Czech morning news in brief: Top headlines for August 30, 2021

Czech President Miloš Zeman has called for savings to be made in next year’s state budget, although he said he can accept the approved deficit of CZK 390 billion as long as there is enough money available for investments. Finance Minister Alena Schillerová reported Zeman’s reaction to the budget following discussions with the President. The government approved the outline of the budget, including the large deficit, in early June. Schillerová said that Zeman would like to debate the budget again following the general election in October. The Finance Ministry has warned that parliament is unlikely to approve the budget before the election, meaning responsibility will be passed on to the next government.

Over the last week, Czech police detained 15 foreigners who arrived at Prague’s Václav Havel Airport with fake personal documents. A group of eight, including a Turkish citizen, an Iraqi man and six Syrians, were detained on Friday. Another Syrian attempted to fly into the country illegally on Tuesday, while six more people with forged IDs were stopped at the weekend. Police also detained two migrants hidden in a lorry undercarriage on the D1 motorway on Friday. The migrants said they were from Algeria but were not carrying any documentation. In July, Czech police detained four young Afghans looking to get to Germany via the Czech Republic, and four migrants from Morocco.

The Czech Republic’s promising run in the IIHF Women’s World Championships in ice hockey world championships came to and end when they were beaten 1–0 by Finland in the quarter-finals on Saturday. The tense match saw chances for both teams, with outstanding performances by both goalkeepers keeping the scores even until Finland’s Sanni Vanhanen broke the deadlock in the 36th minute. Despite a strong performance, luck was against the Czech team, and a subsequent placement game with Japan on Sunday also went against the Czechs. Japan won the game 3-2 to progress to the fifth-place game on Tuesday.

All three victims of the crash of a small aircraft in Slovakia in Friday were Czechs, a Slovak police spokesperson has confirmed. It had previously been reported that the pilot of the craft was Slovak. The four-seat aircraft crashed near the village of Mokrý Háj close to the Czech border. It caught fire after hitting the ground, according to firefighters who attended the scene. The victims of the crash were three men aged 29, 47, and 52. The mayor of a nearby town has claimed that the plane had technical problems. The aircraft was a VUT100 Cobra, owned by the Brno-based UNIS firm.

The 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival ended on Saturday night. The red carpet outside the main festival venue has been removed and life in the Czech town is now returning to normal. The end of the festival came as the Crystal Globe for Best Film went to "As Far As I Can Walk," a film about African migrants, on Saturday evening. The stars in attendance at this year’s festival included Sir Michael Caine, Johnny Depp, and Ethan Hawke. Relaxed Covid restrictions meant cinemas were full for performances, with the only requirement being the wearing of face masks and proof of non-infectiousness. A total of 9,267 visitors were registered for the film festival – in 2019, this number of 12,521. The festival screened 144 films, included 122 feature films and 22 documentaries. 29 of these screenings were world premieres.