[Jim]

News is a few days old. Im surprised no one here is talking about it. This is a major world event. The entire cabinet of the Polish government gone. It must devastate the Polish people and how do you replace a government??

wow.


Polish president, 96 others killed


SMOLENSK, Russia - The crash of an aging Russian airliner ravaged the top levels of Poland's military, political and church elite Saturday, killing the Polish president and dozens of other dignitaries as they traveled to a ceremony commemorating a slaughter that has divided the two nations for seven decades.

Poles wept before their televisions, lowered flags to half-staff and taped black ribbons in their windows after hearing that the upper echelons of the establishment lay dead in woods a short drive from the site of the Katyn forest massacre, one of Poland's greatest national traumas.

Thousands of people, many in tears, placed candles and flowers at the presidential palace in central Warsaw. Many called the crash Poland's worst disaster since World War II.

Twenty monks rang the Zygmunt bell at Krakow's Wawel Cathedral — the burial spot of Polish kings — a tolling reserved for times of profound importance or grief.

The crash also shocked Russia. Sensing the depth of the tragedy for Poland, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally took charge of the investigation and very quickly and publicly offered condolences, along with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

"On this difficult day the people of Russia stand with the Polish people," Medvedev said, according to the Kremlin press service.

'A cursed place'

Chunks of the plane were scattered widely amid leafless trees and small fires in woods shrouded with fog. A tail fin with the red and white national colors of Poland stuck up from the smoking debris. Early indications pointed to pilot error in heavy fog as a factor in the crash, officials said.

On board were the national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, Olympic Committee head, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said. Kaczyinski's wife, Maria, also died.

"This is unbelievable — this tragic, cursed Katyn," Kaczynski's predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said on TVN24 television.

It is "a cursed place, horrible symbolism," he said. "It's hard to believe. You get chills down your spine."

Read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36352097/ns/world_news-europe/

[Musa]

inna ilahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon

[jimdi]

When someone dies, the Muslims say “inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon.” It means, roughly translated, “We belong to Allah and to Him we return.” ...

Just thought the non Arabic speakers would like to know.

[snoopy]

When someone dies, the Muslims say “inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon.” It means, roughly translated, “We belong to Allah and to Him we return.” ...

Just thought the non Arabic speakers would like to know.

Oh, I thought he said, "and I love Salsa flavoured Doritos"

[Rhoda]

This is a horrible tragedy for the Polish people, but I may comment more when the conspiracy theories begin to proliferate.