Prague- The creator of a controversial EU artwork, Czech artist David Cerny, failed his own humour test as he bashed a Czech newspaper for running a fictitious interview with him, a report said on Monday.

The Mlada Fronta Dnes daily ran on Saturday a fictitious interview with Cerny, which twists and elaborates on some of his real statements.

Editor-in-chief Robert Casensky said in the Monday edition that the newspaper wanted to try out Cerny's sense of humour after the artist put the sense of humour of the European Union to the test.

Prague - Pope Benedict XVI is to visit the Czech Republic, one of the least church-going nations in Europe, in September, the Czech presidential office said Thursday.

The pope should spend two to three days in the central European country of 10.3 million in late September when Czechs commemorate their national patron, Saint Wenceslas, the office said. The holiday takes place on September 28.

The Roman Catholic Church is traditionally the strongest faith in the country but Czechs are known for contempt of organized religion.

Prague  - Russian natural gas flowing via Ukraine reached the Czech Republic on Tuesday, nearly two weeks after a shutdown of supplies forced the country to tap its underground reserves, a gas importer said.

Martin Chalupsky, a spokesman for the country's dominant gas importer and distributor, RWE Transgas, said that "the first thousands of cubic metres" arrived in the Lanzhot border station shortly after 6 pm (1700 GMT).

Prague - The Czech Republic government agreed Monday to reduce its planned troop numbers in Afghanistan for 2009 in a bid to cement parliamentary support for country's military deployments abroad, officials said.

The parliament's lower house spiked an earlier cabinet proposal on this year's military deployments on December 19. The rejection has threatened troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Kosovo by March.

Prague  - Slovakia, which faces natural gas shortages amid the Russian-Ukrainian row, wants Germany and France to give up some of its Russian gas flowing to western Europe via Belarus, the Slovak premier said Friday.

"We expect a display of European solidarity," Prime Minister Robert Fico told reporters after meeting his Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek in Prague.

Prague - The European Union family faced a serious split on Friday as the bloc's justice m