Press Review
The Czech press today continues to focus on the debate within the Social Democrat party over which candidate the party should support for the presidential elections, while the preferred candidate of Prime Minister Spidla - Otakar Motejl - is still answering questions regarding a road accident over twenty years ago in which Mr Motejl hit and killed an elderly man.
The Czech press today continues to focus on the debate within the Social Democrat party over which candidate the party should support for the presidential elections, while the preferred candidate of Prime Minister Spidla - Otakar Motejl - is still answering questions regarding a road accident over twenty years ago in which Mr Motejl hit and killed an elderly man.
The front pages of the Czech dailies are mostly concerned with the Social Democrat's candidate for the upcoming presidential elections. Lidove noviny writes that the party is being shaken by a crisis over whether it should support the candidature of former prime minister Milos Zeman. Mr Spidla has accused Zeman's supporters of disrupting the party, and at a meeting of the Social Democrats' parliamentary club he told seventy members of parliament that the election of Zeman as president would mark a "threat to the unity of social democracy."
According to sources present at the meeting, Mr Spidla spoke rather bluntly and even used crude words - which, Hospodarske noviny notes, is more close to Milos Zeman's well-known style of speaking. Immediately after the meeting, some members of the parliament and government ministers confronted Spidla and said that they would still be voting for Zeman.
While Mr Spidla will be voting against Mr Zeman's attempts to become Czech president, the man who will be getting his vote has been answering questions over a car accident that he was involved in in 1978, in which he hit and killed a man. In comments made for Hospodarske noviny, Mr Motejl says that it is obvious that some may be using the accident to discredit him and his campaign for president, but he adds that it is legitimate because the accident actually did happen.
Yet there is one Czech politician who seems likely to be voted into one of the country's highest offices. Pravo's front page tells us that Petr Pithart looks set to become the chairman of the Senate - but the head of the Christian Democrats, Cyril Svoboda, did not wish to confirm whether this would mean that Pithart would step aside as a candidate in the presidential elections.
Politics aside, have you ever been sick in the Czech Republic? Well, it seems that not enough people are getting sick here these days: up to a third of all hospital beds are unnecessary, writes Mlada fronta dnes, and the Ministry of Health will be closing down some hospitals and sections of hospitals as a money-saving measure. The biggest changes will happen in the regions of Plzen, Usti nad Labem and central Bohemia, where up to forty per cent of beds are not required.
Christmas shopping is already well underway in the Czech Republic - and this year it is being done a little differently. Hospodarske noviny reports that internet shopping in the Czech Republic saw record growth last month, especially in such areas as electronics and whitegoods. After the chaotic scenes that marked the opening of the discount electronics store Electroworld in Prague in October, it may not be surprising that consumers are more keen to shop over the internet... And the newspaper says that people are internet shopping more exactly because they are more comfortable in using these new technologies.
And if you have ever wanted to see Vaclav Havel don a hat with blue tassels and a silk blue top with lace cuffs, then today was the chance. The front pages of Lidove noviny and Mlada fronta dnes both carry a picture of the Czech president wearing such garb as he receives his 39th honorary doctorate, this time from the University of Lleid in Spain.
