A Polish government aircraft carrying among others president Lech Kaczyński crashed earlier today during a landing attempt in bad weather at Smolensk in Russia on their way to attend the 70th anniversary cermonies for the victims of the Katyn Forest massacre. The plane carried between 88 and 130 persons - the numbers given vary this far - and no one survived the crash. Among other victims are the president's wife, Ryszard Kaczorowski who was the last non-communist president in exile of Poland, the army chief of staff, and relatives to the massacre victims of 1940.

As prognosed, the regional elections in France turned out to be a setback for the UMP who are governing on the national level. The socialists succeeded not only in keeping contol of all the regional governments they already had, but also taking new mandates. This success for the left is by many experts seen as a mistrust against president Nicholas Sarkozy and the UMP government.

Sources: Le Monde, Le Figaro, Euronews.

The German election for the Bundestag (federal parliament) resulted in that the current chancellor Angela Merkel can continue in office, but with a change of coalition partner. Instead of the grand coalition between CDU/CSU and SDP, there will now be a more traditional coalition between the Christian democrats in CDU/CSU and the liberal FDP.

Source: ARD

The elections to the European parliament turned out to be a success for the smaller parties in many of the member states, not the least the green parties. Among the more unexpected outcomes was also the fact that the newly founded Pirate Party of Sweden got enough votes to get a seat in the European parliament.

From 1 July France holds the rotating EU presidency and for the coming six months it's up to french president Nicholas Sarkozy to try to steer the EU, a task that is made more complicated by the Irish no to the proposed reform treaty. Nevertheless he has ambitious plans for the future of the union. Beside trying to solve the administrative crisis brought on by the Irish referendum, high on the list are also the Mediterranean Union project and the climate.

Source: Tagesschau.de

The New Zealand government have in a historical decision transfered big land holdings valued to approximately 420 million NZD to the Maori as a reparation of their historical treatment and thereby confirming that the Waitangi Treaty of 1840 was breached by the British and New Zealand governments when they did not respect the Maori's rights to their land.

Source: BBC World

The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, has read out a statement in the federal parliament apologizing for the discrimination and mistreatment of the aboriginal peoples throughout history.

Full text of the speech

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald; Prime Minister of Australia website

Originally written in June 2005

With the death of pope Johannes Paulus II (John Paul II) the Roman Catholic church have lost one of their most important voices in a long time. Not because he was the pope, but because he was Johannes Paulus II, the Pope.