Czech Republic

Richard, a 14-year old grey-and-black gorilla, was declared the winner of the Prague zoo’s alternative reality show on Sunday and can look forward to a first prize of 12 melons (<i>melon</i> meaning million in Czech slang), the zoo said. Richard is the dominant male in the group of four gorillas.

The cast and crew of the Czech reality show <i>VyVoleni (The Selected)</i> were cleared from the Prague villa used for filming before dawn on Sunday by about 40 security guards and dogs sent in by the site landowner over a rent disagreement, broadcaster TV Prima announced.

A Prague court on Friday ruled that a TV quiz-show contestant was right when the moderator called him wrong on the Czech Republic’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The court awarded Karel Lupomesky more than three million koruna ( 000) in prize money.

They know how United States President George Bush likes his Thanksgiving turkey, how the Queen takes her toast and just how many puddings former US president Bill Clinton can get down. These and other culinary secrets of some of the most powerful, or poshest, people in the world will be adding spice to the dinner table conversation at one of the most select and sybaritic of world summits as it meets this week.

A Czech truck driver who drove into a ditch was found to have 8g of alcohol in his bloodstream, just a month after he was stopped for drunk driving, authorities said on Thursday. "It is the same man we stopped on April 20 with 4,19g" per liter of blood, said the deputy chief of police in the northern town of Lomnice nad Popelkou.

Soviet-era compact television sets, known for bad reception and low picture quality, are finally popular — as homes for bats. A group of disabled workers in the south-eastern Czech Republic produces bat boxes from the Rubin TV sets’ sturdy plywood casing, which is hard to break and easily resists bad weather.

Tired of hearing reports of visitors paying grossly inflated prices for taxi rides in his city, the mayor of Prague disguised himself as an Italian visitor — and promptly unmasked a driver whose meter ran at more than six times the normal rate, a newspaper said on Friday.

A leading Prague newspaper on Thursday highlighted the alleged historical errors and insults written by United States secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice in her 1984 book about communist Czechoslovakia’s Soviet-backed army. The Lidove Noviny newspaper chided Rice for calling Czechs ”passive”.

A woman claims a vindictive ex-husband shamed her by posting advertising leaflets around their eastern Czech Republic town featuring her phone number and an erotic photo, Prague’s Lidovenoviny newspaper said on Thursday. A district judge is currently weighing the claim.

Czechs are being offered two beers in return for their blood in an effort to recruit blood and bone-marrow donors. Anyone donating blood as part of the ”beer for blood” campaign taking place in Prague on Friday will receive two half-litre glasses of beer in return.

An unemployed Czech man has been given a job by the mayor of the north-eastern town of Stramberk after threatening to commit suicide in a cellphone text message, daily Pravo reported on Tuesday. Mojmir Havrlant (40), sent a message to the mayor, threatening to throw himself off a 30m tower because he could not find a job.

A cocker spaniel owes its life to a man who jumped into an alligator pool at a Czech zoo and rescued the dog from jaws of death, a Prague newspaper reported on on Thursday. The drama happened on Tuesday while Michal Gubik and his girlfriend were walking their female dog at the zoo.

Mention caves and usually images of darkness, musty rocks and bats come to mind. But health specialists in the Czech Republic are putting caves in a more positive light by promoting a special treatment for allergies, bronchitis and other breathing problems called ”speleotherapy”.