World leaders miss Polish state funeral

AN ELABORATE state funeral for Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, was held yesterday bereft of many world leaders whose travel plans were paralysed by the plume of volcanic ash that has covered Europe.

The couple’s bodies were flown from Warsaw to Krakow early yesterday for the tradition-laden ceremony and burial in the nearby Wawel Cathedral, the final resting place for Poland’s kings, poets and statesmen, including General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who died in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.

President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the leaders who cancelled at the last minute because of the expanding volcanic ash cloud, dangerous to airplane engines, that has enveloped Europe and closed nearly all of the continent’s airports.