2010-04-11 BBC
BBC News with Jonathan Izard.
Thousands of people, many visibly shocked have gathered outside of the presidential palace in the Polish capital Warsaw after President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of top officials were killed in a plane crash in western Russia. The Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the crash the most tragic event in Poland's recent history. The plane came down in a forest as it tried to land in fog in Smolensk airport. There were no survivors. Adam Easton reports from Warsaw.
Thousands of people gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw in a spontaneous show of mourning. Families, young and old, brought flowers. Others lit candles. The pavement in front of the building is carpeted with flickering flames. The scale of the disaster is unprecedented, not just the president, but most of the commanders of the armed forces. Many leaders from the country's main opposition party and senior state and church officials died in the crash.
Russian officials say the aircraft flight recorders have already been recovered. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes sent this report from the scene of the crash just outside Smolensk.
The debris of president Kaczynski's plane is spread through hundreds of meters of woodland on the edge of Smolensk aerodrome. At one end, a large tree has been chopped in two by the impact and nearby lies a large section of the aircraft's wing. Further on, the tops of more trees have been smashed and then the main wreckage of the aircraft, torn into pieces, nearly 200 meters from the end of the runway. As night fell, the search of bodies continued. Among the dead are not just the Polish president and his wife, but a host of senior Polish figures, including the head of the central bank, senior military officers, members of parliament, and at least three Polish bishops.
President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia has offered his condolences to Poland over the death of President Kaczynski. He said Monday would be a day of mourning in Russia. The Prime Minister Vladmir Putin has traveled to the scene of the crash in Smolensk. In Washington, President Obama described the death as a devastating loss. The European Union expressed its solidarity with Poland and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was deeply shocked.
At least 15 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in the Thai capital Bangkok in some of the worst political violence there for nearly 20 years. Soldiers in riot gear clashed with red-shirted anti-government protesters as they tried to clear them from encampment in the capital. Quentin Sommerville reports from Bangkok.
Fierce fightings saw troops use rubber bullets and tear gas in an attempt to clear the red-shirts from one of their two encampments in the city. Protesters responded with petrol bombs, live rounds may also been fired. Soldiers and protesters are among the dead. A Japanese cameraman was also killed, said a spokesman for the city's BMA General Hospital. The country's army has now called for a truce, saying its troops are pulling back. An army spokesman says the red-shirts also to withdraw. Quentin Sommerville reporting.
World News from the BBC.
The leader of Kyrgyzstan's self-declared interim government Roza Otunbayeva has denied that Russia was involved in the unrest which drove the president Kurmanbek Bakiyev from the capital. Asked about the future of the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan, she said the country would keep to its commitments.
Afghan officials say three Italians are among nine people arrested over an alleged plot to assassinate a provincial governor. They worked for a medical charity. Officials say they were detained along with six Afghans, following the discovery of suicide vests and weapons in a storeroom at a hospital ran by the charity in Helmand province. A spokesman for the charity described the allegations as grotesque.
Brazil's main opposition parties have endorsed the former Sao Paulo state governor Jose Serra as their presidential candidate for October's election. The Centralists PSDB, the Democrats and the popular Socialist Party declared their support for the 68-year-old economist at a ceremony in the capital Brasilia. Paulo Cabral reports from Sao Paulo.
Jose Serra will try for the second time to fulfill his lifelong ambition to become president of Brazil. Eight years ago, he was the runner-up in the election that brought President Lula da Silva to power. Decades before, in the 1970s, Lula and Serra were together in the left-wing position to the military dictatorship. Even though, he made a career as a respected economist. It was his stature as minister of house in the late 1990s that gave him national recognition. His actions to curb bureaucracy and the launch of an internationally-acclaimed AIDS treatment program showed him as a tough and efficient manager.
The Bolivian government has condemned the decision by the United States and Denmark to suspend some aid after Bolivia opposed the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord to fight global warming. A Bolivian spokesman said that cutting aid was unfair. He said the country would not change its policies on climate change. The Accord has now been backed by around 120 countries.
BBC News.