Polish President, lots of other politicians, die in plane crash

[Cain]

Well that was unexpected.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8612825.stm

President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior Polish figures have been killed in a plane crash in Russia.

Polish and Russian officials said no-one survived after the plane apparently hit trees as it approached Smolensk airport in thick fog.

Poland's army chief, central bank governor, MPs and leading historians were among more than 80 passengers.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the crash was the most tragic event of the country's post-World War II history.

The Polish delegation was flying in from Warsaw to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre of thousands of Poles by Soviet forces during WWII.

The BBC's Adam Easton, in Warsaw, says the crash is a catastrophe for the Polish people.

He says Prime Minister Tusk was reportedly in tears when he was told.

After an emergency meeting of ministers, Mr Tusk, who runs the day-to-day business of government, said a week of national mourning had been declared with two minutes of silence on Sunday at midday.

He said he would travel immediately to the site of the crash, in Smolensk. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir said he would go to Smolensk on Saturday as well, Russian news agencies reported.

Mr Tusk added: "The Polish state must function and will function".

A list of the senior figures killed

President Lech Kaczynski and wife Maria
Wladyslaw Stasiak chief of the president's chancellery;
Aleksander Szczyglo chief of the National Security Office;
Slawomir Skrzypek National Bank of Poland chairman;
Jerzy Szmajdzinski deputy speaker of the lower house;
Andrzej Kremer Foreign Ministry's undersecretary of state;
Stanislaw Komorowski deputy minister of national defence;
Przemyslaw Gosiewski Law and Justice party deputy chair;
Franciszek Gagor chief of the General Staff
Andrzej Przewoznik head of Poland's Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, and
Tomasz Merta chief historical conservator

More bodies have yet to be identified.

[Triple Zero]

whoa.

[Elder Iptuous]

holy shit!
i've got a good friend in warsaw.  i'd better give him a ring...

there's some major scrambling going on in that country right now, i guess!

[Faust]

Well at least they still have their prime minister, is the president a trophy position like the Irish president?

[Cain]

Halfway between that and the American Presidential system.  He's got a lot of say over foreign policy, the military and that kind of thing, but not so much on the home front.

[Elder Iptuous]

So, do you mean that they have one fellow who's an essentially domestic head of state, and one who is a foreign relations head of state?
that seems like a pretty good setup that i've been curious about for a while.
if that is the case, how does it generally work out for them?

[LMNO]

Has Germany offered to step in and run things for a while?

[Payne]

Has Germany offered to step in and run things for a while?

No, but Putin is going to run the investigation personally.

[Cain]

So, do you mean that they have one fellow who's an essentially domestic head of state, and one who is a foreign relations head of state?
that seems like a pretty good setup that i've been curious about for a while.
if that is the case, how does it generally work out for them?

Kind of.  Kaczynski was the titular head of state, and most domestic policy was left to the Prime Minister, who could be appointed by him, in theory, if he wanted to, but he left up to Parliament.  As I understand it, this arrangement is quite usual in most European countries, such as France and Russia (though it should be noted in those two, the President's are quite a bit more powerful than in other semi-Presidential systems).  In best case scenarios, it leads to checks and balances on the government, at the worst it leads to deadlock.  So pretty well, IMO.

[Bruno]

[Dalek]

My dad who is Polish is predicts polish nationalists will start raging against Russia, start telling people how it's all a conspiracy, raging some more, and raging against people who don't rage against Russia.

[Cain]

I've heard that is already happening on the forums and blogs.

Of course, any time they notice that Russia still exists Polish nationalists start raging against it, so I can't see this changing much.

[Elder Iptuous]

I've heard that is already happening on the forums and blogs.

Of course, any time they notice that Russia still exists Polish nationalists start raging against it, so I can't see this changing much.

this is especially charged though as it was a commemoration of the Katyn massacre though, no?

[Cain]

Yeah, you could say that!  It could've been worse - if Putin had been seen live on TV, drinking Kaczynski's blood, while burning the Polish flag.

[Eater of Clowns]

Yeah, you could say that!  It could've been worse - if Putin had been seen live on TV, drinking Kaczynski's blood, while burning the Polish flag.

I hear when they tried to capture that moment all that was recorded was screaming and Putin's icy stare through static.