Vaclav Havel, Czech leader and playwright, dies at 75

 
Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic's first president after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule, has died at the age of 75.
The former dissident playwright, who suffered from prolonged ill-health, died on Sunday morning, his secretary Sabina Tancecova said.
As president, he presided over Czechoslovakia's transition to democracy and a free-market economy.
He oversaw its peaceful 1993 split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Havel first came to international fame as a dissident playwright in the 1970s through his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77.
'Great European'
Tributes have been pouring in for the man many consider a driving force in the overthrow of communist rule in eastern Europe.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed Havel as a "great European" in a letter of condolence to Czech President Vaclav Klaus.
"His fight for freedom and democracy was as unforgettable as his great humanity," wrote Mrs Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany.
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Vaclav Havel
    Born in 1936 to a wealthy family in Czechoslovakia
    Considered "too bourgeois" by communist government, studied at night school
    Writing banned and plays forced underground after the 1968 Prague Spring
    In 1977, co-authored the Charter 77 movement for democratic change
    Faced constant harassment and imprisonment as Czechoslovakia's most famous dissident
    Czechoslovakia's first post-communist president in December 1989
    Oversaw transition to democracy, and 1993 division into the Czech Republic and Slovakia
    Left office in 2003 and continued writing, publishing a new play in 2008 and directing first film in 2011
    Life of Vaclav Havel in pictures
"We Germans in particular have much for which we are grateful to him. We mourn this loss of a great European with you," she wrote.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "deeply saddened" and that Europe owed Havel a "profound debt".
"Havel devoted his life to the cause of human freedom. For years, Communism tried to crush him, and to extinguish his voice. But Havel could not be silenced.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter: "Vaclav Havel was one of the greatest Europeans of our age. His voice for freedom paved way for a Europe whole and free."
Chronic ill-health
Havel died at his country home north-east of Prague.
In his final moments, he was comforted by his wife Dagmara and several nuns, his secretary was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
Havel had looked thin and drawn on recent public appearances, the BBC's Robert Cameron reports from Prague.
When he met the visiting Dalai Lama in Prague this month, he appeared in a wheelchair.
A former heavy smoker, Havel had a history of chronic respiratory problems dating back to his years in communist prisons.
He had part of a lung removed during surgery for cancer in the 1990s.
He was taken to hospital in Prague on 12 January 2009, with an unspecified inflammation, and developed breathing difficulties after undergoing minor throat surgery.
Jiri Schneider, a deputy Czech foreign minister, told the BBC Havel had been a unifying figure at the time of the transition from communism.
He had done much to put both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic on the political map, Mr Schneider said.
"I think that without him it would have been much harder to get the Czech Republic and other countries in the region into Nato and the European Union, back to the family of free nations,"