Press Review - Radio Prague

Source: Czech Radio 7, Radio Prague. All rights reserved. © Copyright 1996, 2016 Radio Prague. Url: http://www.radio.cz/en/article/39746
Press Review [ 2003-04-16 ] By Ian Willoughby
Both MLADA FRONTA DNES and LIDOVE NOVINY lead
on Wednesday with the arrest of judge Jiri Berka on charges of
declaring the bank Union banka bankrupt on the basis of false
documents. The judge could face ten years in prison if found
guilty of abuse of power.
Czech Television's Michal Kubal has just returned from a stint
in Baghdad which made him a household name in the Czech
Republic and he is pictured on the front page of LIDOVE
NOVINY surrounded by news media microphones at Prague
airport on Tuesday.
The daily says Mr Kubal was only allowed to stay so long in
the city because Iraqi censors could not understand Czech; that
allowed him to do the kind of reports that got American
journalists, for instance, expelled from the country. The
journalist said he and his cameraman succeeded in staying in
Iraq so long largely thanks to the great work of their Syrian
guide Hassan Hamid, who also accompanied them back to
Prague.
Former prime minister Milos Zeman may have just received
his first pension cheque, but he has not quit politics for good,
reads the lead story in PRAVO. Mr Zeman - who was thwarted
in his presidential ambitions by current PM and Social
Democrat leader Vladimir Spidla - says he is disturbed by the
fall in support for the party he led to power and cannot stand
idly by. Around a third of the party support Mr Zeman and
would like him to make a comeback, he says.
Students of the Czech language at the University of Texas in
Austin are to premiere the "Cimrman" play "Hospoda Na
mytince" this Friday, reports LIDOVE NOVINY. Behind the
staging of the play, written by the comic duo Zdenek Sverak
and Ladislav Smoljak - and its fictitious hero Jara Cimrman - is
Craig Cravens, a professor of Slavonic Studies at the
university.
Asked who the play, with its very specific humour, will appeal
to in the US, Mr Cravens answers with a forthright "nobody",
adding somewhat optimistically that in time the Cimrman
character could become as popular in the States as here in the
Czech Republic.
The non-existent Cimrman is the greatest Czech of all time,
according to one man interviewed in MLADA FRONTA
DNES as part of its series "jaci jsme", which looks at Czech
society today. In a poll quoted by the daily, first Czechoslovak
president T.G. Masaryk was ranked the greatest Czech,
followed by Charles IV and Jan Hus.
Two women you may have heard interviewed recently on
Radio Prague also feature in today's press. The 93-year-old
Lady Luisa Abrahams is pictured in PRAVO at a school in
Melnik, which she presented with money she raised to help
deal with the consequences of last August's floods.
And in MLADA FRONTA DNES the leading Czech women's
football player, Pavlina Scasna, describes her debut for
Philadelphia Charge in the United States professional women's
league. Standards in the US are much higher than in Germany's
Bundesliga, says Scasna, adding that she enjoyed her first
game despite being on the losing side.
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