Polish News Roundup 18 July 2006

Polish News Review

Here are highlights of news coverage about Poland from news sources around the world. Each item is linked directly to the source. You are encouraged to visit the source for complete information and to leave any comments that you might have on that particular item. You may also leave comments at the bottom of this page.

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Newsweek On Poland's Ruling Twins - Judging by a new book of interviews with the twins conducted by Michal Karnowski and Piotr Zaremba, reporters for NEWSWEEK's Polish edition, most of the battles they pick are less about ideas than perceived slights and settling scores. Longtime Solidarity activists during the communist era, the Kaczynskis always resented the fact that they didn't get the same kind of recognition as many of their more glamorous colleagues. After the communist regime collapsed, they served newly elected President Lech Walesa—and promptly were at the center of infighting that shattered the old Solidarity camp. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13880048/site/newsweek/

 

Will the Kaczynskis now boycott the next meeting with George W. Bush? - Well, I never thought it would come to this, on so many levels. Here's a little piece from the Daily Show on the Kaczynski twins. The Duck Republic, or as beatroot puts it, the Burak Republic, conquers the world. John Stewart doing a bit on Poland. Incredible. Will the Kaczynskis now boycott the next meeting with George W. Bush? Continue Reading More

 

Nobel Prize Winner Walesa Lashes Out At Poland's Twin Leaders - Polish Nobel Peace Prize winner and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa has lashed out at Poland's current twin leaders, President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Jaroslaw, calling them incompetent and that they were not capable of governing the Central European country. Walesa, who served as Poland's president from 1990-1995, tells German weekly Der Spiegal that the Kaczynski brothers were 'without the necessary format' and called their style of governing 'embarrassing.' Walesa also revealed that he earlier fired both brothers from his office because 'I realized they were destroying more than actually doing something constructive.' The Kaczynski brothers, opposition activists during the communist era, formed their own party in 2001, the Law and Justice Party. It is reported that governments across Western Europe see the Kaczynskis as prickly, unsophisticated, provincial nationalists. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004232043

 

Germany in hot water after labelling Polish leader a 'potato' - The "potato war", as the German media has dubbed the dispute, has prompted the Polish government to consider banning an internet site that publishes foreign press articles critical of the Warsaw government. The intensity of the dispute has shocked the German government. Officials refuse to discuss the Polish complaints, but privately they have described the row as " risible" and "unworthy" of a European Union member state. They accuse President Kaczynski, and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, who was sworn in on Friday as the country's new prime minister, of having a "problem with the principles of press freedom". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/16/wspud16.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/16/ixnews.html

 

Poland's government Twin problems - From The Economist print editionPoland is suffering from a bad image. Blame the Kaczynski brothers Reuters. One of them is now prime minister IT IS easy to argue that the Law and Justice party has done disappointingly little in the nine months since it won Poland's parliamentary and presidential elections. But in one respect it has done a lot: once a regional heavyweight, respected in America and around Europe, the country now attracts ridicule and condemnation. The main culprit is the president, Lech Kaczynski. Chaotic organisation, poor staff and inexperience have led to a series of gaffes, rows and snubs. The latest was his withdrawal from a trilateral summit with France and Germany after a satirical article in a minor German daily. By insisting that the German government apologise, Mr Kaczynski cast doubt on his understanding of press freedom. Another culprit is the right-wing League of Polish Families, one of two small parties in the ruling coalition. It attracts a thuggish fringe, deliberately conflates homosexuality with paedophilia, and has failed to shake off accusations of anti-Semitism. Continue Reading More

 

Kaczynski twins on the Jon Stewart Show - Poland’s international PR problem gets ever worse. Continue Reading More

 

Jacek the Ripper? - The Ripper was a Polish Jew. That was the opinion of the head of the investigation into the Whitechapel murders in 1888, according to ‘evidence’ released today. Continue Reading More

 

The Kaczynskis: Poland’s answer to the brothers that ruled all that they could see... - ...but it ended in the death of one of them. Continue Reading More

 

Miss World 2006 in Poland: beauty with a purpose! - The Miss Word contest, to be held in Warsaw this September, will solve Poland’s unemployment problem, apparently (photo: Lucky Aneta Kreglicka, Poland’s only winner of Miss World, 1989 – obviously a political vote in the year of the Round Table). http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2006/07/miss-world-2006-in-poland-beauty-with.html Tensions in Polish foreign ministry over German potato jibe? Warsaw’s ambassador in Berlin admits that President Kaczynski has gone over the top by demanding an apology from the German government. Continue Reading More

 

Polish farmers will get billions of zlotys of EU funds - The bill how to divide EU funds for the agricultural sector is ready. There are a couple of new things. Decision will be made soon how to distribute EU funds in the years 2007-13 among the Polish farmers and food producers. A bill prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture is being shown to other ministries. The government will approve it within several weeks, and then it will be sent to the European Commission. “The program provides for EUR 11.8 billion of EU funds plus EUR 3.5 billion of Poland’s funds. The farmers, food producers and food groups will get these funds. Big amounts of money will be spent to build jobs in the country which are not connected with agriculture”, Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski, the deputy Minister of Economy said. http://www.pulsbiznesu.pl/content.aspx?sid=6938&guid=B473142C-CB96-4967-A39E-B57F0BA144ED

 

Poland to replace Spain as the largest recipient of EU funds - Poland is to receive almost €60bn of regional support over the next seven years, overtaking Spain as by far the biggest recipient of "federal transfers" from the European Union budget. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7c729eee-12d5-11db-aecf-0000779e2340.html

 

EU Calls on Poland and Finland to Change Legislation - The European Commission is calling on Poland and Finland to modify their respective legislation with regard to heavy goods vehicles. In Poland, second hand vehicles imported from other Member States are taxed at a higher rate than those from within the country. The Commission says this infringes on Article 90 of the EEC treaty. In the case of Finland, an equally discriminatory 'permission tax' is applied to imported vehicles and leased vehicles from other Member States. Continue Reading More

 

Polish police demand higher wages - More than 1,000 Polish police and firefighters marched through downtown Warsaw Wednesday, protesting low wages and poor work conditions. Antony Duda, chief of the police union, said the protest was aimed at publicizing that Polish police have the lowest wages in the European Union, the Polish PAP news agency said. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060712-085911-6988r

 

Poland being 'flooded' by illegal German rubbish - European Union newcomer Poland is being "flooded" by some 500,000 tons of waste illegally hauled into Poland from older, wealthier EU states each year, Poland's chief waste management official said Thursday in Warsaw. "Poland is being flooded by other people's waste," President of Poland's Chamber for Waste Management (PIGO) Dariusz Matlak said, quoted by the Polish PAP news agency. http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=31552&name=Poland+being+'flooded'+by+illegal+German+rubbish Continue Reading More

 

UNESCO adds Nazi to Poland Auschwitz camp - The UNESCO committee for world heritage sites Thursday agreed to add a Nazi reference to the Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland. The new name of the camp, if finally approved at a UNESCO session next year, will be "The former Nazi German concentration and liquidation camp Auschwitz-Birkenau," Belgrade's Beta news agency reported. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060713-095052-1394r

 

Poland Warns Europe on Gas - Europe urgently needs to reduce its dependence on Russian energy because the country has proved itself an unreliable partner, Polish Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak said Friday. The diversification is very important, and not only for Poland, Wozniak said in an interview at a conference in Warsaw. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/07/10/043.html

 

Israel anger over Polish minister - Roman Giertych has insisted he and his party are not anti-Semitic. Israel is to snub Poland's newly appointed education minister, accusing his far-right party of anti-Semitism. Roman Giertych heads the League of Polish Families (LPR), a nationalist party in Poland's coalition government. But Israel has vowed not to deal with Mr Giertych, pointing to a long-held opposition towards LPR policies. Continue Reading More

 

Polish priest skips town with parish collection box - A Polish priest with a penchant for a bet has slipped out of his parish in the central Polish town of Lowicz, taking with him the collection box, local press reports said on Thursday. The faithful at the Holy Spirit parish in Lowicz were a bit bemused at not seeing Father Franciszek Augustynski since mid-May, and decided to investigate, the daily Dziennik Lodzki newspaper reported. Continue Reading More

 

Leading Polish priest admits spying for communists - A leading Catholic priest in Poland, where the late Polish Pope John Paul II championed resistance under communism, said on Tuesday he had for 24 years spied on dissidents and clerics for communist secret services. Allegations against Michal Czajkowski, a respected figure known for his work on Catholic-Jewish relations, were first published by a newspaper in May. But the priest had rejected them until now. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-11T100346Z_01_L11825912_RTRUKOC_0_US-POLAND-PRIEST.xml&archived=False

 

Polish-German summit halted after potato jibe - He is not known for his humour. But Poland's media was rife with speculation yesterday that the country's thin-skinned president, Lech Kaczynski, had pulled out of a top-level meeting in Germany because a German newspaper compared him to a potato. The president had been due to meet Germany's leader, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Jacques Chirac, on Monday in Weimar. Hours before the meeting, however, Mr Kaczynski said he was unable to make it, due to "stomach pains". http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1813736,00.html

 

Can Poland woo back its emigrants? - The main Polish current affairs magazine, Polityka, has launched an incentive scheme called Stay With Us, sponsored by some of Poland's biggest companies, to persuade the country's leading young academics to resist the pull to emigrate. Continue Reading More

 

Poland in line to get twin leaders - Poland is about to get a case of political double vision: twin leaders, the Kaczynski (kah-CHIN'-skee) brothers. http://www.fox21.com/Global/story.asp?S=5128759&nav=menu149_2_9

 

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