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A portrait of Barack Obama given to the US president during his recent visit to the Czech Republic will temporarily go on display at a Prague gallery. The portrait, by Spanish artist Jose-Maria Cano, was given to Mr Obama by former Czech president Václav Havel. Mr Obama visited Prague on April 4 and 5, giving a keynote speech on nuclear disarmament just outside Prague Castle. He then met privately with Mr Havel shortly before his departure. The gift by Mr Havel will go on display at the DOX gallery until April 22, after which it will be sent on to Washington.

Czech political leaders have agreed on a prime minister designate who would lead the country until early elections. The candidate who received unanimous support from both the outgoing coalition and the opposition Social Democrats is Jan Fischer, head of the Czech Statistical Office. The 58-year-old economist should put together a caretaker government that would take over on May 9 and lead the country until early elections expected in October. Pending ratification, Fischer would be expected to replace the outgoing prime minister, Mirek Topolánek, whose cabinet was toppled last month midway through the Czech Republic's six-month European Union presidency. Jan Fischer, who became the head of the statistical office in 2003, is non-partisan but was a member of the Communist Party in 1980-1989.

The Czech Republic’s proposed new prime minister Jan Fischer has said that the main priority of an interim government in this country must be the successful continuation of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency. Current prime minister Mirek Topolánek’s cabinet handed in its resignation late March halfway through the country’s EU presidency. On Sunday evening, leaders of the Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats, Greens and Social Democrats agreed that Mr Fischer should be nominated as a new prime minister to fill Mr Topolánek’s post. This nomination still needs to be agreed upon formally by the party leadership and handed to President Václav Klaus for approval.

In the same interview, President Václav Klaus reacted to Sunday’s speech by US President Barack Obama at Prague Castle, praising it for being ‘unexpectedly Czech’. Mr Klaus said that the American President did not tie his speech to the EU-US Summit which took place later on Sunday in Prague’s Congress Centre, which, Mr Klaus said, was a good thing. In the course of his meeting with President Barack Obama at Prague Castle before the latter’s address, Mr Klaus said that the two men spent around three minutes discussing climate change. The Czech president is an outspoken climate-change denier, while Mr Obama dedicated a part of his speech on Sunday to laying out plans to fight global warming.