Press Review

Monday's front pages carry snapshots of anti-war demonstrations held in more than sixty cities over the weekend: Paris, Sydney, New York, Rome - and among others, Prague, where several hundred people congregated on the city's main squares. Millions of people around the world took to the streets in the largest antiwar protests since the Vietnam war, says Lidove noviny.

The paper thinks that although the international community has made itself heard, the threat of war has not been averted. The US has agreed to give Saddam more time, but when the wave of emotion subsides, Washington's war plans will be back on the negotiating table, Lidove noviny predicts.

Meanwhile, in an interview for Pravo, presidential candidate Vaclav Klaus rejects what he calls "the simplified, black and white picture" of the situation around Iraq. The need to come to Turkey's defense, Mr. Klaus notes, is something I fail to comprehend. Under the circumstances, Iraq must be afraid to put a foot wrong, in case it triggers a military strike. The idea that it would attack Turkey is completely ludicrous, the former prime minister says.

Overall the commentaries in the papers are antiwar. In today's Mlada fronta Dnes' Hyde Park column, political analyst Ladislav Venys writes: bringing democracy to the Muslim world is a long-term and arduous task comparable to bringing Christianity to Africa. Isolated force - such as that which the US is considering - is not going to prove effective, Venys says. However, it would help to strengthen US influence in this part of the world and President Bush would fulfill his father's unfinished mission.

The papers all comment on the Social Democratic Party's latest attempt to find an acceptable coalition candidate for the post of president. Jan Sokol's chances depend on the unity of the Social Democrats, Pravo notes, and after the first two rounds of elections it is hard to have faith in this party's unity.

In today's Lidove noviny, Petruska Sustrova warns that the farce which the Social Democrats have treated the public to is no laughing matter. We must keep in mind that the only left wing alternative to the Social Democrats are the communists, the author says. In view of this the growing differences within the party take on a more ominous character. The last thing we want is a strong communist party left of centre or a radicalized Social Democratic Party which would be prepared to form a coalition with the communists, Sustrova notes.

The papers have all devoted a lot of space to the lives and work of two famous and much loved Czechs who died over the weekend: actor, writer and director Miroslav Hornicek, dubbed the nation's "philosopher clown", and Jiri Hanzelka, whose travel books many Czechs grew up on. Both of these men were living legends, and their absence will leave us all the poorer, says Lidove noviny. They will be sadly missed, but not forgotten, and they both leave a precious legacy that will not age, the paper concludes.

And - looking into the Prague supplement of Mlada fronta Dnes - it would be hard to miss the lead headline. "At long last - it's finally back" the papers says of the subway's B-line, most of which has been out of operation these past six months. The paper notes that thousands of people living in Prague's suburbs will breathe a sigh of relief since their trip down town will be shortened from a whole hour to twenty minutes.