By Randy Economy
www.Economy4ABC.Blogspot.com
April 18, 2010
12:45 a.m. (PST)
Warsaw, Poland:
Thousands of people are currently gathering in Krakow for the sad state funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Leah.
The state funeral will begin with a the Mass at Krakow's St Mary's Catholic Basilica. This is one of the saddest days in the modern history of Poland. The country is still in a state of shock over the tremendous blow to it's government.
After a funeral Mass, the president will be buried in Wawel Cathedral, the resting place of Poland's kings and national heroes. He and 95 others died eight days ago when their plane crashed in fog en route to a ceremony in Russia. Like many American's, I have been staying up late (or early) to watch the official state funeral and memorial mass that took place yesterday. Every single part of the Poland's government has been effected from this tragedy.
It is going to take months, if not years to build Poland back up from its sorrow.
As being reported, dozens of world leaders cannot attend because flights have been grounded by Iceland's volcano.
Here is the latest list of attendees and no-shows:
Not attending:
US President Barack Obama
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
UK's Prince (Charles) of Wales and Foreign Secretary David Miliband
Spanish King Juan Carlos and PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
Turkish President Abdullah Gul
Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
Finnish President Tarja Halonen
South Korean PM Chung Un-Chan
Canadian PM Stephen Harper
Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson
Those expecting to Attend incude:
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (pending)
Czech President Vaclav Klaus
Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic
Slovenian President Danilo Turk
Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych
Latvian President Valdis Zatlers
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Andrus Ansip
Romanian President Traian Basescu
Hungarian President Lazslo Solyom and PM Gordon Bajnai
The bodies of the President and his First Lady were driven slowly through Warsaw past places linked to Kaczynski's life. They include city hall, where he served as mayor of Warsaw, and a museum that he championed on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
The bodies were then placed on a military transport plane, which taxied slowly on the runway before taking off to Krakow. It is flying below the volcanic ash plume paralyzing air travel in Europe.
If you are up late here on the West Coast of the United States, please turn to the BBC on your cable system to watch the Funeral. This reminds me of when Princess Diana's funeral took place in the middle of night here in the US.
Keep Poland and the wonderful people of this country in your prayers this Sunday!
RIP
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