Press Review

Most dailies lead with the latest peace initiative in the Middle East - "hope after years of war" says MLADA FRONTA DNES, "Israelis and Palestinians promise each other peace" writes LIDOVE NOVINY. Back home, the domestic news is dominated by government plans to limit parliamentary immunity from prosecution and also to increase inheritance tax.

The opposition Civic Democrats are busy preparing for government, says LIDOVE NOVINY today. The party, currently riding high in the polls, are making intensive preparations for the possible collapse of the current centre-left coalition.

"We've been discussing various scenarios," says party leader Mirek Topolanek. "Scenario 1 - the government doesn't survive the autumn and there are early elections...or the government doesn't survive the autumn and there aren't early elections. Scenario 2 - the government survives the autumn and there are early elections...or the government survives the autumn and there aren't early elections. Scenario 3..." - anyway, you get the idea. Quite a way with words that man.

MLADA FRONTA DNES has details of a disturbing story from a nursery school in the northern town of Jablonec. According to the testimony of a young boy at the school, teachers threatened to set a police dog on the children after a toothbrush went missing. MLADA FRONTA DNES says the children were scared stiff by the threats, and the parents have complained to the authorities.

The school's headmistress has refused to comment on the story, saying the children were happy in the class and that she considered the whole incident to be an attempt to discredit her. Even the town's mayor has become involved in the scandal, says MLADA FRONTA DNES. "The search for the toothbrush was apparently not as dramatic as the boy described to his parents," the mayor told the paper. "We now want to draw a line under the whole affair."

PRAVO reports that the mayor of the village of Lub in West Bohemia has been banned from conducting wedding ceremonies because it recently emerged that he beats his wife. "It's a bit ironic, isn't it?" says local council member Jiri Patek, who's organising a petition against the mayor. "The man who wishes health and happiness to the newly-married couple is the same man who beats his wife at home." Mr Patek says so far 150 villagers have signed the petition calling for the mayor to be removed.

And finally as the country continues to swelter in temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, MLADA FRONTA DNES challenges the popular assumption that summers are beginning earlier each year.

The weathermen say people are deluding themselves, writes the paper - late May and early June are almost always hot and sunny, before a period of showery cooler weather brings the early summer to an end. But the hot weather usually returns by the end of July, says MLADA FRONTA DNES.