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Jaroslava Moserova, a former burns doctor and novelist who in 2003 became the Czech Republic's first female presidential candidate, died Thursday night aged 76, a family friend said.
Moserova, who came second in the 2003 presidential elections, was one of the Czech Republic's best-known political and cultural figures.
Her hugely varied career included stints as a doctor specialising in burns treatments; a senator in the Czech parliament, and a translator of the novels of crime writer Dick Francis.
In 1969 she treated the Czech student Jan Palach after he set light to himself in Prague in protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia.
She was also a novelist in her own right, and a former ambassador to Australia and New Zealand.
She served as the president of the general conference the United Nations Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organisation.
Moserova died after a long illness, her family friend the ombudsman Otakar Motejl said.
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AFP 241908 GMT 03 06
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