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And staying on the high seas, or rather rivers, Prague has a brand new attraction: stand on Prague's Legie Bridge near the National Theatre tonight and you'll see a huge statue of a woman emerging from the river and sinking back again to the accompaniment of music and special light effects. has the details:

Now, do you believe what you read in the papers? Well, if you do, the Czech Republic's ambassador to London has decided to go back to his old job: window cleaning. Ambassador Pavel Seifter was really a window cleaner during his years as a dissident following the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the only job left open to him by the new hard-line regime. His decision, however, has caused confusion in the British media and a certain degree of nervous tension at the Foreign Ministry here in Prague. For more here's :

The British Cabinet's recommendation that scientists be allowed to use embryo cells in research to grow replacement body parts has met with huge interest among Czech experts. has been following their reactions:

The first Czech computer expert received a Green Card on Tuesday to live and work in Germany. It was granted as part of Germany's bid to recruit 20,000 computer specialists from all around the world, to fill a much-needed gap in the German labour market. Computer science is still a very popular course at Czech universities. Every year hundreds of students graduate in IT, and are immediately snapped up by Czech firms. The shortage in Germany gives them even more possibilities. reports:

This week Prague hosts the fifth World Abilympics, in which physically and mentally handicapped people compete in a number of wide-ranging activities, such as knitting, weaving carpets and woodcarving, to name just a few. The 2000 Abilympics opened on Monday at the Vystaviste exhibition grounds and some 800 disabled people from around the world are taking part. went along and spoke with two participants from Australia, Colin Keast and Philip Deschamp. They first told her which activities they'd opted for at this year's event:

It's holiday time, a fact you can't possibly ignore walking the streets of downtown Prague. The city's winding alleys are crowded with tourists, many of them old-age pensioners. But you don't have to listen to the language they're speaking to know that those rather elderly tourists are foreign tourists. As reports, most Czech pensioners lack the financial means for expensive holidays.

The countdown to the Sidney 2000 Olympic Games is now well and truly underway. Here in Prague on Monday, the Czech Olympic Committee selected the 126 athletes and 74 coaches, doctors and trainers that will represent the country down under, although minor additions can be made before the final registration deadline of midnight on August 25th. Radio Prague's spoke earlier to the chairman of the Czech Athletics Union, Karel Pilny, and began by asking him what procedures were used to decide the names of the 92 men and 34 women that will compete in

And staying in the country, our correspondent reports from the medieval town of Kutna Hora, and descends into the murky depths of the town's famous silver mines...

On Monday, Prague's Wenceslas square briefly served as a stage for a modern-day morality play. The characters consisted of a schoolgirl, a woman carrying a child, a manual worker with a family to feed and a young man. The schoolgirl had no school to go to, the mother lacked proper health care for her child, the manual worker was jobless and the young man was homeless. And the moral of the story? Their misery was caused by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which instead of financing the basic needs of these people gave money to