Poland's icon Walesa to stay in hospital for now

Polish communist-era opposition icon and Nobel laureate Lech Walesa is being treated in hospital for gastric problems and a fever, he told AFP on Thursday."I haven't been feeling well since Tuesday. I had a 39-degree fever, gastric trouble and was shivering," Walesa said, adding that he finally decided to go to hospital on Wednesday."I'm on a drip. The doctors managed to bring down the fever but haven't yet given a diagnosis and want to keep me in hospital until at least Sunday," the 67-year-old said.

GDANSK, Poland--Lech Walesa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Poland, effectively endorsed Mitt Romney during a meeting with the GOP presidential candidate Monday. Walesa, a co-founder of the Solidarity movement in Poland which challenged Communist rule during the 1980s, urged Romney to "get your success" in the upcoming election. "I wish you [...]

Three decades after Polish trade union Solidarity rocked the Soviet bloc, the world has yet to come to terms with the end of the Cold War, the movement's iconic founder Lech Walesa says."Solidarity brought to an end a period of division, paving the way for the unification of Germany and of Europe," Walesa told AFP in an interview in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, where the union was born.

Lech Walesa, Poland's communist-era democracy campaigner, caused an uproar by saying homosexuals shouldn't demand more rights and gay legislators should sit "behind a wall" in Parliament, words critics said put into question his legacy as a freedom fighter.

Lech Walesa, Poland's Solidarity-era legend, ex-president and 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner said Friday he would not accept an invitation to meet with fellow Nobel winner US President Barack Obama."It's difficult to tell journalists what you'd like to say to the president of a superpower. This time I won't tell him, I won't meet him, it doesn't suit me," Walesa told Poland's public broadcaster TVP.Obama is due to arrive in Poland later Friday after the G8 summit in France.

Lech Walesa, the man who led Poland to freedom in its Cold War struggle with the Soviet Bloc, is refusing to apologize for suggesting gay Polish politicians should "sit behind a wall" in the country's parliament.

JOHANNESBURG — Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first black president, has been admitted to a hospital with a recurring lung infection, South Africa said Thursday.