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NOW - MP Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Jewish Hanukkah candles at Poland's parliament.

Activists from the western Russian city of Smolensk have petitioned the country's parliament, the Duma, to demolish a symbolic memorial site to the Katyn massacre and a cemetery for its victims, Russian daily Kommersant has reported. Images posted online showed heavy machinery, bearing the pro-war 'Z' and 'V' symbols, approaching the Katyn monument in an apparent bid to destroy it. The memorial site and monument commemorate the Katyn Forest Massacre in western Russia, a series of mass executions of Polish POWs, mainly military officers and policemen, carried out by the Soviet NKVD security agency in April and May 1940. The...

A British air accident investigator has told Sky News he believes there were explosions on board a plane before it crashed eight years ago, killing Polish President Lech Kaczynski. Frank Taylor's findings challenge the original reports of authorities The wreckage after the crash in April 2010

On the 10th of April 2010, the Polish military plane, Tu-154, was involved in a fatal crash in the city of Smolensk, Russia, killing all the crew and passengers aboard. The deaths included the Polish President and First Lady, the last Polish President in exile, the Chief of the General Staff, Commanders-in-Chief, the Chairman of the Polish National Bank, the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, as well as a number of MP's, senators and prominent figures of the Polish elite, among the 96 dead. April 10, 2010 Polish Air Crash This incident, which includes these prominent deaths, naturally...

In the minutes before a 2010 plane crash that killed Poland's president, members of the president's entourage urged the crew to land despite thick fog, according to what a radio station said was a leaked transcript of cockpit conversations. In the transcript, the crew on several occasions ask people to be quiet or to leave the cockpit, and conversations suggest people in or around the cockpit were drinking beer, though there is no indication the crew themselves consumed alcohol. The radio station, RMF FM, said the transcript was from the cockpit voice recorder recovered from the aircraft wreckage soon after...

10 April 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crashed near the city of Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 people on board. These included President of Poland Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria, former president Ryszard Kaczorowski, the chief of the Polish General Staff and other senior Polish military officers, the president of the National Bank of Poland, Poland's deputy foreign minister, Polish government officials, 18 members of the Polish parliament, senior members of the Polish clergy, and relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre. They were en route from Warsaw to attend an event marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre;...

The White House snubs the appeal of the Polish Nation to support the establishment of an international investigation of the Smolensk 2010 air crash. The White House released its official department of state response describing its position on a petition filed with https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ asking to support the Polish Nation appeal for an international investigation of the Smolensk 2010 air crash. The statement (along with the original petition) can be found here and reads as following: The White House has received your petition requesting support for an international investigation of the Polish Air Force Tu‑154 crash that occurred near Smolensk, Russia,...

President Obama has a long track record of insulting the Poles. In 2010 he chose to play golf on the day of the funeral of the Polish President Lech Kaczynski, the Polish First Lady, and 94 senior officials who perished in the Smolensk air disaster. Eight months earlier he humiliated Warsaw by pulling out of the agreement over Third Site missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. And last night Barack Obama caused huge offence in Poland by referring to a Nazi death camp in Poland as “a Polish death camp” while awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom...

On 10 April 2010 a Polish Air Force Tupolev Tu-154M crashed near the Russian city of Smoleńsk. All 96 people aboard the plane were killed, including President Lech Kaczyński and his wife. American media coverage of the crash is best represented by The New York Times, which offered the following description of what happened: “President Kaczyński’s plane tried to land in a thick fog, missing the runway and snagging treetops about half a mile from the airport in Smoleńsk….” This version of events has been repeated throughout the English-speaking media, and is consistent with official Russian claims. What other claims...

The crew of the plane carrying Poland's president that crashed in Russia last year killing all 96 on board were poorly trained and ignored crucial safety regulations, a long-awaited Polish government report into the disaster said on Friday. The 328-page report, which may complicate Prime Minister Donald Tusk's bid for re-election in October, chronicles a long litany of errors and neglect by both the crew and Russian ground staff leading to the crash, which shook Poland to the core. "There were serious shortcomings in the organization of the unit (of the air force responsible for handling VIP flights)," a member...

Pilot error cause of Smolensk crash, say Russian investigators 12.01.2011 10:55 Tatyana Anodina, head of the Russian investigative team into the Smolensk air disaster (Interstate Aviation Committee - MAK) has blamed pilot error in the resubmission of the report into the death of President Kaczynski and 95 others in Smolensk last April. The main conclusions to the revised, 210 page report – after Prime Minister Donald Tusk asked for clarifications and corrections to the original document handed over to Poland last October – are that: * the crew failed to take the decision to land at another airport, as suggested...

Everything seems to indicate that there has been a breakthrough in the investigation ws. Russian Tupolev Presidential disaster. During a test flight over the military airport in Smolensk, the Russians agreed that the radar showed the incorrect data. Our eastern neighbors did not want the Poles to give the report of the study. Could it be approached with great strides Smolensk final determination of the causes of tragedy? If the Russian investigators all documents passed to the Poles for what they ask, perhaps national prosecutors would be able to unravel the mystery of the disaster. The investigation is in place,...

I have always wondered about President Bush when he made the comments about Vladimir Putin and looking into the soul of the man. "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. "I was able to get a sense of his soul. President Bush like many of us want to believe the best in people, hence his comments towards then president Putin. However, as the years past things changed. Bush had the opportunity to get a second look at Putin's soul: Mr. Putin has proved...

This team is beyond any standards - says the fact Mr George Polack (49 l.), a member of the parliamentary subcommittee on aviation flight explaining the reasons for the tragic Polish Tupolev from the presidential delegation. The plane was introduced by the controllers do not have adequate power certified by international certificates. They, renewed from time to time, guarantee an adequate level of training. In Poland, it would be unthinkable! – Does not hide exasperation Mr Polack. But that's not all. How we managed to fix, Russian investigators and Victor Paul Pliusnin Ryzenko prosecutors testified a few days after the...

The aircraft crashed earlier this year as it tried to land at Smolensk airport in severe fog. The fog, which had thickened rapidly just before the arrival of the plane, had reduce visibility to little more than 650ft (200m), well short of the recommended minimum of 3,280ft (1,000m) Poland reportedly wants access to US satellite photography that might cast new light on the weather conditions at the time of the crash, according to Gazeta Prawna, a Polish newspaper. Prosecutors want help from American experts as to whether “there is a scientific and technical capacity to generate artificial fog”, the paper...

And you have heard of a communication tower shortly after the third turn of the TU-154: "The Polish 101, and 100 meters to be ready to leave for the second circle"? Yes, but I heard "50." So I told my colleagues just after the crash and remains as a fortress. I also remember that Il also received from the controller command "50 meters and be ready to leave." During the first and second approach.

American politicians intercede for Polish. Congressman Peter T. King of New York by the U.S. Congress a draft resolution to set up an international independent commission to investigate the Smolensk disaster. Rep. Peter T. King (66 l.), who reported the draft resolution on June 30, mentions in his victim's disaster presidential plane, and recalls that President Lech Kaczynski, he went to the ceremony of homage to 22 thousand Polish officers murdered at Katyn by the graces of the Soviet political police. It recalls the facts then existing, including to, że: that: – Polish experts on security and aviation representatives of...

What-40 pilot heard the commands issued by the Presidential tupolewowi tower in Smolensk. Apparently, investigators knew that the Tu-154 was a false path. But to what he had heard no Polish pilot in stenogramach. As reported by Gazeta Poland "everything indicates that the transcripts , which months ago provided us with the Russians to be counterfeit. Newspaper came to testify What-40 pilot who landed in Smolensk hour before the presidential Tupolev April 10. Apparently Peter had heard the command Wosztyl Tu-154 issued by the control tower. Journalists write that Peter Wosztyl testified that the controller told the Russian Tu-154 pilots,...

RMF FM investigative reporters found that the first recording, recording conversations with Presidential Tupolev missing 16 seconds. According to the reporters it was the missing piece that went to Moscow in the middle of last week, the head of Ministry of Internal Affairs George Miller. 16 seconds is the difference between record of the transcripts , and recording that the CD got the Polish analysts from the Institute of Forensic Research in Kraków. - Leaked transcripts were full. This CD was missing 16 seconds, which were recorded in stenogramie - confirmed in an interview with reporter RMF FM spokesman for...

With all of the focus that has been placed on the crash of the Polish president's plane, the international press has not focused much on the fact that the Polish press had landed at Smolensk. And given the Polish press in the Yak-40 had landed, you would have thought that the press would have been waiting for the president's plane to land. And when the president's plane crashed, you would think that the press would have rushed to the scene of the tragic crash. Well some in the Polish press are now starting to come forward with first-hand accounts of...