Press Review

Yes, and unsurprisingly statements made in Israel by Prime Minister Milos Zeman dominate Tuesday's front pages. If Mr Zeman hugs trees - his stated pastime - with as much vigour as he flourishes the name of Adolf Hitler, then the Vysocina region where he has a cottage will soon be treeless, writes Mlada fronta Dnes. Mr Zeman has recently compared both Austria's Joerg Haider and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Hitler.

A driver involved in a motorway crash near Zlin was so drunk that he had fallen asleep by the time the police arrived at the scene of the accident, writes Pravo. When police questioned the man all he was capable of saying was that he had really drunk a lot.

The level of alcohol in his blood was approaching actual alcohol poisoning - some people would not survive such a bout of drinking, a doctor tells the daily.

The authorities in the Pardubice region in east Bohemia have decided not to include the local born Oskar Schindler - who famously saved the lives of many Jews during World War II - on a list of notable people from the area, the former government commissioner for human rights Petr Uhl writes in Pravo.

The reason the region won't honour Schindler - he was a German and a Nazi, and the traditional Czech-German conflict is regarded as being more important than the genocide of Jews and Romanies, writes Petr Uhl.

"Man Sent to Prison for Torturing Hedgehog", reads a headline in Mlada fronta Dnes. A law on torturing animals introduced after 1989 is being used more and more, as in the case of 43-year-old Hubert Zlamal who got six months for stamping the aforementioned hedgehog to death. "I was only trying to put it out of its misery," said Mr Zlamal.

It's the most expensive Czech beer on the market, but - says Hospodarske noviny - Plzensky Prazdroj also known as Pilsner Urquell sold a record quantity of beer last year. The company sold 5.12 million hectolitres of its world famous brew in 2001.

The daily BLESK carries a front page photo of men hard at work preparing rides at the Matejska pout funfair, ahead of this weekend's opening. The funfair - which now takes place every year at Prague's Vystaviste exhibition grounds - was first held way back in 1595.

And pity the poor sports writers. The Czech ice hockey team played Canada during the night local time, so all of the papers have stories about the previous night's game against the Swedes.

The tabloid Super had perhaps the most inventive way of getting around the problem - it asked several minor celebrities to predict the outcome of Monday night's game against Canada - singer Vilem Cok got it right - a three- all draw.