Walesa predicts Cuban transition
Havana Former Polish President Lech Walesa advised Cuban dissidents to be ready for an inevitable democratic transition, telling them Saturday that activists in his country had been unprepared for the collapse of East European communism.
The former Solidarity labor leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate took questions from Cubans during a morning Internet teleconference at the home of the top American diplomat in Havana.
“When liberty arrives it’s going to be difficult,” Walesa said from Poland during the hour-long exchange. “We made a lot of errors. We were not prepared.”
About 100 people attended the event, including around a dozen of Cuba’s better-known dissidents, diplomats from Poland and other East European nations and international journalists.
The Cuban government, which has grown increasingly critical over the past year of former East European nations that offer moral support to Cuban dissidents, did not immediately comment on the event.
Swiss Guard marks 500 years at Vatican
Vatican City Five hundreds years ago, mercenaries marched from Switzerland to Rome to aid Pope Julius II, and the Vatican is readying concerts, exhibits and celebrations to mark the half-millennium of the Swiss Guards, who still protect the pontiff.
The Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, will celebrate Mass today in the frescoed Sistine Chapel for current guards and their families, and afterward Pope Benedict XVI will offer a special blessing to an honor corps in St. Peter’s Square.
It is the launch of six months of commemorations in Italy and Switzerland that will culminate with a symbolic re-enactment of the march from Switzerland to Rome of the first 150 Swiss mercenaries to fight Pope Julius II’s temporal battles in 1506.
The Swiss Guard commander, Col. Elmar Maeder, said this week that the work of the guards had changed over the past half-millennium, although their core mission to protect the pope remains.
But he acknowledged that no one could guarantee the pope’s security – as shown by the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca.
Week of freedom ends for gunman of pope
Ankara, Turkey The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was back in an Istanbul prison Saturday, and his brother demonstrated outside to accuse judicial authorities of bowing to government pressure.
Mehmet Ali Agca returned Friday to Kartal prison, the same lockup he was released from eight days ago, after a court ruled he had more time to serve on his sentence for killing a prominent Turkish journalist in 1979 and other crimes. His lawyer vowed Saturday to have him released again.
An appeals court on Friday overturned a lower court’s ruling that set Agca free on Jan. 12. He had served 19 years in an Italian prison for shooting the pope and then 5 1/2 years of a 10-year sentence in Turkey for murdering journalist Abdi Ipekci.
Agca may have to serve additional sentences, which have yet to be determined, for his conviction in 2000 for a factory robbery and vehicle theft.
The gunman’s brother, Adnan Agca, and a score of nationalist supporters held banners outside the prison denouncing the government, which ordered a review of Agca’s case, and the media, which had decried the decision to free him.
Austria recovers stolen $60 million figurine
Vienna, Austria A suspect in the theft of a $60 million Renaissance figurine turned himself in and police said Saturday they had recovered the object, stolen almost three years ago from Vienna’s Art History Museum.
The Austria Press Agency said experts had established the authenticity of the figurine – the 16th century, gold-plated “Saliera,” or salt cellar sculpture, by the Florentine master Benvenuto Cellini.
The sculpture, buried in a wooden case, was found near Zwettl, a town about 55 miles north of Vienna.
He said the man, whom he also refused to identify, turned himself in Friday after police released photos of him identifying him as a suspect.