the time. Some of the faces in the review of the year include Vaclav Havel - a montage shows him under the controversial neon heart at Prague Castle - George Bush, Britain's Queen Mother and world footballer of the year, Ronaldo.

Vaclav Havel's term as president may be very close to an end but he still has the right to issue pardons, and 11 people got this unusual Christmas present from the president on December 23. Among those to receive a pardon this week was Hana Buresova, a doctor at the Vinohrady teaching hospital, who was given a six-month suspended sentence for not ensuring that a man with tuberculosis was hospitalised.

The doctor thanks the president in LIDOVE NOVINY, but says she does not want the pardon, and intends to clear her name in the courts. Mrs Buresova adds that whenever President Havel issues pardons he is criticised, and she does not wish to see him criticised on her account.

The biggest bell at Prague's St Vitus Cathedral, Zigmund, rang out five times over the Christmas holidays, writes MLADA FRONTA DNES in its Prague section. The famous bell stopped at the beginning of the summer - seen as a portent of doom by some - and was out of action until September, when it was fitted with a new clapper, or heart' as it is called in Czech.

There's good news for Czech consumers in LIDOVE NOVINY. From January 1 they will have two years in which to return faulty goods, a full year and a half more than they have now. This change will bring us in line with the European Union, a spokesperson for a consumers' group tells the daily. The daily points out that some companies already offer guarantees of longer than six months, the majority of them from abroad.

PRAVO carries a front-page photo of hardy swimmers getting out of the Vltava river in Prague on Thursday. Almost 60 people - including eight women - swam either 100 or 300 metres in the Vltava, which was only 2 degrees Celsius. The tradition has been going on for 50 years, and the oldest of the swimmers was an incredible 89 years old.