Press Review

The dailies offer quite a mix of stories with none clearly dominating the front pages. MLADA FRONTA DNES leads with today's government meeting expected to reduce corporate tax and state support for deposits in building societies. The paper says that more than five million Czechs have savings in building societies and the state contributes 4,500 crowns or 150 euros each year to every one of them.

PRAVO reports that phone booths might soon start disappearing from Czech streets. The dominant telecommunications operator Czech Telecom might be relieved of its duty to install and operate public phone booths. There are about 27,000 phone booths in the Czech Republic and Czech Telecom is obliged by law to operate one in every village with more than 100 inhabitants.

PRAVO quotes Information Technology Minister Vladimir Mlynar as saying that considering the number of mobile phone users, phone booths are becoming a thing of the past. Minister Mlynar would like to take the burden off Czech Telecom and announce public tenders for land-line operators in remote villages. Mr Mlynar admits that his proposal might not go down well with parliament and it might turn into a political matter.

LIDOVE NOVINY writes about more and more Czech towns and villages calling for asylum seekers' centres in their vicinity to be closed down. The reason: fear of the refugees. In a referendum held last week in the eastern town of Kostelec nad Orlici, an overwhelming majority of inhabitants said they had negative experience with the asylum seekers and called for a stricter asylum law. The local town hall wants the Interior Ministry to beef up police force in the town.

The mayor of Kostelec says it would be best if the asylum seekers' centre in the town were closed down altogether. For a start, the town demands that Chechen refugees be moved away from the centre. LIDOVE NOVINY quotes locals complaining about the immigrants stealing crops and small farm animals from their gardens, doing nothing but drinking alcohol and causing trouble in the town. The paper also says the latest poll by the CVVM agency suggests that 3/4 of Czechs think foreigners who want to live in this country should fulfil certain criteria, and almost 20 percent of Czechs think that no foreign nationals should be allowed permanent residence in the Czech Republic.

PRAVO reports that the exhibition of the Czech coronation jewels at Prague Castle attracted thousands of visitors during the weekend. They had to endure queuing in the cold and rainy weather in order to get to see the precious symbols of Czech statehood. "We came here at seven in the morning and had to queue for five hours, but it was worth it," PRAVO quotes a visitor who was lucky to get in. Although officially, the jewels are displayed every day from 9 am to 5 pm, the exhibition is closed once the number of visitors reaches 4,000. On Saturday, the gate closed as soon as at 10 am. But at around 1 pm, the door opened again and visitors from as far as North Moravia did not have to return home without seeing the priceless crown, sceptre and orb.

The home pages offer first reports from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. MLADA FRONTA DNES writes the town hosting the festival is itself living in a movie of sorts at the moment. For instance, a bakery in the main street in Karlovy Vary changed its name to the "Festival Club of the Friends of Fresh Pastries". On the topic of food, PRAVO writes about the opening party in the Grandhotel Pupp whose biggest stars were forty giant Canadian lobsters.