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It’s not everyday you are given a budget of 10 million crowns (624,000 USD) and told to spend it all. But that’s exactly what a group of Czech art experts were ordered to do by the government on Tuesday, in a bid to bring home some of the Czech Republic’s lost art treasures. Christie’s auction house in Amsterdam was putting more than 400 items from the Liechtenstein family’s art collection under the hammer. Many of these items had once hung on the walls of Czech chateaux. And following the sale, that’s where many of them will be finding themselves

Christian Democrat leader Jiří Čunek is back in the Czech Government after he was re-appointed deputy prime minister and regional development minister by President Václav Klaus on Thursday. More than a year after he was accused of corruption, Mr Čunek has withstood resistance to his comeback and reassumed his position.

The government unveiled plans for a revolutionary change in the country’s motorway toll system on Monday, featuring a new Big Brother-style microchip attached to car windshields. The chip is just one of several changes being introduced on the country’s roads but the plan is particularly controversial, and in European terms would be virtually unique.

The Lidice museum, which stands on the site of the Czech village that was infamously razed to the ground by the Nazis in 1942, opened a new education centre on Monday. Among other things, this facility will give visitors and scholars access to a detailed historical archive of material about what is considered to be one of the most notorious Nazi atrocities of the Second World War.

Prague Mayor Pavel Bém has announced that motorists in the Czech capital can expect to pay a congestion charge as of 2010. Following the lead of several other European cities, Prague is set to charge those driving into the centre of town up to three euros for the privilege. The fine details are yet to be worked out, but already, motorists’ groups are unhappy.

Just days ago the country’s Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek suggested that Czech recognition of Kosovo was a decision that would have wait. But at the weekend he changed his mind: now he has said he will push for the government to officially recognise the former Serb province ahead of the upcoming NATO summit. The decision won’t be an easy one: coalition members the Christian Democrats have already signalled they are against.

Russian chess legend and opposition politician Garry Kasparov has been doing the rounds during a visit to the Czech Republic. Apart from meeting with Czech political leaders, he also managed to get in more than a few rounds of his beloved game.

In the past couple of weeks two incidents have threatened to disturb the peaceful coexistence between Czechs and the country’s Muslim community, centred mainly in the Moravian city of Brno. First, the city was plastered overnight with posters depicting the controversial Danish caricature of the prophet Mohammed which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world. And then last week the ultra-right National Party placed the controversial anti-Qur’an film Fitna by the rightwing Dutch MP Geert Wilders on its web page.

The European Commission has taken an interest in the high noise levels Czechs are subjected to across the country. From noisy roads to squeaky trains, apparently hundreds of thousands of people in the country are suffering. Now, the European Commission has set a deadline for the country to act.

While the Olympics in Beijing are still over four months away, the recent unrest in Tibet has brought the issue of how the world should deal with China – and the games – to the fore. The Czech minister of education and sport is set to boycott the Beijing Olympics, while the prime minister has just issued a statement saying he will let the cabinet decide whether he should attend. With the president staying home for health reasons, will any senior Czech politicians actually go to Beijing? And what would it mean if they don't?