Polish Consulate...

The royal historic city of Krakow may be enough of a tourist magnet by itself, but the amazing salt mine of Wieliczka nearby is just as stunning. Some of its attractions include 15th century churches carved in salt, underground lakes, where you can float on the surface like in the Dead Sea, and an underground spa for patients with respiratory diseases. Rafal Kiepuszewski ventures into the dark magic world of Wieliczka.

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Poland’s churches on Holy Saturday are full of the faithful with small baskets in which they brought food for blessing. It is a centuries long tradition to place bread, sausage, salt as well as colourfully decorated boiled eggs – symbols of life – in the Easter food baskets adorned with green twigs and spring flowers.
In the past, food for Easter was blessed at small roadside chapels, where the faithful gathered. But with the passage of time, the ceremony was moved to churches.
Traditional Easter breakfasts are being held for the poor and the lonely in parishes across Poland. The meetings are organized by volunteers of the church charity Caritas, which has been collecting donations for them throughout the week. “Bread of Mercy” as well as various Easter symbols were sold in parishes. The proceeds will go to single mothers homes and to help the homeless.

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Eighty eight per cent of Poles are to attend a mass during Easter. According to a poll by the OBOP Institute, 74 per cent of the respondents will go to confession and 87 per cent observe fasting on Good Friday.
The survey shows that almost all Poles observe the tradition of blessing the food for Easter breakfast but there has been a slight fall in the number of people participating in spiritual retreats during Lent and attending the early morning Resurrection mass on Easter

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Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), distinguished Polish late-nineteenth-century novelist, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1905 for his historical novel 'Quo Vadis' (1895) on the early Christians and their persecution in Rome under the Emperor Nero. Sienkiewicz was born at Wola Okrzejska in the Russian partitional zone, into a family with deeply ingrained patriotic traditions and an involvement in the uprisings. When he was an adolescent he discovered a collection of Old Polish books and manuscripts in the loft of his family house, which were to provide the linguistic foundation for his future historical novels. He made a career in journalism, and much of his literary work was originally published as stories and novels in instalments in contemporary newspapers. In 1879 he travelled to America and published his travelogue letters in the press at home. He also met his future translator, Jeremiah Curtin, during this period. On his return to Poland he settled down to his epic Trilogy on the seventeenth century in Poland, 'Ogniem i mieczem'(With Fire and Sword, 1884), 'Potop' (The Deluge, 1886), and Pan Wołodyjowski (Pan Michael, 1888). The other historical subject he addressed was the medieval period and the early fifteenth-century war between Poland-Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights, in the novel 'Krzyżacy' (The Teutonic Knights, 1900). His remaining novels were on contemporary subjects. 'Quo Vadis', for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905, is perhaps his most frequently translated and best-known work worldwide, the basis of several films, including the 1943 Hollywood movie by Mervyn LeRoy starring Robert Taylor, Deborah Carr, and Peter Ustinov,and the recent Polish production (2001) by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. 'The Trilogy' and 'The Teutonic Knights' have also attracted film-makers, Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Hoffman in the 1960's and 70's, and a return to the subject by Jerzy Hoffman in the 1990's. Henryk Sienkiewicz gained tremendous popularity with his contemporaries, who valued him for his contribution to the national struggle for independence ('the warming of hearts') and in 1900 showed their appreciation by raising a public fund to buy a dwór country house for him at Oblęgorek (now a commemorative museum). Sienkiewicz's works are available in English translations by his contemporary Jeremiah Curtin, Monica Gardiner (a few of his short stories), and recently (the 1990's) by W.S. Kuniczak.

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Government asks EU for GM ban...

The government is to ask the European Union to ban the genetically modified corn seed in Poland for two years to allow environmental safety tests to be carried out, a statement issued said. "Given the absence of tests conducted locally, there is a risk to farming. As a result, until tests are carried out, Poland will ask for the right to ban for two years the use of and trade in genetically modified corn seed," says a government statement. Environmental groups called the government's move "responsible." The ban would "protect Polish farmers against the pollution of their crops by genetically modified organisms," said an official from Greenpeace, Maciej Muskat. "Given the irresponsibility of the European Commission, other EU countries should follow Poland's example," he added.

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Prime minister Marek Belka announced that he would accept Minister Jerzy Hausner resignation on March the 31st, vice-premier and Minister of Economy would be replaced by his vice-minister Jacek Piechota. Hausner decided to leave the government last week to participate in the creation of the new Democratic Party. The prime minister has already announced that he intends to step down on May the 5th and also join the newly formed party. Today's speech was according to Hausner his last as vice-premier of current government.

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In their Easter shopping frenzy, Polish families never forget to put one thing on their tables: traditional, richly painted Easter eggs. Bogdan Zaryn talks to one of the artists who make those decorations.

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From Radio Polonia...
Find out who's topping the charts in Poland...
Listen

Click here to find out if Krzysztof Kiljanski and Kayah remain our No 1.

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Several months ago UK transport company Arriva was unable to keep providing services because of a shortage of drivers. It decided to advertise vacancies in the new EU member states. Poles now account for the biggest number of new Arriva drivers. As our London correspondent Robert Kusek reports, the Poles are finding driving on the left a piece of cake.

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From Warsaw Voice...

"If there was any relation between Catholicism and moral conduct, Poland would be a nation of angels; however, it's not."
-Magdalena Środa, philosopher and ethicist, government commissioner for equal status of women and men

"In Poland, people can be divided into those who have faced an investigation
commission, are facing it now, or will in the future."
-Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz

"You are building too few good sanatoriums for yourselves. Build another one, and fast, because we're gonna put you all in there."
-Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper in a Sejm speech to
"the liberals who are ruling Poland"

"It has become a standard
that after elections, an epidemic spreads among the defeated politicians."
-An employee of the Social Insurance Company (ZUS), on the fact that province governors, city mayors and other officials appointed by the defeated parties usually take long-term paid doctor's leaves after lost parliamentary elections

"The patient said that four days ago, he was getting off a stool, he lost his balance and fell down. He felt a stabbing pain, but he didn't pay much attention because he was drunk.
Later, he was looking for his favorite knife but all he found was the handle."
-Dr. Marek Rogowski from a Białystok clinic on a 63-year-old man who complained on a strong headache; an X-ray revealed a 12-centimeter blade stuck behind his ear

"He said he was cold, his mother didn't let him come home, he's fed up with hiding, and he just wants to go to jail."
-A police officer from Mrągowo, on a young man wanted for theft, for whom an arrest warrant was issued several months ago; the man suddenly showed up at a police station

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From Warsaw Voice...

The special Sejm commission investigating the PKN Orlen affair questioned two prime ministers March 14: former Solidarity Election Action PM Jerzy Buzek and current PM Marek Belka. The commission is also debating whether or not to summon First Lady Jolanta Kwaśniewska as a witness now that President Aleksander Kwaśniewski has refused to appear before the commission.

Belka was questioned mainly in relation to his mission to The Bank of New York in February 2002 on behalf of the then Minister of the Treasury Wiesław Kaczmarek. Belka, as then deputy prime minister and minister of finance, was sent to convince the bank's directors to support the Polish government in a vote to dismiss the Orlen supervisory board.

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From Warsaw Voice...

■ When Will Poles Hit the Polls?
Prime Minister Marek Belka confirmed March 17 that he planned to resign May 5. This is also the date when the Sejm is scheduled to vote on a motion for its own dissolution. A day earlier, on March 16, Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) politicians tried to convince the prime minister that he should delay his decision at least until May 16-17, when the Third Summit of the European Council is to be held in Poland. However, the prime minister stood by his earlier declaration and also reiterated that parliamentary elections should be held June 19.

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From Wrsaw Voice...

Easter is the oldest and most important Christian holiday. In Poland Catholic priests bless symbolic eggs and Poles celebrate "the time of the egg"-a symbol of life.

Easter customs are related to early spring and rites which celebrate the magical liberation of the earth from the inertia and slumber of winter. Easter is a movable holiday, which traditionally falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring (spring begins March 21), or on the 14th or 15th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar.

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Polish, German foreign ministers on visit to Ukraine...

Polish Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld and Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer paid a one-day visit to Kiev on Monday to discuss how Poland and Germany could help Ukraine in the realisation of its pro-European aspiration and support transformations taking place in that country. This was the main topic of the two ministers' talks with their Ukrainian counterpart, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk. Ukraine should receive from us a common signal that we are not leaving it alone and that we will try to support the process of changes - Rotfeld said earlier in March when he announced his plans to visit Ukraine with his German counterpart. It was the two ministers' intention to convince the Ukrainians to treat the European Union's Ukraine Action Plan as a road bringing that country closer to the Union - Rotfeld told newsmen on his arrival to Kiev and added that the realisation of the Action Plan will also be a confirmation of Ukraine's determination to keep its pro-European orientation. Rotfeld stressed he is convinced some day Ukraine will become an EU member. At a joint press conference Rotfeld and Fischer also declared Poland and Germany would support Ukraine in its striving to join the World Trade Organisation. Tarasyuk announced the trilateral Polish-German-Ukrainian dialogue would be continued and the next consultations will be held in Berlin. According to Rotfeld Yulija Timoshenko said that she and Fischer believe that the key to Europe is in the hands of Ukraine. Rotfeld told reporters that in a short time Ukraine achieved more than one could expect, and nobody can deny that Ukraine is a very important actor on the European scene. Rotfeld and Fischer were also received by President Viktor Yushchenko. According to Rotfeld Yushchenko spoke of his conception of development of relations between Ukraine and the European Union and NATO and referred to his talks with Russian President Vladmir Putin in Kiev last Saturday. According to Rotfeld these talks "showed that relations between Russia and Ukraine start to develop on the basis of partnership and that Russia in a way reconciled with the fact that the process of transformations in Ukraine has a lasting and very deep character".

Prime Minister Marek Belka, Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld and Finance Minister Miroslaw Gronicki will attend a spring meeting of the European Council in Brussels on March 22-23. The meeting will be attended by heads of states and governments of

the 25 EU countries. The meeting is planned to focus on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy. The 25 foreign ministers will discuss multilateral cooperation, collaboration of international organizations, moves designed to fight terrorism and actions for the non-proliferation of mass destruction weapons.

A government plan of an information campaign to be waged before the forthcoming referendum on the ratification of the European Constitutional Treaty has been approved by the European Committee of the Council of Ministers, last Friday. Pawel Swieboda, the head of the Foreign Ministry EU department, confirmed on Monday that unlike the previous referendum on Poland's EU accession, this time the government resigned from appointing its commissioner in favour of a "joint centre". The centre is to group representatives of the Office of the European Integration Committee, the Foreign and Internal Affairs Ministries as well as the Chancelleries of the president and the PM, and the Sejm. Swieboda added that PM Marek Belka and former Foreign Minister and now current Sejm Speaker Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, the two who have signed the treaty will be the two "faces" of the campaign.

Polish Finance Minister Miroslaw Gronicki told reporters on Monday that costs of the pension system reform would be taken into account while calculating the budget deficit and that this should help Poland join the eurozone in 2009. Poland, together with Hungary and Slovakia, wanted pension funds to be still considered a part of public finances. This could make it possible for them to not increase budget deficit with costs of the reform. But the EU offered the countries reforming their pension systems only a transition period in the years 2004-2008 when the reform costs could be partially taken into account. But there is still a chance that Poland can limit its budget deficit in 2007 to the required level of 3 percent of GDP - Gronicki said. He also stressed that Poland could enter the eurozone in 2009. The situation looks better than a few months ago - he stressed. The minister also said he was satisfied with the reached compromise but stressed that tough rules of the Stability Pact were still binding. The European Union said that national budget deficits would still not be allowed to exceed 3 percent of GDP and that a country's debt cannot exceed 60 percent of GDP.

Russia indignant over Warsaw authority's decision...

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday expressed indignation at the decision of Warsaw city authorities to name a round-about in Poland's capital after the late Djokhar Dudayev. In a comment published in the internet pages the Russian Foreign Ministry Press department calls the move an insult to the memory of the Russian victims of the terrorist attacks in Moscow and other Russian towns and a manifestation of support for international terrorism of which the leader of Chechen separatists and national extremists was the follower.

About 18 thousand young Jews and Poles will take part in the March of the Living in the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp on May 5 - spokesman for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Jaroslaw Mensfelt said on Monday. Education ministers from the European Union countries who are to meet in Cracow on May
4 will also take part in the march. Planned is also the participation of Presidents Moshe Katsav of Israel and Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland. The participants will march from the entrance gate in the former Auschwitz camp to Birkenau three kilometres away, to pay tribute to the Holocaust victims.

Preparations pending the privatization of Poland's mining industry will be continued, final decisions in this respect will belong to the next government. Halting privatization would mean the loss of World Bank funding for mining reforms - the government announced Monday after miner welfare talks in a trilateral team of government, union and employer representatives. During the talks, focused on the government's December-adopted mining privatization strategy, trade unionists presented the results of a referendum in which almost 97.5 percent of Polish miners opposed privatization.

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Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka has said he would be making a break with the ruling Democratic Left Alliance SLD and support the newly-formed Democratic Party on May 5.
In an interview for Polish Radio, he said he would be handing in his resignation that same day, the date of a planned move towards self-dissolution of the Parliament to pave the way for early elections in June. The SLD has made it clear that it does not want elections before September.
The centrist Democratic Party was founded a few weeks ago by a group of Freedom Union leaders, including former prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and the minister for the economy in the Belka cabinet Jerzy Hausner, who submitted his resignation a week ago.

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The President and his critics...

Both the Polish version of Newsweek and Wprost announce the collapse of the authority of president Aleksander Kwasniewski. He is no longer as big a man as he thought, the former says, adding that the president’s ambitions have been reduced to a personal drama. The state he helped to build is badly in need of repair. The leftist party he founded is in disarray. Some of the brightest stars making up his court are wanted by prosecutors. He is plagued by a sense of defeat and alienation. The epoch of buddy links between politicians and businessmen, and of distributing favours to political friends is ending, luckily for Poland, says Newsweek. And Wprost, which means roughly ‘straightforward’ in Polish, says without beating about the bush: ‘it’s the end of Kwasniewski’s world.’ These headlines have been prompted by the findings of a special parliamentary commission investigating corruption scandals in the privatisation of Poland’s oil giant, Orlen. Wprost argues that the president is implicated in the scandal. The president refused to testify before the commission, accusing it of unjustified attacks on him and his wife; pride and sense of the impunity of the ruler are the foundation of political capitalism built by Kwasniewski.

Polityka criticizes Polish bishops for failing to speak out on the problem of the controversial catholic radio station – the rightwing, nationalist Radio Maryja, operated by a priest turned media mogul. According to a bishop responsible for the media, no word was mentioned about Radio Maryja at the latest conference of the Episcopate. But Polityka finds it hard to believe that the bishops are so alienated from reality, a part of which is a cynical political campaign waged by that station. Radio Maryja fans and supporters say it is the only independent medium in Poland. But in reality this church-related radio station is the only one to disseminate a distorted, conspiratorial theory of developments in Poland. It claims that the 1989 round table debate, which ended communism in Poland, was just political bargaining during which the then Solidarity opposition and the communists. Contrary to rules of objective reporting, it does not confront its theories with other views and opinions. True Poles and Catholics – represented by Radio Maryja – claim that international and domestic forces are fighting for Polish assets. Polityka says that such an antagonizing vision of Poland should arouse the greatest concern of the church.

Przekroj suggests that father Tadeusz Rydzyk Radio Maryja’s director, wants to rule the souls of Poles after the death of Pope John Paul II. He has managed to rally those who do not identify themselves with the episcopate and branches. He probably believes that in the future, rather than going to Rome, Polish Catholics will organize pilgrimages to Torun, the city that is hoe to the station. Przekroj, too, believes that the bishops should react when Radio Maryja launches attacks on former president Lech Walesa and assumes patronage over the creation – as announced this week - of a new ‘Patriotic Movement’ political party.

The large format supplement of the mass circulation Gazeta Wyborcza writes that staying in the environs of the Warta Estuary national park in western Poland poses a lethal risk. It is a risk faced by thousands of birds, for which their so far safe shelter has become a deadly trap. For years, thousands of protected birds have been killed around the park and even inside it. This year it is even worse, as Polish hunters have been joined by foreigners, mainly from France and Italy. They reach for all sorts of methods, even banned ones to lure the birds out of their hiding places. Witnesses saw some hunters use a live goose, which they tied by the leg. The scared bird cried for help, and the herd coming to its rescue flew straight into a barrage of fire. There are about 2,500 pairs of the grey goose nesting in Poland, compared with more than 100,000 registered hunters. What chances of survival do the geese have?

See these magazines here:
http://polityka.onet.pl/
http://newsweek.redakcja.pl/
www.wprost.pl/
www.przekroj.pl/

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Council of Europe meeting opens in Warsaw...

More than 40 delegations from Council of Europe member and observer states including interior ministers and other high ranking officials gathered in Warsaw for a two-day conference on organized crime and prevention of terrorism in Europe. Participants are to debate two draft conventions drawn up by experts, aimed at nipping terrorism and other forms of serious crime in their preparative stages. The draft convention proposes criminalizing acts deemed as laying the groundwork for a terrorist attack, such as “public provocation of terrorism, recruitment and training” statement said. The Council of Europe is the continent’s oldest political organization founded in 1949. Poland which joined the European Union last May took over the chairmanship of the Council’s Committee of Ministers in November last year from Norway.

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US cuts back military aid for Poland...

The US House of Representatives approved an $81.4 billion war spending bill that would slash President George Bush's foreign aid request and add nearly $2 billion more than he sought for defense. The bill cuts $400 million that Bush had asked for to reward war allies within the so-called Solidarity Fund. One fourth of the fund money was supposed to be given to Poland – according to the promise president Aleksander Kwasniewski brought back from his talks with GW Bush earlier this year. In a statement the White House asked the House to put it back, saying it would help partners such as Poland and the Slovak Republic. The Polish president how is currently paying a visit to Cyprus expressed his belief that Poland will receive the military aid promised by the American president.

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The ruling Democratic Left Alliance has unsuccessfully tried to convince prime minister Marek Belka not to resign on May 5th, when he expects the parliament to vote on ending its term and announce a snap election in June. Without the support of the Left, which wants to hold elections in the autumn, the motion on dissolving the parliament is bound to fail. The party’s leaders met with Belka today and urged him to postpone his decision until May 17th, that is until the European Union summit but the premier did not change his mind. It is not clear what the president will do. It is suggested that he may not accept Belka’s resignation forcing him to stay in office until the autumn.

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It's not often that a fireman becomes a TV celebrity in a foreign country. But Kevin Aiston, a Brit who's made Poland his home, has done just that. Danusia Szafraniec talks to Polish TV viewers' favourite Englishman.

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From Warsaw Voice...

"One of the men we detained tried to explain that he had a safety deposit box at the bank and he wanted to empty it without his wife knowing."
-A police officer from Zabrze on the failed attempt of digging a tunnel into the largest local bank

"Lepper has promised to have him run in the elections. I've already congratulated him on such a careful collection of our waste."
-Józef Oleksy, leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), on SLD senator Andrzej Anulewicz, who has changed parties and joined Samoobrona

"They're interested in our constitution and they know where Poland is."
-Franciszek Stefaniuk, a deputy from the Polish Peasants' Party (PSL), after returning from Congo as part of parliamentary contacts between the two countries, on his experiences of meeting with the locals

"People keep pointing their fingers because I drive a Mercedes S class. Well, what am I supposed to drive...a cow?"
-Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, head of the radical Catholic Radio Maryja

"Mr. Commander, I'd like to spend my school vacation with my daddy. Please, give him time off."
-A letter sent by the 12-year-old daughter of Janusz Gołębiowski, head of the Central Bureau of Investigation, to national police commander Gen. Eugeniusz Szczerbak

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From Warsaw Voice...
The Rightists’ War Against Objects
By Sławomir Majman

Any month now, a sledgehammer will crush the remnants of communist Poland.
The rightists readying themselves to take power have briskly announced they will end the system that has been governing Poland since the gentle transformation of 1989. They want an end to the Third Republic, allegedly entangled in those omnipresent threads of the secret postcommunist mafia, poisoned to the bone with the influence of ex-postcommunists. So poisoned, in fact, that it cannot be saved, only a new, fourth republic built on the ruins of the Third Republic, a new formation completely cleansed of any postcommie miasmas. According to the troubadours of the political right, Poland is in crisis and its moral and economic downfall has its earliest beginnings in the rotten compromise worked out 16 years ago between the soft part of the democratic opposition and the communists. The communists were smarter, they entwined the whole system in their rotting tentacles, and with time the rot infected the whole country. The time has come, then, to revive the abandoned revolution and break off from the pre-1989 past once and for all.

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A fear of feminism...

The conservative, rightwing Wprost frontpages a photo of a woman leftwing minister championing women’s equality with a bra on her face obstructing much of her vision. This is an illustration of the weekly’s claim that feminists are women’s biggest enemies. One gets the impression, says Wprost, that for women activists political life, including parliamentary elections, is an on-going referendum on the equality of the sexes, and that the Polish woman is the 'nigger of the world', like John Lennon’s hit 1970's song. But is it true? Who are the feminists defending, when 71 percent of women in Poland say that their priorities are a happy family life and children – which is what feminists regard as slavery and exploitation? The weekly goes on to quote various surveys according to which women themselves believe that taking care of the household is in their nature and that they have hardly ever seen cases of discrimination against women. The male-dominated Wprost concludes that the feminists are brainwashing the public with doubtful imported slogans about self-fulfillment, whereas in reality their role is destructive.

Polityka claims that Polish psychiatric hospitals are full of people who should never have landed up there. One group are gangsters, who are sent for treatment by corrupt psychiatrists in order to evade responsibility for crimes. But psychiatric opinions are increasingly used as a weapon in various conflicts and affect mentally healthy people. This is what happened to a woman at the center of a family real estate row. She spent 8 days in a psychiatric hospital under false charges until she was wrestled out by well-wishing relatives. Interestingly, courts which often place petty criminals in psychiatric wards, tend to free dangerous criminals when the case is dropped. According to Polityka, this happens in the case of one in four mad killers and almost one in two child molesters and rapists. A chilling piece of information.

The Polish version of Newsweek writes that contemporary missionaries not only must be well versed in the scripture but also know the art of survival and driving in extreme terrain. These are crucial skills, says father Marian Midura, who has worked as a missionary in South Africa and Botswana for 10 years now. Every year more than 10 missionaries die in car accidents. Father Midura says, explaining why he made a point of organizing courses in driving in extreme conditions at a former airport in Warsaw. Their participants will leave for Africa, Latin America or Asia soon not only to preach, but also to deliver food, medicines, to teach and build in countries ravaged by wars and natural catastrophes. Out of some 150,000 missionaries working all over the world, more than 2,000 are Poles. To supply missionaries, Father Midura created a Mission Vehicle Association, which apart from automobiles buys bikes, boats and tractors. Recently it also bought a few donkeys and elephants – their operators, so to speak, must need some training too, I believe.

Przekroj paints a profile of the average Polish centenarian, of whom there are more than 1200 live in this country. 80 percent of them are women. The oldest is 111 years old. The oldest man is 104. Most of the women are widows and live in the cities. Their recipe for longevity is optimism and ability to cope with stress, which they all say, life has not spared them. According to the UN population section, some 3.2 million people over 100 years of age will live around the world, compared with 210,000 this year.

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73,000 Polish nationals have officially registered as job seekers in the UK since last May, when Britain officially opened its doors to migrant workers from the new EU member states. As our London correspondent Robet Kusek reports, only 21 East Europeans, out of the nearly 100,000 who came, have registed as unemployed since arrival. These statistics belie earlier concerns that East Europeans were eager to sponge off unemployment benefits.

posted by: Oborski at 17:59 | link | comments |

From Warsaw Voice...

"When driving, a deputy should have the privilege of being above the standard rules that apply to ordinary people. But when I told a policeman to halt traffic for me, he was indignant."
-Jerzy Kulej, a Sejm deputy from the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)

"The Earth will be destroyed by a collision with an asteroid before I'll win this prize."
-Stanisław Lem, the most famous Polish SF writer, on his unexpected nomination for the British Man Booker International Prize

"We still have no freeways, but we do have 80 kilometers of files."
-Satirist Ryszard Marek Groński on the situation in Poland after the disclosure of archive contents of the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) that include, among others, files of former secret collaborators of the communist Poland secret services

"He said he was worried about the company car and wanted to transport it to the police parking lot. However, he didn't make it, because he fell asleep while waiting at a red light."
-A prosecutor from Gdańsk on an officer of the Government Protection Office (BOR), who fell asleep behind the wheel of an BMW at an intersection in the city; he had 0.25-percent blood alcohol content

"He was shivering when he got off the plane. He had no warm clothes except a fleece sweatshirt. He explained that the lowest temperature he'd ever experienced in his life was 19°C."
-A scout from Warsaw on a colleague from Kenya invited to Poland as part of a youth exchange program

"In our country, there will be no pink or orange, or even banana revolution."
-Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko after the transformation dubbed the "orange revolution" in Ukraine

posted by: Oborski at 17:53 | link | comments |

From Warsaw Voice...

Leaders of the Freedom Union (UW), a party absent from the current parliament, have announced the formation of the Democratic Party (PD), a new centrist grouping.

Deputy Prime Minister Jerzy Hausner has become involved in the project and Prime Minister Marek Belka will most likely join the Democrats in the next few months.

posted by: Oborski at 17:50 | link | comments |

Poland's eastern border is EU border...
Listen

More joint EU efforts will go into policing Poland's eastern border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Belarus and Ukraine. Michal Zajac reports on a new agency responsible for that..

posted by: Oborski at 15:25 | link | comments |

From Warsaw Voice...

"It's enough to put it on and leave home. The CD includes, among others, the sounds of hacking through plaster, drilling, hammering, dog barking, baby cries and a kettle whistle."
-Daniel Tokarz, owner of a company from Głuchołazy, who sells on the Internet a CD he has recorded, Noisy Neighbor-The Revenge

"Global issues have to be separate from continental ones, and continental problems from those that are not other people's business. For example, I'll never let my wife be globalized."
-Former President Lech Wałęsa

"The European Parliament is the only European Union institution that discriminates with regard to nationality."
-Ryszard Czarnecki, a Europarlamentarian from Samoobrona, on the fact that representatives of the "new" EU states earn less than other EP members

"He approached me in the Sejm corridor and asked if I could help him. I agreed; it was a simple human reaction."
-Paweł Poncyliusz, a deputy from Law and Justice (PiS) on why he co-signed a loan for Sebastian Florek, a deputy from the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)

"Psychological studies show that torture results in brain reactions similar to that of an orgasm; maybe this is why so many rightist deputies oppose the ban on corporal punishment of children."
-Joanna Senyszyn, an SLD deputy, on the Sejm discussion on the draft bill on counteracting domestic violence

posted by: Oborski at 11:03 | link | comments |

The annual migration of storks that wintered in east and southern Africa to Poland is only weeks, or days away. But this year winter is holding Poland in a tight grip. What can the storks expect when they arrive on time, but in fact to find frozen wastes instead of spring?

posted by: Oborski at 10:58 | link | comments |

Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski, 50, has refused to testify before a parliamentary committee investigating an alleged bribery scandal concerning Poland’s top oil group PKN Orlen. As Michal Kubicki reports, the president’s decision is likely to have far-reaching political consequences. The special inquiry committee, set up in the middle of last year, is investigating the spectacular arrest and sacking of Orlen’s former chief executive officer Andrzej Modrzejewski. Kwaśniewski’s name, alongside those of former prime minister Miller and Poland’s richest man Kulczyk, has been raised in connection with the investigation into an alleged bribery scandal concerning Orlen. The president was due to appear before the committee at nine today. Fourteen hours earlier, he took everybody by surprise by making this statement: 'I refuse to refuse to participate in the political adventure provoked by some members of the parliamentary committee. As someone having behind me many years of life in a democratic Poland I will not allow the achievements of democracy to be wasted.'
It has been revealed during the investigation that during a meeting with a former presumed KGB agent in communist Poland Vladimir Alganov, the businessman Jan Kulczyk allegedly promised to use his influence with the president to secure the privatization of a major Polish oil refinery for the Russian oil giant Lukoil.
The president’s last-minute refusal to testify has been critisized by almost all Polish politicians, including many from his own leftist camp. Parliamentary deputy Tadeusz Iwiński of the Democratic left Alliance SLD is one of the few who support the president’s decision.
According to Marcin Sobczyk of the Warsaw Independent News Service, the presidential NO is a mistake.
Up till now, president Kwasniewski, alongside the prime minister, had been in favour of holding parliamentary elections in June, a few months before the end of the parliamentary term. By ‘joint’ elections, Tadeusz Iwinski means the parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential elections. With the current pace of political change in Poland, however, it is too early to give any predictions relating to the election schedule.

posted by: Oborski at 10:55 | link | comments |

Back to the future...

Polityka claims that Poles – who readily embraced the western work culture at the start of the 1990s – are now increasingly rejecting it. They are beginning to see the price they have to pay for it, such as messed up or non-existent family life, no free time, often ruined health, prozac for breakfast, psychoanalysis for dinner. Western corporations, which entered Poland 15 years ago, were to teach Poles how to work. And they did, laying down every detail, as if it were a servicing manual, says the weekly.. But many elements of the implanted system simply could not survive. Another example is the rat race in the the Avon cosmetics company - which produced communication chaos and bred hypocrisy and fear – as the main tools of work organization. But with raging unemployment, many firms faced with a revolt by workers, prefer to threaten them with the loss of jobs. Polityka warns that this demoralization of the labor market is dangerous. A recent radio poll showed that 99 percent of Poles regard labor relations in Poland as slavery.

The weekly Wprost claims that Chirac and Schroeder are telling off Polish hairdressers, even though the EU treaty formally guarantees the free flow of services. In practice, clerks and trade unions in countries such as Germany, France or Austria can make life so difficult for foreign competitors that they give up trying to enter their markets. Because of this Polish firms lose the possibility of earning some 2-3 billion euros annually. A Polish baker, who wanted to set up business in Germany, says he presented all the necessary documents and met all requirements. "They could not stop me, but they found a way. The local chamber of commerce gave me a localization, in which I would attract no customers," the man explains. But this is also causing losses to the entire Union. According to a study commissioned by the EU, a fully free flow of services would produce 37 billion euros in profits, create 600,000 jobs and accelerate growth by 0.6 % annually, Wprost points out.

Przekroj writes about the grisly murder of Polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski, renowned for his fantasy horror paintings, which many now say look like a prophecy. Could the artist have had a foreboding that first his wife would die of aneurism, then his son would commit suicide and he himself would be killed by a greedy son of a good and trusted acquaintance? Beksinski was obsessed with death, which he tamed by painting. He turned his apartment in Warsaw into a fortress with impenetrable doors and windows, and a camera to show his visitors. Last week opened the door to a young boy he knew and who believed that the famous artist virtually rolling in money.

The Polish version of Newsweek analyzes the chances of Jaroslaw Walesa, son of former president and charismatic Solidarity leader Lech, to make himself a political career. Jaroslaw was a DJ when he studied in the United States. Now, he works in his father's institute.. His name is his only political capital – but is it enough to succeed? Jaroslaw is hardly as colorful a person as his father and has to come out from the shadow cast by the former president. Out of Walesa’s eight children, only Jaroslaw and the daughters have not attracted negative media attention. The remaining three boys are known for drunk driving and causing accidents. It was not until this year’s Valentines Day, that Jaroslaw Walesa hit the tabloid headlines with his confession of love for his girlfriend and his public proposal of marrage. Better late than never.

See these magazines here:
http://polityka.onet.pl/
http://newsweek.redakcja.pl/
www.wprost.pl/
www.przekroj.pl/

posted by: Oborski at 10:53 | link | comments |

President: possibility of elections and referendum on one day...

Warsaw, March 6: President Aleksander Kwasniewski has said that if the Sejm term is not shortened than first round of presidential elections, parliamentary elections and a referendum on the EU constitution would be held on September 25. However, Kwasniewski who spoke after a Friday evening meeting with left-wi

"Cześć!"

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