Press Review

Most dailies lead this morning with the assassination of Serbia's prime minister Zoran Djindjic, along with theories as to who was behind it. The killing has pushed most other stories into second place, although a new crackdown on smoking, the premature end of compulsory military service, and President Vaclav Klaus taking the rubbish out also feature on today's front pages.

But the streets of Prague also witnessed a fatal shooting on Wednesday, and by a strange coincidence it took place in the city's Sarajevska - or Sarajevo - street. As MLADA FRONTA DNES reports, the victim was one of the country's leading orthopaedic surgeons, and the killer was a 33-year-old patient unhappy with the results of a hip operation.

The 52-year-old doctor - who worked at Prague's Bulovka hospital - was shot dead outside the apartment building where he lived with his family. The paper's Prague section says local people were in a state of shock after the killing. It carries a picture of one tearful girl watching from her window as the doctor's body is carried away. The killer turned the gun on himself, and died from his injuries on Thursday morning.

LIDOVE NOVINY reports that the government is stepping up its battle against smoking. The cabinet approved a bill on Wednesday which would ban the sale of cigarettes in open-air markets and also vending machines in places accessible to people under the age of 18. The bill also extends the list of no-smoking zones to include restaurants and buffets.

Turning to lighter matters now, and MLADA FRONTA DNES has a photo of the mayor of Ostrava, Ales Zednik, dressed in a white chef's outfit and stirring a large pan of Chinese food. Mayor Zednik was cooking for the Chinese ambassador to the Czech Republic, who paid a visit to the north Moravian city on Wednesday.

But while it was all smiles and soy sauce inside the town hall, says MLADA FRONTA DNES, outside things were rather different. Several dozen demonstrators were waiting for the ambassador, to protest at the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Many town halls in the Czech Republic flew Tibetan flags this week - and as you might have guessed, Ostrava wasn't one of them.