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The Crystal Globe award for best picture at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has gone to the Polish film My Nikifor, directed by Krysztof Krauze. The film is about a mentally handicapped naive painter called Nikifor Krynicky. Though the artist was a man, he is portrayed in the film by actress Krystyna Feldman, who is 80 years old. She won a Crystal Globe for best actress.

This year's Karlovy Vary festival was the biggest ever; a record 140,000 tickets were sold, exceeding organisers expectations.

The Czech poet Petr Kabes has died at the age of 64. Kabes established himself during the relatively liberal period leading up to the Prague Spring, but was later forced to do menial labour. He signed the Charter 77 protest document. In 1995 the poet was given the Jaroslav Seifert award, and in 2003 received the state award for literature.

The Czech prime minister, Jiri Paroubek, said it appeared no Czech citizens were among the victims of Thursday's bombings in London. Mr Paroubek was speaking after a meeting of the National Security Council on Friday evening. However, two Czechs thought to have been in London at the time of the attacks have not yet contacted their families.

The heightened security measures introduced in the Czech Republic following Thursday's blasts remain in place, with extra police on duty at strategic locations.

A technical problem with a government plane that left the foreign minister, Cyril Svoboda, grounded in Mauritania for 27 hours has led to a row between the Foreign and Defence Ministries, Mlada fronta Dnes reported on Saturday. Mr Svoboda said his ministry resented the failure of the Defence Ministry to deal adequately with the situation. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Karel Kuhnl said he would push for the modernisation of the government's fleet of planes to be brought forward.