The representative of the British Airways cabin crews which is the Unite trade union appealed saying that “landmark attack on free trade unionism and the right to take industrial action”.  The European Convention on Human Rights granted the Unite trade union freedom of assembly, but it has its limits. The Unite union has vowed to appeal after a court injunction stopped the latest British Airways strike.

The  flight, which originated from Hong Kong, had been screened and no explosives were found. The bomb threat had been received by telephone.

All passengers are unharmed and were safely taken off the plane, while police investigated the alert. Cathay Pacific in a satatement said that the plane has been cleared by Canadian authorities to return to Hong Kong.

Airport security in Vancouver meant extra security for the aircraft both inbound and outbound of the airport.

The largest number of seats won was the right-wing Conservatives, coming in second is Brown’s left-wing Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats third. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition would have the majority of MPs in the House of Commons. David Cameron verbalizes that he wants to put aside party differences and work together for the common good and the national interest. David Cameron is Queen Elizabeth II’s 13th prime minister

Queen Elizabeth being a head of state, has numerous traditional roles when it comes to elections and government, yet these are usually no more than ceremonials so to speak, but the queen’s position has become more complicated as with Thursday’s vote that saw the opposition Conservatives secure more seats than Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party but not enough to form a working government.

The queen is the embodiment of Britain’s constitutional monarchy and everything is done in her name. No laws can be passed nor parliaments opened or dissolved without her approval.Such strict protocols bind all stages of the process to install a new prime minister. Although it is her role to anoint prime ministers, the queen does not get involved in the political process, remaining above the fray. In her six decade reign, Queen Elizabeth has dealt with 11 prime ministers, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, who reputedly had a tense relationship with the monarch. After an election, the queen will wait to see if the current prime minister gets a majority or assembles a coalition before inviting them to form a government. It usually falls to royal advisers to ensure the rules work and that the queen is kept well away from the political wheeling and dealing.

Ash clouds from Iceland under the Eyjafjallajokull volcano and it has disrupted air traffic across Europe Thursday, Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority said non-emergency flights would be banned in all Airports until at least 6 p.m. (1700 GMT, 1 p.m. EDT). Along with closures by aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, Irish authorities also closed their air space for at least eight hours. The volcanic ash clouds   shut down London’s Heathrow airport this was really an emergency for the airport handles 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day. The closure also affected London’s second- and third-largest airports, Gatwick and Stansted. Shutdowns and cancellations spread to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland.

The volcano’s smoke and ash poses a threat to aircraft because it can affect visibility, and microscopic debris can get sucked into airplane engines and can cause them to shut down. More News and Updates on the Europe Flights Canceled due Volcanic Ash Cloud

The body of Poland’s first lady was greeted with tears and tulips after being flown home Tuesday from Russia, and officials announced that she and her husband will be buried Sunday in a state funeral at Krakow’s Wawel Cathedral.

President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, were among 96 people killed Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia. Investigators are pointing at human error as the cause.

Stanislaw Kracik, Krakow province governor, said the presidential couple will receive a funeral at 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) Sunday in the 1,000-year-old cathedral — the main burial site of Polish monarchs since the 14th century.

The last Polish leader killed in office, Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who perished in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943, is also interred there.

Leaders expected for the funeral include Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Kaczynska’s body, in a wooden casket draped with Poland’s white-and-red flag, arrived in a military CASA plane at Warsaw’s Okecie airport. It was met by her only child, Marta, and by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, her brother-in-law who was also the twin of the late president.

Her daughter knelt by the casket and wept as a Polish honor guard stood by.

Kaczynska’s body was then ferried slowly to the Presidential Palace in the back of a black Mercedes-Benz hearse, just like her husband’s was on Sunday. Thousands of Warsaw residents lined the route, gently lobbing bouquets of tulips and roses on top of the hearse.

“I’m here because it’s such a tragedy for Poland,” said Maja Jelenicka, 63. “I’m in despair. I feel as if I’ve lost a close relative. Maria Kaczynska was a wonderful woman, kind, with a heart of gold and a real first lady.”

The bodies of the first couple are lying in state in closed coffins in the Columned Hall of the Presidential Palace, where the president appointed and dismissed governments.

Parliament held a special observance in memory of the president and the 18 lawmakers killed in the plane crash. In the assembly hall, framed portraits of the lawmakers and flowers bedecked their now-empty seats.

The names of the victims were read out, and Senate Speaker Bogdan Borusewicz, his voice breaking, declared the crash the “greatest tragedy in Poland’s postwar history.”

The body of Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last president of Poland’s government-in-exile in London, will be brought back on Wednesday and his coffin will also be put on public display, Borusewicz said.

Investigators have suggested that human error may have been to blame in Saturday’s crash that killed the Polish president and 95 others. The Tu-154 went down while trying to land in dense fog at Smolensk in western Russia. All aboard were killed, including Kaczynski and dozens of Polish political, military and religious leaders.

They had been traveling in the Polish government-owned plane to attend a memorial in the nearby Katyn forest for thousands of Polish military officers executed 70 years ago by Josef Stalin’s secret police.

A broadcaster cited Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying there was no explosion or fire aboard the plane before it crashed and that the engines were working until the crash.

The pilot had been warned of bad weather in Smolensk, and was advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere — which would have delayed the Katyn observances. He was identified as Capt. Arkadiusz Protasiuk, 36, and the co-pilot as Maj. Robert Grzywna, 36.

Russian traffic controllers said the crew refused to follow their recommendations, a popular Russian daily reported.

Traffic controller Anatoly Muravyev, part of the team that handled the plane, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that the crew ignored their warnings about worsening weather at the Smolensk airport.

The crew “started landing with confidence and with no swerving,” Muravyev was quoted as saying. “But then the traffic controllers had doubts (about the weather).”

He said the head controller three times ordered the plane to re-attempt the landing and then advised the pilot to fly to another airport.

“The crew did not listen, although the controllers warned them about bad visibility and told them to get ready to fly to a reserve airport,” he said.

Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said Polish prosecutors were still reviewing data from the flight recorders and would discuss their findings Thursday.

So far, 87 bodies have been recovered and 40 of them identified, he said.

Six bodies of Polish officials killed in a weekend plane crash in Russia were trapped under debris Tuesday, search officials said.

Crews worked around the clock to build an access road to the crash site to enable a crane to be brought in to lift parts of the fuselage, the daily Rzeczpospolita newspaper said.

The Saturday crash of the Tu-154 jet short of the runway at Smolensk in heavy fog killed President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, along with 94 other government and military officials and flight crew.

A source said 40 of the bodies have been identified.

The president’s body was returned to Poland Sunday and his wife’s body returned Tuesday, the Krakow Post reported.

Russian officials said early analysis of the flight recorders showed the pilots made two landing attempts before the crash and were speaking to air traffic controllers in Russian and English before the jet crashed and burned over 15 acres.

The body of Poland’s first lady was greeted with tears and tulips after being flown home from Russia on Tuesday, and Parliament held a special observance in memory of the president and lawmakers who killed in the plane crash.

Maria Kaczynska’s body, in a wooden casket draped with Poland’s white-and-red flag, arrived in a military CASA plane shortly after 10:30 a.m. at Warsaw’s Okecie airport. It was met by Kaczynska’s only child, Marta, and by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, her brother-in-law who was also the twin of the late president.

Her daughter knelt by the casket and wept as a Polish honor guard stood silently by.

Kaczynska’s body was then ferried to the Presidential Palace in the back of a Mercedes-Benz hearse, just like her husband’s was Sunday. Even though Tuesday was a work day, thousands of Warsaw residents lined the route, gently lobbing bouquets of tulips and roses on top of the black hearse.

“I’m here because it’s such a tragedy for Poland,” said Maja Jelenicka, 63. “I’m in despair. I feel as if I’ve lost a close relative. Maria Kaczynska was a wonderful woman, kind, with a heart of gold and a real first lady.”

The bodies of the first couple are to lie in state in closed coffins in the Columned Hall of the Presidential Palace, where the president appointed and dismissed governments.

A state funeral is expected to be held Sunday, said Senate Speaker Bogdan Borusewicz, the top lawmaker in the Polish senate. The location has yet to be decided.

The body of Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last president of Poland’s government-in-exile in London, will be brought back on Wednesday and his coffin will probably also be put on public display, Borusewicz said.

Kaczorowski’s family has asked that his coffin be placed in the smaller presidential palace of Belweder, some 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the main palace.

Investigators have suggested that human error may have been to blame in Saturday’s crash that killed the Polish president and 95 others, saying Monday there were no technical problems with the Soviet-made plane.

The Tu-154 went down while trying to land in dense fog at Smolensk in western Russia. All aboard were killed, including President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of Polish political, military and religious leaders.

They had been traveling in the Polish government-owned plane to attend a memorial in the nearby Katyn forest for thousands of Polish military officers executed 70 years ago by Josef Stalin’s secret police.

So far, 87 bodies have been recovered and 40 of them identified, Polish Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said.

The loss of two Bishops and four priests only adds to the great loss suffered by the Polish people.  Let us make the words of St. Faustyna our own: “I feel tremendous pain when I see the sufferings of my neighbors. All my neighbors’ sufferings reverberate in my own heart; I carry their anguish in my heart….” Let us do the same.

SMOLENSK, Poland (Catholic Online) – On Saturday, April 9, 2010, tragedy struck the Polish people. Their beloved President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and numerous leaders of the Government, the military service and the leadership of the Church were killed in a tragic plane crash. It occurred over Smolensk, Russia, while the plane attempted to land during heavy fog.

Smolensk is not far from Katyn, the site where 20,000 Polish officers were massacred by troops of the former Soviet Union during World War II. In a twist of irony, the passengers were en route to commemorate the 70th anniversary of that tragic event. Russian and Polish authorities were gathering to mourn the loss, remember the dead and pledge their solidarity to one another for the future.

The crash occurred on the weekend of the Second Sunday of Easter. The Sunday when, since the year 2000, the Universal Catholic Church commemorated the message given by the Lord to a Polish Saint, Sister Faustina Kowalska. The Lord told St. Faustina: “Humanity will not find peace until it turns trustfully to divine mercy.”

She wrote in her diary “I feel tremendous pain when I see the sufferings of my neighbors. All my neighbors’ sufferings reverberate in my own heart; I carry their anguish in my heart in such a way that it even physically destroys me. I would like all their sorrows to fall upon me, in order to relieve my neighbor.”

Included among those who died were three Christian leaders, Army chaplain and Bishop Tadeusz Plozki, Orthodox Archbishop Miron Chodakowski and Evangelical military pastor Adam Pilsch. Pope Benedict called the faithful throughout the world to prayer and solidarity with the Polish people during their time of loss. In his message to the Polish Parliament he spoke of his “profound sorrow” and entrusted the dead to the “goodness of our merciful God.”

The Catholic Bishop killed in the crash was Tadeusz Ploski of the Military ordinariate. He was 53 years old. Bishop Ploski was born in 1956 in Lidzbark Warminski in the northeast of Poland. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Warmia in 1982. He studied Canon Law at the Catholic University of Lublin and later obtained a Doctorate.

As a priest he served the Polish Bishops as a Canon lawyer. He became the editor of the Diocesan newspaper and Chaplain to the College of Education and the Academy of Agriculture and Technology in Olsztyn. In 1992 he was assigned to minister to the faithful in the Polish military. Even in the military he served as a correspondent for Vatican Radio and Catholic News Sources.

Fr. Ploski published 150 articles about Canon Law. He was a highly regarded expert on pastoral care and law in the military services. He was consecrated a Bishop by the Venerable Pope John Paul II for the Military Ordinariate.

He was not the only member of the clergy killed in the horrible crash. Orthodox Archbishop Miron Chodakowski, the Orthodox chaplain to the Polish military Brigadier General and Bishop of Hajnówka was also killed. In addition, four priests, Father Jan Osiñski, field chaplain; Father Bronisaw Gostomski, Father Jósef Joniec, Father Zdzisaw Król and Father Andrzej Kwaœnik,  all lost their lives.

Archbishop Chodakowski was 52 years old. He was born in 1957 in Bialystok. In 1978 he was tonsured and ordained a deacon. In 1979 he was ordained a priest and a hieromonk. He served as the governor of the monastery church. St. Humphrey the Great in Jableczna.

He became Rector of the Orthodox Theological Seminary. In 1984 he was appointed pastor of the parish church of Annunciation of Our Lady in Supraœl. In 1990, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and was governor of the monastery in Supraœl.

In 1998 he was consecrated as a Bishop of the  Hajnówka diocese. Also in 1998, the Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski appointed bishop Miron as Brigadier General and Orthodox Ordinary of Polish Army. In 2003 he earned a doctorate in theology and in 2008 Bishop Miron was raised to the rank of archbishop.

The loss of two Bishops and four priests only adds to the great loss suffered by the Polish people. We invite our readers around the globe to remember the dead and pray for the Polish people during their time of great loss. Let us make the words of St. Faustyna our own: “I feel tremendous pain when I see the sufferings of my neighbors. All my neighbors’ sufferings reverberate in my own heart; I carry their anguish in my heart….” Let us do the same.

Navy Plane Crashes in Georgia: 3 Dead – A house was saved after a Florida-based Navy plane crashed in dense woods in north Georgia on Monday killing. The Florida-based Navy plane was a T-39N training plane that carried 4 crew members 1 is still missing went down at 4:26 p.m. No one on the ground was injured.

The plane was part of Training Air Wing 6, that conducts routine cross-country missions through Fannin County then it crashed on the edge of the North Carolina and Tennessee borders still Authorities don’t know what caused the plane to go down, and now theyare putting together an investigative team, to know the cause of the crash.