& now let us turn & exchange a sign of peace

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Saturday April 09, 2005 12:38 by ora pro nobis

la pau sigue amb vosaltres! ¿are you sure you washed your hands?

a short review of international commercial media attention given to that mafia funeral moment when the 200 world leaders exchanged their sign of peace and shook each others hands during the 3 hour ceremony to bury Karol Wotyla, HH John Paul 2 "the great",
the Roman Pontiff on the 8th day of the 4th month 2005.

Let me kiss your ring. For i love you, my brother and sister in peace...

the president of Israel Moshe Katsav was sat next to Syria in the "head of state" rows which wer arranged by french language alphabetical order.
& he shook their president Bashar al-Assad's hand. He also says he shook the hand of Iran.
Syria (at war with Israel) today says it was a formality. Whilst Iran denies such a handshake took place.

"I told him 'Good morning' and he shook my hand," Katsav, who holds a largely ceremonial postas head of state, told Israel's Channel 2 TV on his encounter with Assad. The Israeli and Syriandelegations had been seated next to each other. Iranian-born Katsav said he spoke in his native Farsi to Khatami (of Iran) about their common city ofbirth. Iran officially seeks Israel's destruction. "The president of Iran extended his hand to me, I shook it and told him in Farsi, 'May peacebe upon you'," said Katsav."
But today the Iranians say it was all a zionist plot.

Prince Charles of the UK sat in the french "R" row as head of state, and turned was thus just a bit forward of "Z". He gave Mugabe a handshake, neither of them like Blair. there's a photo of it here:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,1455382,00.html
The excuse from the British today is that Charles was surrounded by Africans and he had difficulty recognising them but is good at shaking hands.

Blair and his wife "mantilla hijab cherie" accused by some of pressuring the Vatican to bring forward the funeral of Karol Wotyla ( and thus denying many ordinary mourners their chance to see the late pope lie in state) were in the back rows as government delegations. Those delegations wer placed according to the french alphabet and also the historic date of their ties with the Holy See.

That's how Spain and France got into the front rows of both heads of state and government delegations by the way.

The spanish & french shook hands with almost everyone but mostly after the ceremony.
In chronological order - each other, the south americans, the saudis, the africans. They didn't shake hands with the blairs. And just in case you missed it the Venezualans un did their top shirt buttons and pulled down their ties and looked really scruffy.

articles :-

http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en77964&F_catID=&f_type=source
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5668877&cKey=1112997024000
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5669553&cKey=1112997923000
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5669962&cKey=1113026709000
http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,11965-4274249,00.html
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1687384,00.html