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The three parties involved in talks to put together a new Czech government are expected to sign a final agreement, defining relations between the three partners. The final distribution of ministerial posts is also to be decided, as are the names of individual ministers. Although the two smaller parties – the centrist Christian Democrats and the liberal Freedom Union are expected to challenge the Social Democrats on a number of unresolved issues, they say that these are not differences which could endanger the proposed agreement. The agreement in question will commit the three parties to support the governing coalition through its four year term in office. One of the points of contention is whether the coalition agreement should be signed just by the party leaders or by all 101 members of Parliament representing the parties in the coalition.

A number of politicians involved in talks to put together a new Czech coalition government have said that President Vaclav Havel is likely to name the Social Democrat chief, Vladimir Spidla as the new Czech Prime Minister on Tuesday. The President's spokesman confirmed that this was a possibility. The head of the Christian Democrats, another of the parties involved in coalition talks, Cyril Svoboda, said that a final list of cabinet members should be ready within hours.

Despite traditional bad weather with heavy rain, there has been a party atmosphere over the weekend at the Karlovy Vary international film festival, with concerts and parties alongside a marathon of film screenings. As part of the section devoted to films from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, filmmakers from the region discussed the problems they currently face, in particular difficulties with raising money. Film critic Gergana Dakovska said that only four full-length feature films are made in her native Bulgaria each year. But the young Russian director, Sergej Potemkin was optimistic, saying that support for films in Russia, including film debuts, has increased. Over the weekend, visitors to the festival also had the chance to meet the most famous contemporary Korean director, Kim Ki-Duk, seven of whose films are being shown in Karlovy Vary. We'll be bringing you reports from the festival throughout the week.

Heads of government from ten countries aspiring to join NATO have expressed confidence that up to seven of them will be invited to join the alliance at the November NATO summit in Prague. The Estonian Prime Minister, Siim Kallas, told a meeting in the Latvian capital Riga that he could not see any negative signals.

The Polish President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, told the Riga meeting that he favoured closer cooperation between countries set to join NATO and the European Union and those left out, in order to prevent a "velvet curtain" dividing Europe. He suggested that the Vilnius Group of ten NATO hopefuls merge with the Visegrad Group, made up of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and has since been a strong advocate of further expansion.