Czech press surveyed by Jan Jarab
Daily newspapers surveyed (in alphabetical order): Cesky denik, Lidova demokracie, Lidove noviny, Mlada fronta Dnes, Prace, Rude pravo, Svobodne slovo, Telegraf. Weekly: Reflex, Respekt.
LIDOVA DEMOKRACIE (Catholic) brings a report about the "Life Tent", which was opened on Prague's Old Town Square by Children of the Earth (Deti zeme), an environmentalist initiative, to illustrate the problem of ozone depletion. This occurs in a period in which the polemics about two version of an "anti-CFC" law culminate in the Czech parliament. Surprisingly, even the environmentalist groups are divided in their opinions, writes LD. The Children of the Earth - unlike many others - support a radicalized version of the Government proposal, which would only limit (not ban) CFC production, and "by pressure leading to CFC recycling we will get enough time to gradually replace the outdated equipment using CFCs", says Dr.J.Petrlik, spokesman for Children of the Earth. According to him, such an approach would respect reality more than the opposition proposal to simply ban CFCs, which could be "unpracticable".
LD also informs about the visit to Prague of Jevad Karahasan, a Bosnian Muslim writer exiled to Vienna. "During the siege of Sarayevo, I didn't feel any hatred for our Serbian enemies, but I really detest the U.N.troops, Mr.Mitterrand and Butrus Ghali," says Mr.Karahasan.
LIDOVE NOVINY (Liberal) offer a full-page interview with Adam Michnik, famous Polish dissident of the Seventies and Eighties, who is Chief Editor of Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily very close to Lidove noviny. On antisemistism, Michnik says: "Let's not forget that parties with anti-Semitic slogans did not win a single chair in the Polish parliament." On Solidarity: "There were always three tendencies in Solidarity - the democratic-intellectual one, the national-Catholic one, and the populist. The third has prevailed...These people believe that local Solidarity commitees should decide about all matters in the city just as the Party commitees did before the revolution." On Communists: "Under a regime which discriminated some people, I fought for a Poland were everybody's rights would be equal. Today's anti-Communists want to create another discriminating state - only with different people to discriminate. This I can't agree with." On European integration: "It is a lost battle. The European countries will prob
ably carry on their own national policies."
LN quotes President Havel's comments on the fact that the Dalay Lama and other representatives of national minorities were denied the right to speak at the Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. "If I were participating in the conference, I would walk out in protest," said the President.
MLADA FRONTA DNES (centrist, independent). Headline: The new Mayor of Prague has decided to apply stricter rules for licences for private security agencies after the recent brutal beatings of fans at a football stadium by men and women (!) employed by one of these agencies. According to the Mayor, there are hundreds of such agencies in the capital (JJ: i.e., small private armies, often well armed and composed of former Communist policemen who were released from duty after the revolution. So far the registration of such agencies was very easy and their were virtually under no control.)
RESPEKT (liberal, concentrating esp. on human-rights issues) in a headline "Half a Million More For Members of the Prague Council" reveals that the former Mayor, M.Kondr, and all members of the Council have illegally raised their salaries far above the limits imposed by the Government.
RESPEKT also brings details from the report on the environment in the CR, which was published by the Ministry for Environment. Among other disturbing facts, it also states that the amounts of recycled paper, iron and textiles have dropped significantly in the last years.
Another report concentrates on usage of racist terms in daily newspapers (Rude pravo, Cesky denik and others, both "left" and "right-wing"). In reporting crimes, the papers often describe the offender as "Gypsy" or "Romany", or even "dark-skinned". Rude pravo recently published a sentence about a man who was "probably an African and, like most foreigners of this colour, was engaged in the prodution of narcotics". Although the readers of these periodics are regularly informed when the offender is a foreigner or has a member of a different ethnic group (usually Romany), they never read that some offender was white, purely Czech, or blond. Chief editors of Cesky denik and Rude pravo defend the practice; Mlada fronta Dnes has banned it.
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P:4 C:vse SV:cta A:PVR E:PVR LDI:~eng ID:19930614D00188
K:SLOVAK-PRESS D:14-06-1993 9:52
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SURVEY OF SLOVAK PRESS by CTK News Agency
BRATISLAVA, June 15 (ÇTK) - The independent daily +Národná
obroda+ writes that after the current "second wooing" of the
Slovak National Party with the ruling Movement for a Democratic
Slovakia (HZDS) to create a two-party coalition, the SNS will
evidently demand more posts in the Slovak government than in the
past when čudovít Çernák was the only representative of the SNS.
According to the daily, the SNS will probably demand the posts
of ministers of finance, privatisation and education, and
perhaps also secretary of state of the foreign ministry.
+Národná obroda+ indicates that in case of "assuming
responsibility" for finance and economics, the deputy Arpád
Matęjka (HZDS), asserted by Premier Meçiar for the post of the
chairman of Supreme Inspection Office (NKů), may obtain "some
votes" at the secret ballot.
The opposition daily +Slovenský denník+, close to the
Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), writes that Slovak Health
Minister Viliam Sobońa showed in the weekend television
programme +Téma+ "his capacity to manipulate and to mislead
rather than manage his ministry". If the republican caucus of
the ruling HZDS confirmed and supported again Sobońa in his
position by a majority of votes, "it just confirmed that all
that it cares for is power interests, not the citizen, patient
and physician."
The left-wing daily +Pravda+ writes that the Slovak
government will probably welcome the recommendations by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission. "It will be difficult
to blame someone else for the serious social impact," writes the
daily. In order to keep the budget deficit at an acceptable
level, the Slovak government would have to take restrictive
moves also without the IMF recommendations. "But the budget was
unrealistic, just a put-up job, and it was quite obvious that
the expenditures were underestimated and the revenues
overestimated," states +Pravda+. The actual development has been
even worse than the pessimistic forecasts. The 14 billion crowns
(450 million USD) budget deficit is "more than warning". The IMF
mission observed with astonishment the tax evasion, and it
recommended fast and radical measures, including confiscation of
the debtors' property, adds +Pravda+.
The pro-government daily +Smena+ calls the activity of
Health Minister Sobońa a "large cleaning". It is proved by his
effort to introduce the rating system to assess the senior staff
of hospitals and health facilities. "It seems that the minister
took the effort to check the working hours of the directors who
had criticised the rating system. He asked how the former
director of the Bratislava I. Dérer Hospital could manage a
hospital when he worked there less than half time. At the same
time, he was the head physician and a lecturer at the Faculty of
Medicine in Bratislava. Sobońa's position is threatened also
because "he treads on the VIP's heels".
The no-confidence vote passed on the ministers of
privatisation and education by the HZDS caucus only confirms the
fact that those were right who did not believe Meçiar's words
about "the government of experts", writes the tabloid +Nový
ças+. Meçiar presented the government "almost as a team of men
of genius". Along with the twists and turns in the ministerial
posts, it is interesting to watch those of the SNS chairman
Çernák and of his party. +Nový ças+ remembers their leanings
towards the HZDS after the elections, followed by their turning
to the SDč and KDH "under pressure of thinking hard done by the
authoritarian manners of the HZDS chairman", and Çernák's
current repeated leaning towards the HZDS. It recalls an
anonymous statement saying that Premier Meçiar prefers to work
with two second-rate people to one rival. "So far, only one
thing has been clear: Slovakia was made visible in the world
more by our women basketball players than by our unstable
domestic political scene", concludes +Nový ças+.
pv/dr/ms
