Can’t get enough of Indiana Jones? Well, I have good news, straight from France’s Le Figaro: Indiana Jones Nr. 5 Is On Its Way! “George Lucas confirms that another installment of the saga of the celebrated archeologist is going to be worked on,” the newspaper’s Olivier Delcroix reports. And indeed why not, as Delcroix goes on to report that the previous entry in this series, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” has earned $750 million so far since its release in May.

Still, keep in mind that things are still at the rather vague stage. This news ultimately comes from remarks Lucas made to the London Sunday Times, in an interview to be published tomorrow, in which he states “If Steven [Spielberg] and I find a good idea that we love, we will do another.” (more…)

William F. Buckley, Jr. died on Wednesday morning (EST), discovered as deceased by his writing desk in his Stamford, CT home by his cook. There’s no doubt that this marked the passing of a notable man, and there immediately followed the appropriate deluge of eulogies and appreciations from both the American Left and Right.

But what about beyond the borders? What, if anything, did Buckley mean to foreigners? You’d have to think that the sophistication of his speech, especially his vocabulary, made his writings and especially his Firing Line television program rather hard for the non-native-English speaker to digest. And God help any such person who appeared on Firing Line, at least any who had to face Buckley before the TV cameras without accompanying guests present to help carry any argument and take off some of the rhetorical heat. Being there one-and-one with Buckley would be like being in a duel, with your pea-shooter against the other guy’s submachine-gun. (more…)

Now for a EuroSavant exclusive! OK, not an “exclusive” in a “reporter” sense, but rather in what we can perhaps call the “weblog” sense of telling you about a truly “exclusive” article that you wouldn’t have heard about otherwise – or, if you had, wouldn’t have been able to read, unless you happen to read Czech. The Czech Daily Právo has the scoop here: Wounded Nemcova Likely to Return From Asia Today. (Právo Newton registration required – yeah, it’s a huge pain.) (more…)

A notable topic covered lately in the Czech press is one of that country’s chief vices: smoking. That coverage does not really concern the associated damage to one’s health and the fact that anyone who can quit really should – the Czechs know about all that already. Rather, what has occurred is two recent developments with seemingly opposite meanings for the country’s smoking classes, but which in the end still basically leave them gasping for air. (more…)

There’s an interesting article in today’s Hospodárské noviny (Cuddle Your President), by Nad’a Klevisová, reporting in wonder about one aspect of American democracy that apparently has not yet percolated through to the Czech version: political knick-knacks and souvenirs. It begins:

Let’s imagine that presidential elections come around again and Václav Klaus once again stands as a candidate. So his supporters flood into the stores to buy him in miniature, in a suit with a proper tie, and with buttons where his solar plexus is located. Ridiculous? Not in America.

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As we’re all painfully aware, the Constitution (or, properly, “Constitutional Treaty”) for the European Union is still only in draft form. It awaits final approval (in whichever mutually-agreed altered form) from the governments of twenty-five member-states (present, and the ten of the immediate future) which is supposed to come out of the summit of heads-of-government starting this Friday in Brussels – “supposed to.” There will then follow ratification processes in all those twenty-five states, lasting through the first half of 2004, and themselves by no means assured of resulting in approval in all cases.

There’s a long road yet to go for the Constitution, then. Nonetheless, one EU head-of-state has already come out against it – or perhaps “future EU head-of-state” would be more accurate, since that was Czech President Václav Klaus, who on Monday declared Byl bych radsí, kdyby zadná taková ústava nebyla prijata, or “I would rather that no constitution of this sort be accepted.” (Sorry, Czech purists: as usual, some diacritics have had to be omitted.) He uttered this after a meeting at which Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla briefed him on the negotiating mandate the Czech delegation (headed by Spidla) will take into this weekend’s EU summit.

On the subject of Czech press coverage of this, I would like to start off with where there isn’t any, namely in Lidové noviny, which skipped Klaus’ declaration entirely. (Could this have to do with the fact that LN is the paper closest to Klaus – he wrote a regular column for it in his pre-presidential days – and that this anti-Constitution declaration might be viewed by some as embarrassing?) (more…)

We’re back to Euro 2004 Group D: “Group of Death” analysis today, and it’s the turn of the Czech press, featuring an interview with Czech national team coach Karel Brückner, plus one with Czech team captain Pavel Nedved – plus more individual quotes from various figures. But the thing that I really wanted to show you I can’t, because it’s a copyrighted picture, capturing Brückner at the moment of last Sunday’s drawing, which appeared on the front page of Monday’s Mladá fronta dnes: He is shown there in Lisbon in his suit, with his FIFA badge around his neck, clutching his head in disbelief and amazement (although still smiling), and the caption reads “Ajajaj!” – which is Czech for Mexican, if you get what I’m saying. (more…)

Today we’re again a bit on the parochial side. But not in the Dutch sense – rather, in the Czech sense, since I need to head to Prague again this evening for a few days. So naturally I’ve been heavily into the Czech press lately. What has been going on? On the one hand, the Czech socialist coalition government just (barely) survived a vote of confidence in Parliament, and the main governing party looks like it’s about to throw out a maverick within its ranks whose non-cooperation made the confidence vote so close. On the other hand, the results of the Czech Beer Competition for 2003 have just been announced. Which story would you rather hear more about?

I’m guessing the latter. Both Hospodarske noviny and Právo (registration required – in Czech!) have write-ups on the just-completed Czech Beer Competition, Právo being slightly more-informative. (more…)

The countdown is on for the referendum in the Czech Republic on EU accession, to take place over next Friday and Saturday (13 and 14 June). As most of the other candidate countries have done, Czech authorities are also making use of the tactic of opening the voting centers over two days to encourage as large a turn-out as possible (although referenda in the Czech Republic do not have any legally-mandated level of participation, below which they become invalid). And the Prague authorities enjoy a further advantage: their referendum is towards the end in the series of candidate country referenda (only a couple of the Baltic countries remain), and the script has gone according to plan – all of the other countries voting before have voted “Yes” (if in some cases with distressingly-low levels of voter turn-out), so that puts further pressure on Czech voters not to show themselves to be the odd man out. (more…)

US military bases in the Czech Republic! There is now talk of that, and Czech politicians are now arranging themselves on either side of that issue.

The talk up to now has been not about the Czech Republic but rather about Romania and Bulgaria, which SACEUR chief General James Jones recently described as “extremely good candidates” for US military bases. Indeed, the Sarafovo airbase in eastern Bulgaria proved extremely handy during the recent war in Iraq as a location to base US refueling aircraft. But now it seems the Czech Republic is also in play – even though no official request or inquiry has yet been forthcoming from the American side. (more…)