Polish president, NATO chief discuss Afghanistan, Russia

The situation in Afghanistan and NATO-Russia relations dominated Friday's talks in Warsaw between Polish President Lech Kaczynski and visiting NATO Secretary- general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Kaczynski said after the meeting that NATO was crucial for the safety of Poland, Europe and the world. Commenting on Afghanistan, the president noted that the situation in the country called for " determined steps," but added that there was "cause for optimism" in this respect in 2010.

Read more: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6918076.html

Polish PM Talks Economy In Georgia, Energy In Azerbaijan

Tusk was due to meet President Mikheil Saakashvili as well as opposition leaders.

He also visited Polish members of the European Union Observer Mission in Georgia (EUMM). The EUMM -- comprising some 225 members -- is the only international mission monitoring areas near Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where tensions remain in the wake of the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.

Read more: http://www.rferl.org/content/Polish_PM_Talks_Economy_In_Georgia_Energy_In_Azerbaijan/1981215.html

Polish Budget Deficit Widened in February, Deputy Minister Says

Poland’s budget deficit widened in February to 32.3 percent of the annual target due to increased subsidy payments to social funds and higher local government costs, Deputy Finance Minister Elzbieta Suchocka-Roguska said.

The result “may seem a high result but it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong,” Suchocka-Roguska said at a meeting with reporters in Warsaw today. “First-half deficit growth always tends to be faster than in the second half and there is no threat to the 2010 budget plan whatsoever.”

Read more:http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-12/polish-budget-deficit-widened-in-february-deputy-minister-says.html

Polish isotopes to help cover Chalk River gap

Medical isotopes from Poland will help relieve the shortage caused by the prolonged shutdown of the troubled Chalk River reactor, which is expected to remain out of service for at least two more months.

"Any drop helps," Christopher O'Brien, president of the Ontario Association of Nuclear Medicine, said Thursday.

The aging National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ont., has been out of service since last May after a heavy water leak was discovered during a power outage.

Read more:http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/778797--polish-isotopes-to-help-cover-chalk-river-gap

Court OKs extradition of Swede in Auschwitz case

A Swedish court ruled Thursday that a former neo-Nazi leader arrested in Sweden can be extradited to Poland, where he is suspected of being involved in the theft of the infamous Auschwitz sign.
The Stockholm district court said 34-year-old Anders Hogstrom can be handed over to Poland on condition that, if convicted, he would serve any prison sentence in Sweden. A prosecutor said Poland agreed to the deal.
Polish investigators suspect Hogstrom of incitement to commit theft of a cultural treasure in connection with the Dec. 18 theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at the former Nazi death camp.
They are seeking prison terms of up to 2 1/2 years for three Poles who confessed to stealing the sign and are investigating the role of two others.

Read more:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g_7Y3wJ1JQ7Sa1Z12ptB4u27iCewD9ECGK100

Polish skier tests positive for EPO at Olympics

Polish cross-country skier Kornelia Marek tested positive for EPO at the Vancouver Olympics in the first serious doping case of the games.

Marek tested positive after helping Poland to a sixth-place finish in the women's 20K relay on Feb. 25, the Polish Olympic Committee said Thursday.

Marek also was a member of the Polish team that finished ninth in the team sprint. She placed 11th in the 30K mass start, 39th in the 10K freestyle and 35th in the 15K pursuit.

If found guilty of doping by the International Olympic Committee, Marek and the relay teams would be disqualified and stripped of their Vancouver results. Marek would also be banned from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Read more:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iTdPQ1OAgZkG6JDcWxYPXySbT0ugD9ECGS8G0

Polish Premier to arrive in Armenia

March 12, Polish delegation headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrives on a working visit to Armenia.

Polish Premier intends to meet with RA President Serzh Sargsyan, His Holiness Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, RA NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan and Premier Tigran Sargsyan, RA governmental press service informed NEWS.am.


Read more: http://news.am/en/news/16428.html

Komorowski "favoured in Polish presidential primary"

Parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski will probably win the nomination of Poland's ruling party for this year's presidential election, lawmakers and political analysts say, after a series of gaffes by his rival.

Komorowski and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski are vying for the votes of their centrist Civic Platform's (PO) 40,000 members in an internal party contest this month that has been compared to a U.S. primary -- a first in Poland.

Opinion polls suggest either would trounce conservative, eurosceptic incumbent Lech Kaczynski in the presidential election, expected in September or October, though they show Komorowski ahead by a wider margin.Read more:  http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=55306

Poland considers relations with South Caucasian states strategic: Donald Tusk

Poland considers relations with South Caucasian states strategic, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the March 10 meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Artur Rasizade.
According to him, participation in Eastern Partnership project will be crucial for regional states. The point is the access to European funding, visa regime relaxation and attempts to settle international issues jointly, Tusk underlined.
Read more: http://news.am/en/news/16308.html

Poland, EU ‘Very Close’ to Compromise on CO2 Cap, Official Says

Poland and the European Union are “very close” to a compromise on the country’s carbon cap, and a decision on new emission limits may be reached by the end of this month, a senior Polish official said.

The central European country is preparing a new proposal on its CO2-emission caps after an EU court last year overturned the current limits for 2008-2012 set by the European Commission for Poland and Estonia. The commission has said that any review of CO2 allocations to the nations would probably result in similar limits because the recession has reduced industrial discharges.

Read more:  http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-10/poland-eu-very-close-to-compromise-on-co2-cap-official-says.html

Polish Magazine Faces Extremism Charges

Moscow prosecutors may slap extremism charges against a Polish literary magazine in a case that threatens to strain Polish-Russian relations just a month before Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with his Polish counterpart for a historic meeting.

The Novaya Polsha magazine, which is published in the Russian language in Poland and distributed in Russia, has been accused of carrying extremist materials by Stanislav Kunyayev, the nationalist-minded editor-in-chief of Nash Sovremennik, a Russian literary magazine.

“I think they are doing everything possible to distort the history of our relationship,” Kunyayev told The Moscow Times on Tuesday.

Read more:http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/polish-magazine-faces-extremism-charges/401263.html

Poland links IMF advice to debt burden

Poland’s finance minister has launched a thinly veiled attack on the International Monetary Fund for advising European governments last year to expand their borrowing and spending.

Jacek Rostowski said that some European governments had increased their public debt burden to unsustainable levels as a result of IMF advice. “I think a mistake was made last year in many countries that allowed not only automatic stabilisers to function but took additional expansionary measures. I think the right policy to pursue was the one we pursued, that was to allow automatic stabilisers to work up to a point and then to take countervailing measures,” said the 58-year-old economist.

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/754f49a0-2bb8-11df-a5c7-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

NATO Secretary General to visit Poland on Friday

 

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will pay a visit to Poland on Friday, March 12, the 11th anniversary of Poland's joining the alliance, the Polish Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.
While in Poland, Rasmussen will meet with Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Defence Minister Bogdan Klich.
Read more: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90853/6913160.html

Poland Is Far From Lost

The formerly communist country is one of the world's last free-market champions.

With the Obama Administration working overtime on remodeling the U.S. economy after Sweden, ca. 1975, formerly Communist Poland remains one of the world's last free-market champions. Unlike most Western governments, Warsaw refused to blow its hard-earned zlotys on futile attempts to pump-prime the economy and is the better for it now.
"Poland was probably the only country in Europe which could afford to finance a stimulus program, but decided not to," the country's finance minister, Jacek Rostowksi, wrote in these pages last month. While deficit-spending in the U.K. and U.S. did more ...

Read more ($): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109312944174170.html

Ultra-modern Chopin museum opens in Poland

A high-tech museum dedicated to the Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin opened in Warsaw on Monday to mark the bicentenary of his birth.

"It is among the world's most modern museums," Poland's Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski told reporters at the opening ceremony.

Located in Warsaw's revamped 17th century Ostrogski Palace, perched on a hill near the Vistula River, the museum is designed to plunge visitors into Chopin's universe via cutting-edge audiovisual and interactive technologies.

Read more:http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/ultramodern-chopin-museum-opens-in-poland-1917743.html

Polish president Kaczynski wins party backing to run for 2nd term

Polish President Lech Kaczynski's conservative Law and Justice party says it wants him to run for a second term this autumn.

The party gave the president its backing at a convention Sunday, saying in a resolution that the mission he began when elected in 2005 should continue for the good of Poland.

Law and Justice is a nationalist party that supports a strong social safety net but has conservative moral values. It was founded by Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw.

Read more:http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hACklDA67j81sOimzMXdl7HVpBHg

Yad Vashem honors Michalina Jasko, from Poland, as Righteous Among the Nations

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem, posthumously honored Michalina Jasko from Poland as Righteous Among the Nations, during a ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance on Sunday.

Her granddaughter Elzbieta Jablonska, who came from the United States for the event, received the medal and certificate of honor on her behalf.

Read more:http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/eastern_europe/42747