Czech Republic

World leaders join Czechs in an emotional tribute to the nation’s first democratically-elected president, Vaclav Havel, at a pomp-filled funeral ceremony.

At least 10,000 people pack the streets of Prague as the body of former Czech president Vaclav Havel is taken in procession to Prague Castle, where it will lie in state for three days.

“It was the early hours of the morning when an ever-so-slightly inebriated Havel finally set off for home, and we followed him, to a nondescript apartment block, and managed to record the only interview with him. His wife Olga tried to shoo us away, saying he was too exhausted to speak to the TV, but he insisted – this was a moment too euphoric, too long fought for, to waste on sleep.”

The playwright and dissident who became the President of Czechoslovakia in 1989 was one of the architects of the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Someone Czech his pockets! Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus is embroiled in an embarrassing blunder as he his caught on camera pocketing a pen on a state visit to Chile.