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The Czech cabinet is due to hold its first session after the summer break on Wednesday evening and ministers have already started discussing next year's state budget. According to Transport Minister Martin Kupka it is clear that the deficit in 2025 will have to be lower than this year's CZK 252 billion and the goal is to keep it under CZK 235 billion. However, several ministers have already indicated that the money allotted to them in the initial draft is insufficient for their needs.

Eighty foreign experts on drugs and other addictions have called on the Czech government to maintain the course set by the outgoing national drug coordinator Jindřich Vobořil. In an open letter to the Czech government, experts and representatives of organisations and institutions from 27 countries, wrote that the Czech Republic has become a model of sensitive drug policy in recent years, mainly thanks to Vobořil. Vobořil decided to step down as coordinator at the end of August. Prime Minister Petr Fiala  earlier announced that he would continue to act as his advisor.

Vobořil has long advocated the introduction of a regulated cannabis market in Czechia and has supported the possibility of using psychedelics in the treatment of mental illnesses, based on scientific research. At the same time he pointed to the danger of excessive consumption of alcohol in Czechia.

Czechs are marking the 56th anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops on August 21, 1968. Commemorative ceremonies, film screenings, lectures and debates are taking place in Prague, Liberec, Brno and other cities.

A traditional memorial ceremony was held at the Czech Radio building on Prague’s Vinohradská St., which was the site of some of the most intense violence at the start of what became an occupation lasting over two decades.

The third edition of the NeverMore 68 festival at the Prague Exhibition Grounds has organized a series of events highlighting the role of women in dissent. The anniversary of the invasion will also be commemorated by the unveiling of a bronze monument by sculptor Jiří Sozanský on the embankment by the Kampa Museum, with guitarist Michal Pavlíček accompanying the event.

On the eve of the anniversary on Tuesday night, several hundred people gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Prague holding lit sparklers to send a symbolic silent message of protest to the employees of the fenced-off complex and the Putin regime. The gathering was addressed by two former dissidents who stressed the importance of continued support for Ukraine.

Doctors report a rise in venereal diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV. According to data from the National Institute of Health, the number of syphilis cases has increased almost fivefold since 1990 and the increase in HIV positive cases looks set to be the highest in 30 years. In the first half of this year, doctors registered 149 HIV positive cases, compared to 253 in the whole of last year. According to data from Motol hospital, the largest hospital in Czechia, there is an increase of 20 to 25 percent in the basic STDs in the summer months.