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The US website Foreign Policy has included former Czech president Václav Havel on a list of the one hundred intellectuals whose ideas have most influenced present world developments. The Foreign Policy list features philosophers, writers, politicians and other leading figures, including Umberto Eco, Garry Kasparov and Salman Rushdie. The personalities are listed in alphabetical order, without being compared in terms of intellectual qualities or other criteria.

Astoria in the borough of Queens is where you will find the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, a Czech pub and social centre which first opened its doors in 1919. Today it offers one of the very few large spaces for al fresco drinking in the whole of New York, a fact reflected in extremely long queues to get in during the summer months.

Europe has a particular responsibility for the two totalitarian regimes that originated on the Old Continent, Nazism and communism, as well as for their consequences, former Czech president Václav Havel said Monday at a conference on communism held at the Czech Senate. Mr Havel also said that the European Union should provide greater support to those who strive for freedom in countries such as Cuba, Burma and Belarus.

The former Czech president Václav Havel has largely refrained from interfering in or commenting on domestic politics since stepping down as president five years ago. But this weekend he seemed to cross that fine line between general philosophising on the state of society and making overtly political gestures, when he said people in Prague should not vote for the right-of-centre Civic Democrats in the forthcoming elections.

Ex-president Václav Havel has launched a stinging attack on Civic Democrats at Prague City Hall. In an article published in Saturday’s Lidové Noviny Mr. Havel criticized the city hall for cutting subsidies to the arts, for its lack of urban planning and for a reliance on tourist revenues. In an unusually blunt intervention in domestic politics the former president said the management of Prague City Hall was hurting Prague’s interests. City lawmakers have sparked a wave of protests from Prague’s theatrical world with a new programme of subsidies which Mr. Havel said would strangle to death non-profit-making theatres. The ex-president also criticized the city hall for sanctioning what he called “uninspired architecture” with giant warehouses and shopping centres “spreading like cancer” and the fact that local life was being forced out of the city centre.

Václav Havel’s "Leaving", the playwright and former president’s first play in two decades, premiered successfully on Thursday evening at Prague’s Archa Theatre. The staging has already received praise from a number of Czech critics. On the eve of premiere, Mr Havel, 71, joked he had never seen so many journalists - who got a sneak preview – at a cultural event. "Leaving" is directed by David Radok and stars Czech-born actor Jan Tříska in the role of a top politician leaving office. Zuzana Stivínová replaced actress Dagmar Havlová, Mr Havel’s wife, in the play after she withdrew citing overwork. An English-language staging of the play is being prepared for this autumn at London’s Orange Tree Theatre.

In this week's Arts, a look at the first new play by former Czech president Václav Havel in twenty years. "Leaving" - about a politician's painful adjustment to a new life after leaving politics - opened at Prague's Archa Theatre on May 22nd, marking a return to the stage for Mr Havel, a world-renowned playwright when he entered politics in 1989.

The world premiere of Václav Havel’s first play in two decades is taking place in Prague on Thursday night. Odcházení (Leaving) is being staged at the city’s Archa theatre, after plans to put it on at two other theatres fell through. It was due to feature Mr Havel’s actress wife Dagmar, but she pulled out saying she was overworked. Václav Havel, who is 71, was a world renowned playwright before becoming president of Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Last-minute rehearsals before the long-awaited world premiere of Václav Havel’s latest play at Prague’s Archa Theatre on Thursday night. Leaving or Odcházení, is the first play the former Czech president has written in more than two decades. It tells the story of a high-ranking politician who leaves his post and sees his world fall apart. The play is inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear and Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard and is about the passage of power from one generation to the next. The former dissident insists that it is not based on his own experiences,

Former Czech president Václav Havel will travel to Israel this week to take part in festivities marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state. Israel celebrated the anniversary on May 8 in line with the Hebrew calendar but further events are planned, including an international conference where political leaders and prominent thinkers will discuss the future of Israel in a global context.