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US President Barack Obama wrote a thank you note to Jan Fischer when he stood down recently as Czech prime minister. Mr Obama congratulated the former Czech leader on his achievements and thanked him for exceptional hospitality during a summit in Prague in April at which the American president signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev. In the letter, made public by a former Czech government spokesperson, he also wrote that during Mr Fischer’s tenure as the head of an interim government relations between Prague and Washington had deepened. Last September Mr Obama announced that his government was dropping a plan created by the previous US administration for an anti-missile shield that would have had bases in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Police are stepping up controls following a high number of deaths on Czech roads at the start of the holiday season. More officers than usual will be on duty on the country’s road network throughout the weekend. Meanwhile, a major nationwide road safety operation will begin on Monday and also involve the police services in states neighbouring the Czech Republic. So far this month around 80 people have died in car accidents, most of which occurred at weekends.

Around 150 far-right extremists marched through Svitavy on Saturday in support of skinhead Vlastimil Pechanec, who received a 17-year jail term for the killing of a Romany man in the town. The protestors chanted slogans including ‘show trials’ and ‘Pechanec isn’t a murderer’. Meanwhile, around 30 anti-racism campaigners gathered at the bar where he stabbed Ota Absolon twice in 2001. Absolon, who was 30, died in hospital a few hours later.

The Czech Brothers Hospitallers of St John of God are planning to hold a series of concerts later this year to mark the anniversary of the birth 200 years ago of one of their most noteworthy members, Celestýn Opitz. Opitz performed the first operation in which the patient was under anesthetic in Europe, at Prague’s Na Františku hospital in 1847. American surgeon William Wharton had been the first doctor in the world to use anesthetic, four months before the Czech. Announcing plans for the concert series, Vít Pospíchal of the Brothers Hospitallers of St John of God told the Czech News Agency that Opitz’s work had been of great significance not only for the order but for the whole of medical science.