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Latin America: Donald Rumsfeld once observed that Venezuelans had a way of fixing political problems on their own, with no need of U.S. intervention. The dramatic prison break of a union boss may be the first sign. Carlos Ortega's escape Sunday from a Venezuelan maximum security military prison must have sent a shiver through the tyrannical leftist regime of President Hugo Chavez. The tough union boss had crossed Chavez before and was serving a 16-year sentence for leading a vast oil-worker strike in 2002-03. Like Lech Walesa of Poland, Ortega called for independent union leadership at Venezuela's state oil company...

Walesa wants Grass to give up Gdansk honorary citizenship after SS admission By: The Canadian Press at 21:42 on August 13, 2006, EST. BERLIN (AP) - Nobel peace laureate Lech Walesa wants German novelist Guenter Grass to give up his honorary citizenship of the Polish city of Gdansk after admitting that he served during World War II in the Waffen-SS, a German newspaper reported Sunday. Grass, 78, revealed in a weekend newspaper interview that he was called up at age 17 to a division of the combat arm of Adolf Hitler's dreaded paramilitary forces. Asked why he was making the...

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH LECH WALESA "These Are People with a Very Limited Sense of Humor" In an interview with DER SPIEGEL, Solidarnosc founder Lech Walesa, 62, discusses Poland's ruling Kaczynski brothers and his country's relationship with its German neighbors. SPIEGEL: Mr. President, should the German government apologize to Polish President Lech Kaczynski for the satirical article in the small left-wing newspaper Die Tageszeitung? Walesa: You must be joking. We too have freedom of the press. Diplomats and journalists can talk about such ill feelings, but the government absolutely should not react. SPIEGEL: Does the sharp reaction by the twins (President...

Jeff Jacoby: Walesa's reflections Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2006 BOSTON His hair is white now and the day is long gone when his legs could propel him over a shipyard wall, as they did in Gdansk, Poland, in August 1980. But Lech Walesa's face is as familiar as ever and his personality just as brash and charismatic. Even now, to experience Walesa in person is to sense the gifts of leadership and daring that enabled a simple electrician to parlay a workers' protest into the Communist world's first free-trade union, and that union - Solidarity -...

"Total chaos" would be rocking the world if the United States had not reacted to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, former Polish leader Lech Walesa told a Hutchinson audience Friday. Without a counterattack on Afghanistan, the terrorists would have assaulted Moscow, burning the unprepared city "completely," in Walesa's view. Perhaps London would have been the third target, he said. The U.S. "should take the glory" for responding to terrorism, Walesa said. He faulted European countries for not uniting to analyze their role and deciding whether to favor or oppose action in Iraq. Europe should take the greatest blame for problems...

This was e-mailed by a friend in Indiana who is a budding political activist. I thought it worth posting as way of introducing him to the forum. I didn't edit anything. Hell, I didn't even read it. Anyway, please be nice. **************************** Good friends, Well okay, "met" is a bit much, but I listened to him speak at Purdue, and really enjoyed it. He was a great speaker, very humble, humorous, and tactful. I can easily see him atop a bulldozer, inspiring dock-workers to risk their lives for freedom. It's a rare privilege to be in the presence of true...

Walesa says Americans have new chance to reshape the world The Associated Press, Apr. 7, 2006 WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa credits the United States with bring about the end of communism in Europe. Poland's first democratically elected president told an audience of more than 1,000 at Purdue University Thursday night that while he was thankful for what Americans did during the Cold War, he believes they have another chance to help reshape the world through globalization and new ideas. "Don't waste that opportunity," Walesa said. "Participate more in that effort." Walesa won the 1983 Noble...

Story summary: Lech Walesa of Poland will speak about Democracy: The Never-Ending Battle at 7 p.m. Friday, March 24, at Regis University. President Lech Walesa, who led the Solidarity movement in Poland, will speak at Regis University at 7 p.m. Friday, March 24, in the Regis Fieldhouse. He will talk about “Democracy: The Never-Ending Battle.” Recipient of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, Walesa will become the 12th laureate to speak at Regis University in nine years. He was an electrician when he energized striking works at the shipyards in Gdansk, Poland, leading to the downfall of Communism. He became Poland’s...

Walesa becomes US' man in Havana From correspondents in Havana January 22, 2006 US diplomats arranged for Cuban dissidents to get a pep talk from former Polish President Lech Walesa today in the latest chapter of Washington's long-running ideological battle against President Fidel Castro's communist government. "The system will fall because nobody believes in communism," said Mr Walesa, the founder of Poland's Solidarity movement which toppled Poland's communist government and led to the collapse of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. "You are close to your goal," he said in Warsaw in a video conference with dissidents gathered at the Havana...

US diplomats arranged for Cuban dissidents to get a pep talk from former Polish President Lech Walesa today in the latest chapter of Washington's long-running ideological battle against President Fidel Castro's communist government. "The system will fall because nobody believes in communism," said Mr Walesa, the founder of Poland's Solidarity movement which toppled Poland's communist government and led to the collapse of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. "You are close to your goal," he said in Warsaw in a video conference with dissidents gathered at the Havana home of the top US diplomat in Cuba, Michael Parmly. The video conference...

Lech Walesa tells his story of faith at Seton Hall Former Polish president finally accepts honorary degree conferred in 1982 Friday, December 02, 2005 BY SARA K. CLARKE Star-Ledger Staff Former Polish President Lech Walesa said yesterday it was faith that allowed Poland to triumph over Communism, and he credited Pope John Paul II with stirring the nation to rise up in solidarity. Walesa urged listeners to focus on values as he spoke to a gymnasium full of people at Seton Hall University Thursday, as part of the school's World Leaders Forum. "No one throughout the world gave us the...

LECH WALESA stepped down from the barricades yesterday and issued a warning to the West: beware of Russia! One of the world’s best-known revolutionaries was giving his swansong — he will resign this week from Solidarity, the union he led to help shatter communism — to journalists eager to know whether his revolution was ready to roll eastwards. Warsaw is abuzz with rumours about how the West and in particular Poland, should force the hand of President Lukashenko of Belarus. Mr Walesa sounded an unusually nervous note. The Russian bear, he said, should not be provoked by an over-ambitious West...

Polish dissident movement Solidarity turns 25 A generation ago: "Those were great days that changed the world," leader Lech Walesa says By Vanessa Gera The Associated Press GDANSK, Poland - In the Gdansk shipyard, where a humble Polish electrician named Lech Walesa started a revolution 25 years ago, stands a mock food store offering a few pats of lard, some minced meat and vinegar. An old phone booth has an ''Out of Order'' sign, and a recorded woman's voice warns users that the line is tapped. The exhibit, in a shipyard that has become a shrine to communism's victims, is...

Lech Walesa Files Charges Against Station Mon Apr 11, 3:04 PM ET WARSAW, Poland - Solidarity founder and former Polish President Lech Walesa said Monday he filed charges against a radical Roman Catholic radio station that allegedly accused him of collaborating with communist authorities in the past. Walesa told PAP news agency he filed the charges with prosecutors in the northern port city of Gdansk last week in connection with comments made during a debate on Radio Maryja several weeks ago. At least one of the participants allegedly accused him of collaborating with communist authorities in the 1970s. "This is...

Saturday, April 2, 2005 3:00 p.m. EST When the white smoke curled up from the Sistine Chapel on that October evening back in 1978, it signaled that a new Pope had been chosen. His name was Karol Wojtyla. He came, as he said, from a distant land, and as he looked upon the faithful who had gathered on St. Peter's Square he offered words that would sum up his pastoral mission: "Be not afraid." Pope John Paul II died today. In the post-Berlin Wall world this man did so much to shape, it's difficult to recall the much different circumstances...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Wedged between troubled Ukraine and the West, Poland has plunged into the disputed Ukrainian presidential election in an attempt to mediate - a sign of anxiety over the prospect of instability and rising Russian influence so close to home. President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Nov. 25 that he would head to Kyiv at the request of Ukraine's President, Leonid Kuchma, to help broker talks between the government and the opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko, who says he was robbed of victory by a Moscow-favored candidate in the Nov. 21 runoff vote. "I have been asked by Kuchma...

The small Karnes County town of Panna Maria is expected to triple in population Sunday as it celebrates its 150th anniversary with a reception featuring former Poland President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa as a guest speaker. Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement in Poland that led the country out of communism, asked to visit Panna Maria when he was invited to attend the annual convention of the Polish American Congress in Texas this year, said Loretta Niestroy of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. "He's never been to Panna Maria," Niestroy said. "He has been to San Antonio,...

Former US President Jimmy Carter unleashed a fierce attack against the Israeli and American governments in his speech at the Geneva Initiative's ceremony in Switzerland. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, blamed US President George W. Bush for anti-American sentiment and worldwide terror. "Bush's inordinate support for Israel allows the Palestinians to suffer," Carter said. "This is a source of anti-American sentiment in the world and encourages terror." Carter said Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the security fence are the main obstacles to peace. He called repeatedly for the return of Palestinian refugees to the...

WARSAW (AFP) - Lech Walesa, the anti-communist trade union leader who went on to become president of Poland, received a special honour from the Warsaw government for promoting his country abroad. Walesa, 61, whose Solidarity union drove Poland's break with the former communist bloc, received a special diploma from Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz. "I have always done my best to represent Poland at hundreds of meetings with thousands of participants on every continent, and I have to say, without modesty, always with success," Walesa said after receiving the award. Walesa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1983 and...

Anybody just catch Savage ripping the Republicans for too much funeral coverage, and President Bush for a boring speech. Sheesh Michael...