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Czech astronomers at Ondřejov observatory southeast of Prague, have revealed the Czech observatory was recently the first terrestrial station to record a gamma-ray burst from a hypernova explosion nine billion light-years away. In less than a minute, automated telescopes at Ondřejov turned their sights to the area in question.

Exactly a month after the country’s early general elections, the newly-elected Chamber of Deputies has convened for its opening session. The house will see the swearing in of 200 deputies representing seven parties and decide the fate of one MP whose stint in office may be over before it has started.

President Miloš Zeman on Thursday officially asked Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka to start talks on forming a new government. The move, which comes almost a month after the country’s general elections, is expected to speed up talks between the Social Democrats, ANO and the Christian Democrats on forming a three-party coalition.

The opening of Prague’s Blanka Tunnel complex, may not take place next April as previously planned. Final stages of the project hit a roadblock on Wednesday when the firm overseeing construction said it needed money it was owed before continuing. City Hall responded with a revelation of its own: that the contract for the massive project was never valid.

As the head of ANO, Andrej Babiš is currently involved in talks on forming a coalition government. But the business tycoon is also in negotiations to buy the Czech Republic’s most popular radio station, and there are indications he also wants to buy a TV channel. Given the fact it is only five months since Mr. Babiš bought a major newspaper publisher, are the freshly-elected politician’s media activities a cause for concern?

This past weekend, a group of Czech scientist and enthusiasts took the popular geocaching hobby – where people look for hidden containers with the help of GPS devices – to new heights, launching caches with GPS trackers into the stratosphere. A carrier gondola, attached to a stratospheric balloon, released the Stratocaches, also called maple pods because of their shape, from 30,000 meters above ground, dispersing them at random. The pods were meant to transmit their GPS locations upon landing back on earth, for geocachers to locate them.

The Interior Ministry has confirmed it aims to hire an additional 1,000 police to its roughly 39,000-strong force next year. According to the ministry, many would serve in districts in the country hit by high unemployment, growing crime and extremism and ethnic unrest. Officers are to receive special training to operate in sometimes difficult conditions, gaining knowledge of the local environment. In addition, the government aims to boost the number of crime-prevention assistants operating in areas, a programme which has already seen a good measure

The drawn-out conflict between the largest Czech health insurer VZP and the Prague Proton Therapy Centre on the validity of a multi-billion crown agreement may soon come to a head. The anti-corruption police confirmed on Monday that they had filed charges of abuse of office against an unnamed person involved in the case.

There was exciting news for Czech soccer fans on Monday evening with the announcement that Pavel Vrba will become national team manager in January. The highly respected coach is free to take the post after a buy-out clause was activated in his contract with Viktoria Plzeň, the club he led in 2011 to their first ever league title and a berth in the Champions League, a “double” he repeated this year.

One the newer annual events during the commemoration of the Czech day of Democracy and Freedom on 17 November – the Memory of the Nation award ceremony – took place on Sunday. The Post Bellum historical society, which collects historical testimonies from first-hand witnesses of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, gave the award to four people this year.