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The playwright and former president and dissident Vaclav Havel is to have his own library. On Friday the project was presented to the press, and its director Vaclav Bartuska said it was in the American tradition of libraries devoted to the work of former US presidents. Given Vaclav Havel's key role both as a dissident and then as the longest-serving head-of-state in the years after the fall of communism, the library promises to be a mine of information. David Vaughan reports.

Eli Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, Bill Clinton, Shimon Perez, Frederik Wilhelm de Klerk or Henry Kissinger - these are only a few names from the list of participants that have taken part in Prague's annual Forum 2000 conference in the past. The conference was initiated in 1997 by then Czech president Vaclav Havel who invited well known politicians, scholars and other decision-makers to tackle the major problems of our world at the turn of the millennium. On Sunday the eight year of Forum 2000 opened, this time focusing on civil society in a globalized

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel opened the eighth successive Forum 2000 international conference in Prague on Sunday, with a speech celebrating a vibrant civil society as a guarantor of diversity. Speakers at this year's Forum 2000 conference, which continues until Wednesday and focuses on the role of civil society and globalization, include John Shattuck, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, and Jeremy Hobbs, the executive director of Oxfam, an international development and anti-poverty group.

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel and 100 international figures sent an open letter to the heads of all European Union and NATO states this week criticizing President Vladimir Putin for allegedly using the Beslan school tragedy to "further undermine" democracy in Russia. The current Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, has taken a very different stance and in fact came to his Russian counterpart's defense, saying there is no proof that Mr Putin is jailing his political opponents or systematically suppressing freedoms.

Former Czech president Vaclav Havel is one of 100 influential figures who have signed an open letter calling on European Union and NATO member states to change their approach to Russia, where they say President Vladimir Putin is using the Beslan school massacre as a pretext to undermining democracy in the country. Other signatories include former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt and political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

Belarus gained independence in 1991 after being part of the Soviet Union for some seventy years. In two years time, the second term of the country's authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko will come to an end. But Lukashenko, who is widely accused of human rights abuses and has also clamped down on the use of the Belarusian language in favour of Russian, now hopes to have the constitution revised by national referendum to give him a third term as head of state. There is a growing diaspora in Europe of Belarusians opposed to the regime, who

This coming Tuesday we are broadcasting a world premiere here on Radio Prague, the first ever English-language production of Vaclav Havel's Guardian Angel, a radio play, which he wrote in 1968. I'm joined by three people who have a connection with Havel or with the play. Firstly Barbara Day, who was in Prague in the 1960s, knew Havel then and also wrote her dissertation on the work of the Theatre on the Balustrade, where Havel was working at the time. I'm also joined by Paul Wilson, who translated the play for us, and by Gerry Turner, who is one

Next week Radio Prague is going to be broadcasting a world premiere - a radio play by this country's greatest living playwright, former president Vaclav Havel. It is called "Guardian Angel", and although Havel wrote the play in 1968 at the height of the Prague Spring, until this year it had never been translated into English. Radio Prague commissioned a translation and made a recording of the play with two British actors living in Prague.

For three days, leading world politicians including former presidents and prime ministers discussed Cuba's future path to democracy at a summit of the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba that came to a close in Prague on Sunday. Our colleague Dita Asiedu was there. Dita, the ICDC was formed a year ago under the initiative of Vaclav Havel with the main goal, as its name suggests, to support Cuban dissidents and help them introduce the island to democracy. But a year ago, people did not believe that the ICDC would do much to help

An Australian bookmaker, reportedly the first taking bets on the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, has said former Czech president Vaclav Havel is its favourite to win. Bookies Centrebet are giving 4-1 odds on Mr Havel being awarded the prestigious prize, though he has often been named as a potential winner in the past.