Sunday, April 10, 2011

Divided Poland marks anniversary of Russia crash

Divided Poland marks anniversary of Russia crash AFP – People waves flags in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw April 10, 2011, to commemorate the first …
WARSAW (AFP) – Poland on Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of a plane crash in Russia that killed president Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other high-profile Poles, amid bitter domestic divisions and a row with Moscow.
At a ceremony in central Warsaw, the late president's identical twin and current conservative opposition leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, lashed out.
He slammed the "weakness of the (Polish) state, which was not up to the task of protecting its own president".
In a stark sign of splits in Poland's establishment, the Kaczynski twins' Law and Justice party (PiS) boycotted official events and organised its own.
Earlier Sunday, at 8:41 am (0641 GMT), the exact time of the April 10, 2010, tragedy in Smolensk, western Russia, a visibly emotional President Bronislaw Komorowski paid silent tribute to his predecessor and the 95 other victims in a Warsaw church.
Bowing before a memorial plaque, Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk -- both from the centre-right Civic Platform (PO), PiS's nemesis -- placed candles, a traditional mourning symbol in deeply Catholic Poland.
Later, in a Warsaw cemetery where many of the victims lie, Komorowski appealed for the tragedy not to be a source of strife.
"A year on, we should see what is great, what is good," he said.
"One of the finest memorials we can build together is to care for the dreams and passion of those who died, so that they find followers who will carry their passion, dreams and hopes into the future," he added.
At the presidential palace, thousands of Kaczynski supporters gathered before a makeshift shrine. At the foot of a birchwood cross was a model of Poland's presidential Tupolev 154 jet broken in two.
Lech Kaczynski's delegation had been bound for a commemoration in the Katyn forest, near Smolensk, for some 22,000 captured Polish officers slain by the Soviet secret police in 1940.
On Saturday and Sunday, Warsaw and Moscow traded barbs over the removal of a Polish-language memorial plaque in Smolensk which stated that the crash victims were heading to Katyn.
The Polish foreign ministry warned that Komorowski may not lay a wreath Monday when he meets with Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev there, but PiS demanded he cancel the trip outright.
On Sunday, Russia expressed "bewilderment" at Polish protests, saying Warsaw had been informed in advance about a bilingual plaque that did not mention Katyn.
Poland has also contested Russia's probe of the disaster, which blamed the Polish pilots for trying to land in fog.
Warsaw has complained of a whitewash of the Russian air traffic controllers and the shoddy state of Smolensk airport.
After Russia released its findings in January, Jaroslaw Kaczynski dubbed it a "mockery" and claimed that Tusk's government was being too soft on Russia. Tusk appealed for the issue not to be politicised.
Besides Lech Kaczynski and his wife, the crash victims included other senior politicians, military top brass and -- in a bitter twist -- relatives of those shot at Katyn.
The World War II massacre has remained a thorn in Polish-Russian ties.
Moscow blamed Nazi Germany until 1990, and Poles could not discuss it openly until Warsaw's post-war communist regime fell in 1989.
It has rarely been discussed in Russia since the Soviet Union's 1991 demise.
A year ago, Poles mourned together across party lines, but that unity is long gone.
The Kaczynskis, who clashed frequently with fellow European Union leaders and Moscow, were icons for conservative nationalists but often loathed by opponents.
PiS lost its presidential brake on PO when Komorowski beat Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a snap election after the crash.
The anniversary comes six months before a general election, with PiS trailing PO in polls.

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Siemens 'received $2.35 bn' for Areva NP stake

Siemens 'received $2.35 bn' for Areva NP stake AFP/DDP/File – Siemens has received 1.62 billion euros ($2.35 billion) for the sale of its 34-percent stake in its joint …
BERLIN (AFP) – Siemens has received 1.62 bi
llion euros ($2.35 billion) for the sale of its 34-percent stake in its joint venture with French group Areva, a spokesman for the German industrial giant said on Sunday.
"Areva has paid out the 1.62 billion, that's correct," Alexander Becker told AFP, confirming an earlier report set to appear in the Die Welt daily Monday.
The sum corresponds to the amount established by an independent expert chosen by the two firms for Siemens' share in the Areva NP company.
Nevertheless, the final amount is still subject to a legal battle and could change, added Becker.
"A legal procedure will come to a decision on whether the price is confirmed or goes up or down by 40 percent," Becker said. This could value the deal at anywhere between 972 million euros and 2.27 billion euros.
Siemens has already said it expects the sale to make a significant positive contribution to profit in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2011.
The German group is exercising a put option on its holding after the French government, which is the majority shareholder, rebuffed an attempt to take a direct stake in Areva.
Siemens has since turned towards Russia, and is in talks on the creation of a joint venture with Rosatom, the state-owned nuclear energy agency.
However, after the nuclear crisis in Japan, Siemens is thought to be reconsidering its nuclear strategy.

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Nazi warplane lying off UK coast is intact

Reuters/Port of London/handout
LONDON (Reuters) – A rare World War Two German bomber, shot down over the English Channel in 1940 and hidden for years by shifting sands at the bottom of the sea, is so well preserved a British museum wants to raise it.
The Dornier 17 -- thought to be world's last known example -- was hit as it took part in the Battle of Britain.
It ditched in the sea just off the Kent coast, southeast England, in an area known as the Goodwin Sands.
The plane came to rest upside-down in 50 feet of water and has become partially visible from time to time as the sands retreated before being buried again.
Now a high-tech sonar survey undertaken by the Port of London Authority (PLA) has revealed the aircraft to be in a startling state of preservation.
Ian Thirsk, from the RAF Museum at Hendon in London, told the BBC he was "incredulous" when he first heard of its existence and potential preservation.
"This aircraft is a unique aeroplane and it's linked to an iconic event in British history, so its importance cannot be over-emphasized, nationally and internationally," he said.
"It's one of the most significant aeronautical finds of the century."
Known as "the flying pencil," the Dornier 17 was designed as a passenger plane in 1934 and was later converted for military use as a fast bomber, difficult to hit and theoretically able to outpace enemy fighter aircraft.
Click image to see photos of World War II German bomber

Reuters/Royal Air Force Museum London/handout
In all, some 1,700 were produced but they struggled in the war with a limited range and bomb load capability and many were scrapped afterwards.
Striking high-resolution images appear to show that the Goodwin Sands plane suffered only minor damage, to its forward cockpit and observation windows, on impact.
"The bomb bay doors were open, suggesting the crew jettisoned their cargo," said PLA spokesman Martin Garside.
Two of the crew members died on impact, while two others, including the pilot, were taken prisoner and survived the war.
"The fact that it was almost entirely made of aluminum and produced in one piece may have contributed to its preservation," Garside told Reuters.
The plane is still vulnerable to the area's notorious shifting sands and has become the target of recreational divers hoping to salvage souvenirs.
The RAF museum has launched an appeal to raise funds for the lifting operation.
(Editing by Steve Addison)

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Iceland rejects debt deal to repay UK, Dutch

REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Voters in Iceland rejected a government-backed deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands for their citizens' $5 billion worth of deposits in a failed online bank, referendum results showed Sunday — sending the dispute to an international court and plunging the economically fragile country into new uncertainty.
Final results showed the "no" side had just under 60 percent of the votes and the "yes" side about 40 percent.
The result reflects Icelanders' anger at having to pay for the excesses of their bankers, and complicates the country's recovery from economic meltdown.
It is the second time voters have defeated a bid to settle the bitter dispute stemming from the collapse of Iceland's high-flying banking sector in 2008, and the government said it would be the last.
"We are at the end of the road of a negotiated solution," said Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson.
He said Iceland would now opt for "Plan B," with the dispute going to the European Free Trade Association court, which could impose harsher terms on Iceland than those rejected in Saturday's vote.
Britain and the Netherlands said they would fight to get back the money they spent compensating their citizens who had accounts in the failed bank, Icesave.
Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said the referendum result "is not good for Iceland and also not good for the Netherlands."
"The time for negotiations has passed," he said. "Iceland still has the obligation to pay us back. This is now a case for the courts."
British Treasury minister Danny Alexander said "we have an obligation to get that money back, and we will continue to pursue that until we do."
"We have a very, very difficult financial position as a country," Alexander told the BBC. "This money, of course, would help."
Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said the results were disappointing but she would try to prevent political and economic chaos ensuing. Sigfusson said the result would have no effect on Iceland's existing debt repayments and would not derail its bid for European Union membership.
A tiny North Atlantic nation with a population of just 320,000, Iceland went from economic wunderkind to financial basket case almost overnight when the credit crunch took hold.
Its major banks — which had expanded to dwarf the rest of Iceland's economy during a decade of credit-fueled boom — collapsed within a week in October 2008, its krona currency plummeted and protests toppled the government.
The savings of Icelandic citizens were protected by an unlimited domestic deposit guarantee, but no such rule applied to the many foreigners attracted to Icelandic banks by their high-interest accounts.
Some 340,000 British and Dutch savers had deposited more than $5 billion in Icesave. After Icesave collapsed, British and Dutch authorities borrowed money to compensate their citizens, then turned to Iceland for repayment.
The dispute has grown acrimonious, with Britain and the Netherlands threatening to block Iceland's bid to join the European Union unless it is resolved.
Failure to approve a deal also stalled installments from a $4.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Sigfusson said the government would hold talks with those who have loaned Iceland money — the IMF, the Nordic nations and Poland — in the wake of the referendum defeat.
"We have made substantial progress moving out of the crisis in 2008, and we intend to keep on doing so despite this outcome," he said.
Icelanders overwhelmingly rejected a previous deal in a referendum last year, but the government had hoped a new agreement on better terms would win approval.
The Icesave debt was initially set at $5.3 billion — a crippling burden for the tiny country — but backers of the rejected deal said it would cost Iceland just under 50 billion kronur ($444 million), with the recovered assets of Icesave's parent bank, Landsbanki, covering the majority of the debt.
The deal was reached in December after long negotiations among the three countries and approved by Iceland's parliament in January. But President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson vetoed it amid strong public opposition.
The president hailed the referendum, and the high voter turnout of 75 percent, as a cathartic step for Iceland.
He said the financial collapse had "paralyzed the nation's will and sapped the courage of our people."
"The two referendums on the Icesave issue have enabled the nation to regain its democratic self-confidence and to express sovereign authority in its own affairs and thus determine the outcome in difficult issues," Grimsson said.
Opposition politicians called on the government to hold new elections, but Sigfusson said the left-of-center coalition would not resign.
"This was a referendum on the Icesave case, not on the government," he said.
___
David MacDougall in Reykjavik, Jill Lawless in London and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS Adds voter turnout, quote from president. Corrects president's name to Grimsson, not Grisson. This story is part of AP's general news and financial services.)

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