Press review

The day on which the Czech Republic is to get a new head of state has been overshadowed by yesterday's tragic incident on Wenceslas Square. As a result, today's front pages make a sad picture. There are snapshots of people laying flowers on the spot where 19 year old Zdenek Adamec set himself ablaze and there is plenty of reflection on what led the teenager to take his life in such a painful manner. A single quote from many of the papers provides the boy's own answer: "I don't like today's world".

The tragic death of the 19 year old has pushed Friday's inauguration of President Vaclav Klaus to second and third pages and Mr. Klaus himself has expressed deep sorrow over what happened on Wenceslas Square. "As a father and grandfather I value every human life, in particular young lives. The world we live in is not perfect -but in order to change it one must stay alive " Vaclav Klaus said in a statement published in all of today's papers.

Mlada Fronta Dnes has expressed anger over the speed with which some Czech politicians sought to explain away the suicide and find a scapegoat. In this case the explanations they offered were: the adverse influence of a gang of troublemakers with which the young man allegedly got mixed up, a generally negative and skeptical mood among Czechs and, in some cases, even Vaclav Klaus himself. Some humility and soul-searching would have been more to the point, the paper notes, adding that too many politicians in the country have "weak views and strong stomachs".

The papers all report on a shocking incident in which the government's human rights commissioner Jan Jarab was beaten up when he tried to protect a black man from assault. Was it xenophobia or plain fear that prevented by-standers from coming to Mr. Jarab's assistance? Indeed, from helping the black man in the first place. That is a question which Mr. Jarab's predecessor Petr Uhl ponders upon in today's edition of Pravo.

Xenophobia is only part of the answer, Uhl says, because it fails to explain why nobody helped Jan Jarab. Egoism and a lack of moral values are to blame as well, the former human rights commissioner points out.

Coincidentally, Lidove Noviny reports that even before his inauguration the president elect Vaclav Klaus has received his first plea for pardon. According to the paper it comes from Jan Kopal, a member of a Czech nationalist party, and concerns skinhead Vlastimil Pechanec, who was recently sentenced to 17 years in jail for racial murder.

Pechanec was found guilty by two courts of knifing a Romany at a disco. Kopal claims that it was not Pechanec who dealt the death blows - but someone else from the group of skinheads surrounding him. How much chance this plea for pardon has with the new president is not clear, the paper says. And finally, Mlada Fronta Dnes has some good news -and some bad. The good news is that Russia is slowly repaying its debt to the Czech Republic via deliveries of Mi-35 military helicopters, as agreed by contract. The bad news is that that many of the helicopters in question have been found to be faulty and in some cases contain obviously used spare parts.

What's to be done? The defense ministry has contacted the Russian embassy in Prague and said that there is "great goodwill on the part of the Russian authorities to set things right". Indeed, both sides are interested in settling this quietly, without too much negative publicity, the paper says. If an agreement is not reached then the matter would end up in an international court of law -and neither side wants to see that happen.