Press Review

The football World Cup in some way or other is present on the front pages of most Czech daily newspapers today. Mlada fronta Dnes carries a series of photos of football fans with different national flags painted on their faces.

Lidove noviny's front page is dominated by 23-year-old German striker Miroslav Klose who scored a hat- trick in a match against Saudi Arabia and established himself on the top of the World Cup goal scorers chart. Anyway, everything about football is to be found in special supplement of all but Hospodarske noviny.

The business daily leads with a story on a price dispute between two chemical giants - the oil refinery Ceska Rafinerska and the largest Czech chemical company Chemopetrol over prices of supplies. Ceska Rafinerska cut off supplies for Chemopetrol on Friday night.

Both companies are indirectly controlled by the state and they were able to settle their price dispute only after an intervention by the Minister of Industry and Trade on Sunday. Chemopetrol estimates losses due to the drop out in production in the rank of tens of millions of crowns.

Lidove noviny reports that the police have been successful in fighting hoax callers in the past week. The police arrested three men suspected of making unrelated hoax threats over the phone, including a terrorist attack on high-rise buildings in the city of Brno and planting a bomb at the Prague Ruzyne airport.

The third man was a taxi driver who used an internet discussion forum to make threats against inspectors of the Prague City Hall who fight the wide-spread phenomenon of overcharging by taxi drivers.

According to Mlada fronta Dnes, the situation at the Commercial Register has been improving. The Commercial Register has been under heavy criticism for sluggishness and corruption. The procedure of entering a new business in the register or making changes in the record should be done within 15 days. However, cases when it took several weeks or even months were nothing unusual.

The Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for operating the register, says the situation has now improved significantly at most regional branches, but problems remain in the capital Prague where there is biggest number of applications. Mlada fronta Dnes also quotes the Minister of Justice as saying that he has heard many rumours but seen no evidence of corruption at the Commercial Register.

And finally, today's Pravo claims to have obtained information from high government circles about the much-debated moving of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty from the former parliament building in the centre of Prague to a safer location on the city outskirts.

The paper carries a photo of a glass and steel office building located in a loosely populated neighbourhood on the main road to Prague airport. The Czech State Security council is to discuss moving Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty at the end of June.