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An amateur video - looks like the author appeared at the crash site before the rescuers and security service. Take a look especially at 57 sec., and later. I can hear several gunhots, pretty clearly. WTF?????!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkEmHSIVDwE&feature=player_embedded

Obama to attend Kaczynski funeral 13.04.2010 22:01 President Barack Obama will be in Poland to attend Lech Kaczynski’s funeral on Sunday in Krakow. “The president will travel to Krakow to express the depth of our condolences to an important and trusted ally and our support for the Polish people, on behalf of the American people," says a White House statement. Following the death of President Kaczynski, First Lady Maria and 94 others in Saturday’s plane crash in Smolensk, President Obama said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kaczynski family, the loved ones of those killed in this tragic plane...

Their Daughter People waiting in a line

WARSAW, April 12 (Xinhua) -- So far there is no evidence to show that the pilot was trying to land the president's plane under pressure, said a senior Polish official here Monday. Andrzej Seremet, Poland's chief prosecutor, made the remarks at a news conference while being asked whether the Polish pilot was pressured to land the plane carrying President Lech Kaczynski and other senior officials in Russia. The Soviet-made TU-154 hit the top of trees as it attempted in thick fog to land at a Smolensk airport in west Russia on Saturday morning, killing all the 96 people on board...

The plane crash Saturday that wiped out much of Poland's political and military leadership -- including President Lech Kaczynski -- was a staggering blow to a nation that's struggled, successfully, to rebuild in the post- Communist era. It also offers the world, especially Washington, a chance to reflect on the Eastern European nation's strategic value as Russia seeks to reclaim a dominant role in global affairs. Democracy and capitalism have borne fruit in Poland, where Soviet hegemony -- and international communism -- began to unravel 30 years ago. Last year, Poland's GDP swelled by nearly 2 percent, even as much...

An ally who feared U.S. indifference. Tragedy In Smolensk: Lech Kaczynski was a Polish patriot and a friend of the West who believed in the defense of freedom and democracy. We don't have many friends like him, and we treated him shabbily. Numerologists might note the number 70 figured prominently in both the life and death of Poland's president. Kaczynski, 60, his wife Maria, an economist, and 95 others who died Saturday on their way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre of 22,000 Polish prisoners in the Katyn Forest in western Russia in 1940 by Stalin's secret...

The recent tragic plane crash which just happened killing a large group of prominent polish personalities(many conservatives)could have opportunatly cleared the way for some ideologists and krypto-tyrants like OBAMA and PUTIN.... But shamefully for those Thugs in chief, KACZYNSKI's twin could be ba-ack after the next elections in POLAND...

The Glory of Poland By ROGER COHEN Published: April 12, 2010 NEW YORK — My first thought, hearing of the Polish tragedy, was that history’s gyre can be of an unbearable cruelty, decapitating Poland’s elite twice in the same cursed place, Katyn. My second was to call my old friend Adam Michnik in Warsaw. Michnik, an intellectual imprisoned six times by the former puppet-Soviet Communist rulers, once told me: “Anyone who has suffered that humiliation, at some level, wants revenge. I know all the lies. I saw people being killed. But I also know that revanchism is never ending. And...

US senator offers resolution honoring late Polish president (AFP) – 41 minutes ago WASHINGTON — A top US senator on Monday proposed a resolution honoring the lives of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and the 94 others killed when their airplane crashed over the weekend. "Together with the Polish nation and friends of Poland worldwide, I mourn this unbelievably tragic loss," Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said as he introduced the symbolic measure. The measure marks the "terrible tragedy," honors "the life and legacy" of Kaczynski and of all of the Poles who...

Poland’s tragedy is our tragedy By David A. Harris · April 12, 2010 NEW YORK (JTA) – When the plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and dozens of other officials crashed in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia on Saturday, this immense disaster was also a personal tragedy. I lost friends in the crash that killed key leaders from the Polish government, economy, and military. These friends represented democratic Poland, the country that emerged after a decade of struggle led by Solidarity and KOR activists. And of all places for Polish leaders to meet their maker, why did...

President Kaczynski’s last speech 12.04.2010 11:53 Below is the text of the speech which Lech Kaczynski, who died on Saturday, was going to deliver at the 70th anniversary ceremony of the Katyn massacre. “Dear Representatives of the Katyn Families. Ladies and Gentlemen. In April 1940 over twenty-one thousand Polish prisoners from the NKVD camps and prisons were killed. The genocide was committed at Stalin’s will and at the Soviet Union’s highest authority’s command. The alliance between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and the Soviet attack on Poland on 17 September 1939 reached a terrifying climax...

Chief Rabbi escapes tragic flight By ABE SELIG 12/04/2010 02:28 When Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich received word on Saturday night that Polish President Lech Kaczynski had been killed in a plane crash, along with 95 other members of the country’s elite, he knew that not only had a “great friend of Israel and the Jewish people” perished, but that his own life had been spared. Schudrich had been invited to accompany the Polish delegation on its trip to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest Massacre near the Russian border with Belarus, and had only declined to...

A leading Polish defence analyst says late president Lech Kaczynski was well known for ordering pilots to land in dangerous conditions. The Polish leader was one of 97 people killed when his Russian-built Tupolev Tu-154 came down in thick fog near the Russian city of Smolensk on Saturday on its fourth attempt to land. Russian officials are investigating whether pilot error was to blame. Mr Kaczynski's delegation was headed to a memorial service in Katyn for 22,000 Poles who were massacred by Soviet secret police during World War II, a historic wound which has still not healed despite the passage...

The shocking tragedy in Russia today includes the news that several prominent members of the clergy were among those killed: The Holy Father expressed his sorrow over the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and those accompanying him on a flight to Russia on Saturday morning. Pope Benedict remembered all of those who died and implored "a special blessing to the people of Poland from God omnipotent." According to CNN, President Kaczynski, his wife, top members of the Polish government, army and several Church authorities were on the plane that went down just seconds from landing at the airport...

Poland's government moved swiftly Sunday to show that it was staying on course after the deaths of its president and dozens of political, military and religious leaders, even as tens of thousands of Poles expressed their grief over the plane crash in Russia that shocked the country. New acting chiefs of the military were already in place and an interim director of the central bank was named Sunday, with work running as usual, said Pawel Gras, a government spokesman. It was a rare positive note on a day wracked by grief for the 96 dead and laced with reminders of...

WARSAW — As the body of Poland’s president was returned to this traumatized capital on Sunday, a day after he and dozens of top Polish political and military leaders died in a plane crash in western Russia, the country was in mourning but there was already a sense that its young democracy had passed a major test. The mechanisms to replace the lost officials appeared to be functioning and the political culture was responding with remarkable unity. Senior Polish officials sought to reassure the public that the government would continue to function normally despite the loss. Military leaders were immediately...

WARSAW—Cities across Poland fell silent for two minutes Sunday afternoon as the country remembered President Lech Kaczynski and the dozens of other top officials who were killed in a plane crash in Russia Saturday.

SDI: A Russian-built reactor undergoes operational tests in Iran. Tehran orbits a satellite with an ICBM. Are we about to trade away proven missile defense for unproven and unreliable Russian diplomacy?Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and our new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, are scheduled to meet in Geneva on Friday. One of the topics on the list is sure to be something we have warned about — the trading away of American missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic for vague Russian promises to help with the Iranian missile and nuclear threat. The Russian daily newspaper Kommersant...