Press Review
One face features on the front pages of all the Czech papers today, Sweden's murdered Foreign Minister Anna Lindh. Mrs Lindh's killing has provoked questions about security for politicians not only in Sweden, but throughout Europe. Also making headlines today - the Pope's visit to Slovakia, and a rebellion in the upper house in parliament over the government's public finance reforms.
One face features on the front pages of all the Czech papers today, Sweden's murdered Foreign Minister Anna Lindh. Mrs Lindh's killing has provoked questions about security for politicians not only in Sweden, but throughout Europe. Also making headlines today - the Pope's visit to Slovakia, and a rebellion in the upper house in parliament over the government's public finance reforms.
PRAVO also features a photo of a poster currently going up around Prague. The poster is of a pair of naked buttocks, an allusion to a Czech phrase which in no uncertain terms describes exactly where the public finance reforms will lead this country. And since this is a family station, I can't be any more explicit than that.
Moving on, and MLADA FRONTA DNES lifts the lid on the illegal trade in fake secondary school leaving certificates, or Maturita in Czech. Reporters from the paper managed to track down a gang of counterfeiters who will provide you with a fake maturita certificate for 8,000 crowns, or around 275 US dollars.
The gang advertised in the country's best-selling classified ads paper Anonce. The ad consisted of the word "Maturita" followed by a telephone number. A MLADA FRONTA DNES reporter rang the number, and was put in touch with a man in Pardubice who offered them a blank certificate with all the right signatures and stamps. He even offered advice on how to fill out the certificate correctly, i.e. Maths - A, English - B and so on.
MLADA FRONTA DNES says the contact had assured the reporter that he'd supplied the fake leaving certificates to "dozens of satisfied customers." But it didn't take much to expose the certificates as fake. They claim to be issued by the "Liberec Integrated Secondary School of Economics and Construction Studies". Unfortunately there is no such school, says the paper.
Amid much media coverage of the continuing rise in the number of road accidents in this country, LIDOVE NOVINY reports on the latest disturbing case involving a policeman. A senior officer from the Cesky Krumlov area has been suspended after driving home drunk after his visiting his relatives, knocking an 11-year-old boy off his bike, and then fleeing the scene.
He did return ten minutes later, says LIDOVE NOVINY, but only to retrieve one of his licence plates which had fallen off in the collision. The police inspection team investigating the accident say they're not sure yet if the officer actually committed a criminal offence, and might treat the incident as a misdemeanour. It's almost certain, says the paper, that he'll be thrown out of the police force.
And finally to the country's best-selling paper, the tabloid BLESK. Once again the paper is first with the big news: today it reports that viewers of TV Nova's erotic talk show Pericko have been complaining about the show's new presenter, the former glamour model Zuzana Belohorcova. Viewers might have given her the thumbs-up in the looks department, but they're far from happy with her pronunciation.
This is because Belohorcova is Slovak, and Nova's viewers can't understand what she's saying. "It's time she learnt to speak Czech properly," one outraged Pericko fan told BLESK. "She's nice to look at, but television has sound as well as pictures. The era of silent films is gone." Profound stuff.
