Daily newspapers surveyed: Cesky denik, Lidova demokracie, Lidove noviny, Mlada fronta Dnes, Prace, Rude pravo, Svobodne slovo, Telegraf (in alphabet

CESKY DENIK (right-wing). Headline news: Slovak Prime Minister Meciar Hinted That He Would Exchange a Standard Border for Slovak Gold. (The "Slovak Gold" in question is the part of the former federation's gold reserves which comes from the treasury of the Slovak State of 1939-1945. Czechs generally consider it bizzare that Meciar should claim this treasury when he denies legal ascendancy to the fascist Slovak State. Moreover, a large proportion of the treasury is actually the property of Slovak Jews, from whom it was confiscated during the Holocaust.) The Slovak Government also claims "recompensation" for villages ceded by Czechoslovakia to Poland 70 years ago, for the Czechoslovak flag etc., which are viewed as absurd by the Czech side. It seems unlikely, however, that Slovakia will agree to establish a standard border between the two countries if these demands are not met, writes CD.

CD also devotes half a page to Prague's most ambitious and controversial architectural project of the day, which is presented by Vlado Milunic, a Yugoslav-born architect who is also engaged in initiatives to help suffering Bosnia. (He is known to have a friendly relationship to Vaclav Havel, who lives next to the projected post-modernist building.) In an interview, Mr.Milunic complains about nationalistic protests against him as a "foreigner building an extravagant house in Prague".

LIDOVA DEMOKRACIE (Catholic) informs extensively about a demonstration of Children of the Earth, an environmentalist group, on Prague's Old Town Square, under the slogan STOP OZONE DEPLETION. "The Ministry of Environment has been delaying the acceptance of the innovated version of the Clean Air Act for two months. It is simply a bureaucratic delay, because the new version has already been commented by all the ministries, and CFCs are still released into the atmosphere in huge amounts," said Dr.J.Petrlik, spokesman for Children of the Earth. The group once again asked Prime Minister Klaus in an open letter to use his authority to bring the law to Parliament as fast as possible.

LIDOVE NOVINY (liberal) bring on the first page a photo of the nes Czech Ambassador to the U.N., Karel Kovanda, who is interviewed in the paper. (Also known as "Che" Kovanda due to his physical resemblance to the Cuban revolutionary, Mr.Kovanda was a famous leader in the 1968 student revolt; he spent the Seventies and Eighties in emigration.) "It is quite possible that the future will consider the Yugoslav question a major disaster of West-European and North-American politics," says Kovanda. Further in the interview, he disagrees with LN's negative view of the efficiency and usefulness of the U.N. "It would be quite incorrect to blame the disaster in the Balkans on the U.N."

LN also bring two extensive articles of the problem of Romanies (Gypsies) in the Czech Republic. "The high crime rate among Romanies," writes M.Stechova, a sociologist, "is just the peak of an iceberg of their problems: their handicaps in terms of social status, education and inequality in access to citizenship."

R.Weinerova from the Institute for etnography and folklore disagrees with the views expressed recently by K.Samkova of ROI (Romany Citizens Initiative); Ms.Samkova, says she, is wrong in dismissing affirmative action, which she evidently confuses with "communistic programs of social support", says Ms.Weinerova.

RUDE PRAVO (left-wing, ex-Communist) supports in its editorial - somewhat surprisingly - the Czech Governments decision to establish a standard, well-guarded border with Slovakia even unilaterally, if the Slovaks decline to take part in the matter.

The chairman of the Communist Party, J.Svoboda, who belongs to the Party's reform wing, intends to create a new party, which would be called Socialist. (As the CP has repeatedly refused Svoboda's efforts to rename it, it would mean in effect a split of the strongest left wing party in the Czech Republic.) This party should find political allies in the French Socialists and the Italian PDS, says Svoboda.

PRACE (trade union) brings on the first page an interview with Polish journalist and politician Adam Michnik (as well as a photo of Michnik with his friend Petr Uhl; as prominent dissidents under the Communist regimes, they could meet only illegally on the border in the Krkonose mountains). "I was critical to some of your Prime Minister's derogatory statements about collaboration in the Visegrád group" (former Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary), says Michnik. Mr.Michnik is in Prague as a guest of the Central European University, which was founded by the U.S. Hungarian-born philanthropist, George Soros, and is due to be closed soon due to lack of support on part of the new Czech Government.

TELEGRAF (conservative). Headline news "Czech ship Otava in trouble" brings attention to the fate of Otava, a Czech ship which rescued 32 shipwrecked Somalis in the Indian Ocean last Friday, and was thereafter denied permission to land with the rescued people in Jibouti and Aden.

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Slovak press by CTK News Agency

BRATISLAVA, June 7 (ÇTK) - In an interview with the trade

union daily +Práca,+ National Bank of Slovakia Vice-Governor

Marián Jusko says the International Monetary Fund mission is

very satisfied with the activites of the bank "at halftime" of

its negotations with representatives of the National Bank and

the Finance Ministry. Hard currency reserves have grown in

recent days. Jusko characterised them as stabilised with a

tendency toward growth.

"It is no secret that the deficit of the state budget is

covered from National Bank sources. If it did not exist, these

funds could be used in enterprises and in the business sphere,"

Jusko said.

A commentary in the daily +Smena,+ close to the ruling

Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, states that in a situation

where the health service lacks resources and when the majority

of hospitals are drowning in debt, Slovak Health Minister Sobońa

has decided that "he will intervene also with those who have not

had greater problems until now."

The author writes that the director of the Dérer hospital in

Bratislava ˘agát was coping with the situation, although he was

dangerously competing with the minister as a possible successor.

Sobońa understandably recalled him, and in his place named no

one other than the former director of the hospital in Petrćalka,

who he had earlier recalled because he could not cope with the

situation.

+Slovenský denník,+ close to the opposition Christian

Democratic Party, writes that members of the government

preferred a public meeting to "presentation of the economic

interests" of Slovakia in Amsterdam last week. The paper writes

that the citizen is more sorry that Czech Premier Václav Klaus

travelled there for the Czech Republic, where he was received by

the Dutch queen and government chairman. (Klaus's visit took

place this March. -ÇTK) And so raising our profile suffered

another failure, the paper writes.

The tabloid +Nový ças+ takes note of the situation

surrounding the future Slovak-Czech border, and writes that the

Czech demand is taking on the character of an ultimatum. July 1

is drawing inexorably closer. The Slovak side is hesitating with

tightening the regime, to the displeasure of the Czechs, and now

also the Germans.

Its hesitation is doubtlessly motivated by the noble desire

not to complicate the border crossing of the citizens. Maybe it

is also tactically biding its time, so that it is not suspected

of taking too much initiative or yielding too much to Czech

pressure. Or it is following the rule of "an eye for an eye, a

tooth for a tooth," and this "lack of understanding" is only the

payback for another "lack of understanding" from the Czechs in

the solution of other problems, +Nový ças+ writes.

The year since parliamentary elections has confirmed the

opinion that Meçiar's problem is not only a lack of ministers

with sufficient political talent, but his unwillingness to

prepare the conditions for a broad social consensus, writes the

independent daily +Národna obroda.+ Slovakia does not have such

a rich potential of intellectual elites that it can allow itself

the luxury of its splintering according to party membership.

The consieration of early elections are not a good report

card for Slovak politicians. It proves the inability of some of

them to find a path to compromise. These reflections call into

doubt Slovakia's qualifications to include itself in

well-established European structures, +Narodná obroda+ writes.