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The Czech musician Markéta Irglová and her Irish partner Glen Hansard have won an Academy Award for best original song for Falling Slowly from the low-budget film Once, in which both starred. There was loud cheering at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, when Irglová, collecting the award, told the audience that the song’s success was “proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible”. Hers was not the only Czech success at the 80th Oscars ceremony: The Counterfeiters, based on a book by 90-year-old Prague resident Adolf Burger, took the award for best foreign language film.

The governor of the Czech National Bank Zdeněk Tůma was nominated by the government for the post of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. EU finance ministers will discuss the nomination in March, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said. The second consecutive four-year term of the current president Jean Lemierre will expire in July. The Czech Republic is the first of the post-communist states to have stopped drawing money from the EBRD last October. It has remained in the bank as a shareholder and co-finances projects in third markets.

Prague District Court has acquitted former health minister Marie Součková of charges of breach of trust and abuse of public office. Ms Součková was prosecuted for signing a contract between the Health Ministry and lawyer Zdeněk Nováček which concerned legal aid in the state's dispute with the Diag Human company. The contract was allegedly disadvantageous for the state. It promised Mr Nováček 10 million crowns for representing the state and another 170 million if he won the case. Ms Součková faced up to ten years in prison.

Crowds gathered in Prague’s Saint Vitus Cathedral this Sunday at a special mass to commemorate the victims of communism. Worship was led by bishop Václav Malý, who referred to the Communist coup of February 1948 in his sermon as a ‘tragedy, which should never be repeated’. Bishop Malý also preached forgiveness, asking victims of the communist regime to ‘forgive, but not forget’. The service comes a day before the 60th anniversary of the so-called ‘bloodless coup’, when Communist forces seized power in post-war Czechoslovakia. In the period of Communist rule from 1948 to 1989, over 262,000 political prisoners were jailed or sent to labour camps, where thousands perished. A further 241 people were executed, having been found guilty of performing ‘anti-communist acts’.