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Perhaps the best known Czech author in the world today, Milan Kundera, turns 80 this Wednesday. The reclusive author of works such as ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ and ‘The Joke’ is celebrating his birthday in his adoptive France, where he has just released a new volume of essays.

A week after the Czech government lost a vote of no-confidence, the main players appear to have reached agreement on a way out of the crisis. Early elections look set to take place in the middle of October and a caretaker government could be in place by the end of April – that is, before the end of the Czech presidency of the European Union.

On Tuesday, six volunteers in Moscow began a 105-day simulated trip to Mars, a project organised by the European and Russian space agencies. The aim of Mars-500, as the project is called, is to study how well humans cope in long isolation and cramped conditions, necessary on any real flight to the Red Planet. Czech researchers from the Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín are among those contributing to Mars-500: they are monitoring relationships and communication among the crew as well as potential points of conflict.

Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka, the story of a water nymph who falls in love with a human prince, has just been performed for the last time this season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The Met’s production starred the soprano Renee Fleming and was directed by the renowned Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek, who spoke to Radio Prague on the eve of the final performance.

Prague’s biggest square, Karlovo náměstí could be getting a facelift which could transform it from being a scrappy green traffic intersection into something much more attractive. Moves to push forward changes have taken another step with a lively three hour public meeting over the transformation.

Four days to go until Barack Obama visits Prague and it seems the US president has rather scaled down his itinerary, with reports that plans to have dinner with the Czech head of state Václav Klaus have been dropped: instead Mr Obama – who US officials say will be tired after G20 and NATO summits – is apparently going to have a private dinner with his wife Michelle. Would that represent a snub to his hosts? After all, both the Czech prime minister and president have criticized Mr Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and the latter is a climate

The Israeli president Shimon Peres arrived in the Czech capital on Monday for a two-day state visit. Mr Peres was welcomed at Prague Castle by his Czech counterpart, Václav Klaus, who by coincidence is also currently the head of a state where the government is in a period of transition.

The Czech EU presidency hosted an informal meeting of the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers over the weekend in Hluboká, south Bohemia. Although Czech officials went into the meeting with an ambitious agenda it was the Czech Republic’s own domestic crisis that inevitably drew the most attention. Just days after the fall of the country’s centre-right government EU foreign ministers sought reassurances regarding the Czech EU presidency and the fate of the Lisbon treaty.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, whose centre-right cabinet was defeated in a no-confidence vote in the lower house earlier this week, on Thursday formally submitted his resignation to President Václav Klaus. Contrary to expectations, the prime minister was not asked to remain in office until the end of the country’s EU presidency. President Klaus made it clear he would use his constitutional right to appoint whoever he wants as prime minister designate – setting down conditions that are almost impossible to meet.

Foreign ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states are meeting informally in the south Bohemian town of Hluboká this Friday. As well as discussing the EU’s external relations, foreign ministers may also be drawn into discussing the Czech Republic’s domestic crisis, following the collapse of Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek’s cabinet. Jan Richter is in Hluboká and joins me now on the phone.