Free Republic

Poland commemorates her refugees in Iran by Ryszard Antolak 24-Jun-2008 The Polish Postal Service has commemorated the role Isfahan played during World War 2 in caring for Polish orphans. The new stamp, "Isfahan - the City of Polish Children", went on sale earlier this month. It depicts a pupil at School No. 15 near Isfahan (Stanislaw Stojakowski), standing in front of a Persian carpet woven at the city's Carpet School in 1944. In 1942, Isfahan housed thousands of Polish orphans released from the Soviet work camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan. At its peak, twenty one areas of the city were...

The US Congress has passed resolutions urging Eastern European nations including Poland to make progress on legislation regarding the restitution of private property. Though the US resolutions are nonbinding, observers argue that this is a clear signal that such legislation in Poland is long overdue.

Poland says U.S. shield deal hinges on Patriots Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:17pm BST WARSAW/VILNIUS (Reuters) - Poland is insisting on the permanent stationing of a U.S. Patriot battery on its soil as a condition for hosting part of a anti-missile defence shield, its defence minister was quoted as saying on Friday. Washington wants to install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, a NATO ally, as part of the shield project, which aims to protect the United States and its allies from attack by so-called "rogue states" and terrorist groups. In return, Warsaw wants hefty U.S. investments to upgrade its air...

Parliament pays tribute to victims of 1943 massacre 11.07.2008 The Polish Parliament has marked with a minute of silence the 65th anniversary of the massacre of ethnic Poles in Volhynia during World War II. An estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Poles, including women, children and elderly people, were murdered in an act of ethnic cleansing conducted by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The attacks started in November 1942, culminating in a massacre of Poles in three counties on 11 July 1943.

Poland's loyalty to US a one-way street? 10.07.2008 The Poles feel that their country is not perceived as an equal partner by the Americans in terms of politics, which translates to waning enthusiasm for the United States. By Aleksander Kropiwnicki Do Poles still love America? According to some publicists, their attitude to the US is definitely getting less enthusiastic. Warsaw still wants to see America as its partner but not a Big Brother. Poland has never been rewarded for its assistance in Iraq. Washington is reluctant to help significantly in modernising the Polish army, even though it’s keen to situate...

BELGRADE, Serbia: A bus carrying Polish tourists overturned north of Belgrade on Friday, killing six people and injuring nearly 40, Serbian police said. Police said 68 people were on the bus when the accident happened at about 6.30 a.m. (0430GMT) on the road between the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and the northern city of Novi Sad. The Polish bus "for a so far unknown reason swerved off the road and overturned, falling on its right side," a police statement said. Two children, a woman and three men were killed, and nearly 40 people were admitted to the hospital in Novi Sad,...

WARSAW (Reuters) - Russia's angry response to U.S. plans to build a missile shield underlines the need for Europe to seek closer security ties with the United States, a top aide to Polish President Lech Kaczynski said on Wednesday. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in Japan on Wednesday that Moscow was very upset after Washington signed a deal with the Czech Republic on placing a tracking radar on Czech soil as part of the shield project and would consider how to retaliate. Washington also wants to install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, but Warsaw has sought in return billions of...

US missile shield gains favour in Poland: poll 07-05-2008, 10h08 WARSAW (AFP) Polish opposition to hosting part of a US missile defence shield in the former communist country is weakening, according to the latest poll published on Saturday. Back at the end of February a survey suggested that 52 percent of Poles opposed the plans, however this new study -- a little over three months later -- found that only 46 percent disapproved. The project, which would see 10 interceptor missiles based in Poland and a radar facility in the neighboring Czech Republic, was supported by 42 percent of people...

RPG game about Warsaw Risisng 05.07.2008 It was published by Bully Pulpit Games, in the US and designed by Jason Morningstar. It proved a huge success in America, though has not found its way to Poland yet. ‘Grey Ranks is a game for three to five players’, write the publishers, ‘that puts you in the shoes of child soldiers during the Warsaw Uprising. The game is designed to be played over three sessions and includes a scene structure, with each scene corresponding to a specific date in 1944. As the game progresses, success becomes increasingly difficult and the player is...

Reuters) - Poland has rejected a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing a "missile shield" on Polish soil but remains open for further talks with Washington, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday. Washington wants to place 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic as part of global missile defenses it says will protect the United States and its allies from what it calls "rogue states" such as Iran. In the negotiations, Tusk's centre-right government has sought billions of dollars worth of U.S. investment to upgrade air defenses in...

Moscow, Jun. 24, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has cautioned against any political movement aimed at assigning responsibility for the persecutions of the Communist era. “The Church keeps the prayerful memory of all the faithful who became victims of the godless government’s policy,” Patriarch Alexei II told a meeting of the Russian bishops’ synod. He acknowledged that Communist repression caused the deaths of millions of innocent people, under a regime that was anti-religious and anti-human. However, the Patriarch continued, “The memory of the victims must not be cause of political speculations.” He discouraged the sort...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States and Poland have reached a tentative deal to place part of a ballistic missile defense system on its territory, a plan that has drawn sharp objections from Russia, a senior administration official said Wednesday. Poland's political establishment still has to sign off on the deal and determine the next steps, the official said. The agreement came after several days of negotiations and less than a week before a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Homeless people die after bird flu vaccine trial in Poland By Matthew Day in Warsaw Last Updated: 11:17PM BST 02/07/2008 Three Polish doctors and six nurses are facing criminal prosecution after a number of homeless people died following medical trials for a vaccine to the H5N1 bird-flu virus. The medical staff, from the northern town of Grudziadz, are being investigated over medical trials on as many as 350 homeless and poor people last year, which prosecutors say involved an untried vaccine to the highly-contagious virus. Authorities claim that the alleged victims received £1-2 to be tested with what they thought...

Nicolas Sarkozy wants to reunite the European family. But yesterday, on his first day as its patriarch, he found himself presiding over a tribe squabbling about everything from defence to tax to climate change. The French President admitted that his six months at the head of the EU were going to be tougher He conceded that the community faced deadlock over the Lisbon treaty and that winning acceptance for his ideas on issues such as immigration and trade could be complicated. Plans to encourage Ireland to reverse its rejection of the treaty by urging the remaining 26 EU members to...

The United States warned Poland Tuesday it could turn to other countries if talks with Warsaw on hosting part of a US missile defense shield do not advance. The comments came as a top Lithuanian official was in Washington, although State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas's talks with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, the White House and Pentagon were not linked to the missile matter. "Our focus and our efforts right now are on coming up with a definitive answer in terms of the deployment that have been suggested and proposed for Poland, and we...

General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the leader of Poland's wartime government in exile, died 65 years ago this month when his plane plunged into the sea off Gibraltar. A British inquiry in 1943 found that the crash was caused by the plane's controls jamming. But rumours persist of a plot to kill Gen Sikorski, whose defence of the Polish national cause threatened to derail Britain's relationship with the Soviet Union. Now Poland's president, Lech Kaczynski, and his prime minister, Donald Tusk, have demanded that Gen Sikorski's body be exhumed from its tomb in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, the traditional burial place of...

US wants Poles to visit, spend lots of money By ZUZIA DANIELSKI, Associated Press Writer WARSAW, Poland - Time to shop until you drop across the Atlantic, the U.S. embassy says. In an unusual appeal, the United States is enticing Poles to visit and spend money this summer in hopes of propping up its faltering economy. The campaign comes as the Polish currency hit a historic high - reaching 2.1194 zloty to the dollar on Monday. "When you visit the States, bring an extra suitcase so you can return to Poland with a suitcase full of new items," U.S. Ambassador...

Defence Minister: Poland not 51st US state Created: 23.06.2008 12:30 Poland’s Defence Minister Bogdan Klich has expressed outrage at an article in The New York Times alleging that “Poland has been the 51st state” of the USA acting as host to a secret CIA prison for terrorists. "That is unacceptable. The sheer fact that we are in tough negotiations with the Americans regarding the anti-missile defence shield suggests that we are indeed an independent state,” Minister Klich said on Radio ZET, Monday morning. The Saturday issue of The New York Times reopened the topic of the secret prison camp for...

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland and the United States may sign an agreement within the week on installing a U.S. anti-missile base in Poland, a senior Polish official said on Sunday. "The negotiations are winding down and everything points to an agreement being signed this week," PAP news agency reported Zbigniew Chlebowski as saying. Chlebowski, head of the ruling Civic Platform party's parliamentary caucus and mouthpiece for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, declined to give details. But speaking on a public-affairs radio show earlier on Sunday, Chlebowski criticized presidential aide and former foreign minister Anna Fotyga for paying an unannounced visit to...

WASHINGTON: In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda's engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators...

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish newspaper published excerpts on Tuesday of a new book purporting to prove that former anti-communist leader Lech Walesa once informed for the communist secret police, claims he has repeatedly denied. The claims are not new but the book by two historians working for the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) -- which supervises files from the communist era -- cites what it says are previously unknown documents linking Walesa to the secret police in the early 1970s. Walesa, a Nobel Peace Laureate and one-time leader of the Solidarity movement that toppled Polish communism in 1989, has...

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania has held no talks on hosting a U.S. missile shield, but would consider the idea if Washington's negotiations with Poland failed and the Americans suggested it, officials said on Wednesday. Polish chief negotiator Witold Waszczykowski told Reuters on Tuesday the United States was already in talks with Lithuania. Diplomats say Washington has become exasperated by Warsaw's tough negotiating stance. "Only if no bilateral agreement was reached between Poland and the U.S. and an official proposal was sent to Lithuania would our country look at it with due attention and responsibility," Lithuania's Defense Ministry said.

The Silesian Autonomy Movement has sent a petition to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk asking him to allow all regional communities to gain autonomy status. If he does not agree, the Silesians say they are ready to raise the issue of separation, according to Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The movement officially declares its support for the autonomy of Silesia. The association was founded in 1991 and is based mainly in the Polish part of Upper Silesia. A similar petition has been sent to the Polish Sejm, the lower house of parliament, which along with the Senate (the upper house) has...

GDANSK, Poland, June 16 (Reuters) - The leaders of Germany and Poland crowned an improvement in ties on Monday with pledges of cooperation and a walkabout in the Baltic port of Gdansk, a city once the cause of tension between the neighbours. German Chancellor Angela Merkel greeted local well-wishers with "Dzien Dobry", Polish for "Good Day", on her first official trip to Poland since centrist Donald Tusk became prime minister after winning elections last autumn. "The Chancellor and I are convinced our efforts to bring our relations to the right level of trust and cordial cooperation are bringing results," Tusk...

WARSAW (AFP) - Police in Poland said Monday they had arrested a drunken 48-year-old woman who was pushing her car while her intoxicated husband steered the vehicle with their three-year-old grandson on board. The two grandparents were arrested Sunday evening with the broken-down on a busy main road near the middle of Bierun, a town in southern Poland, said police spokesman Marek Wreczycki. Officers who carried out tests on the pair found that the grandmother had a level of 1.5 grammes of alcohol per litre of blood and the grandfather 1.0 gramme. In comparison, blood-alcohol limit for drivers in Poland...

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=KBwwFsKTJGs

TANROW, June 13, 2008 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - A Polish volleyball star who was buried on June 9 is being compared by local Catholics to Blessed Gianna Beretta Molla because of her heroic sacrifice for her unborn child. Agata Mroz, who was originally known for her athletic prowess, was buried in her hometown of Tarnow. Mroz was pregnant with her first child when doctors discovered she had a fatal case of leukemia. After consulting with her husband, Mroz delayed a bone-marrow transplant until after she gave birth to her daughter Liliana on April 4, 2008. Polish fans dubbed the national team...

A mother who was intoxicated during her labor at a Polish hospital gave birth to a baby girl who was almost 15 times over the country's adult drunk-driving limit, Agence France-Presse is reporting. The baby girl, born Monday, had a blood alcohol level of 0.29 percent. Poland's drunk driving limit is 0.02 percent, according to the report. -snip-

WARSAW, June 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Polish media is awash with the case of a 14-year old girl who is being pressured into abortion by the country's most prominent abortion activist, Wanda Nowicka of the Polish branch of Planned Parenthood. (...) The case is being seen as the latest example of an scheme often used by pro-abortion activists to have pro-life countries legalize abortion. The scheme involves seeking out the youngest pregnant girl, preferably a rape victim and using her as a poster child to legalize abortion. Similar campaigns have been organized by pro-abortion groups in Nicaragua and Colombia.

Every nation could be described as a manifestation of a unique trait of character and most countries furthermore nurture, give emphasize to and celebrate this national identity of theirs. Some examples of such key national characters (please DO comment if you feel inclined to); USA: Liberty Italy: Creativity France: Refinement India: Spirituality Germany: Self-discipline Finland: "Sisu" (a Finnish term meaning "To have guts") Britain: Elevatedness Denmark: "Hygge" (a Danish word meaning "Good-naturedness", of mind as well as of deed) Spain: Passion China: Cultivation Russia: Chaos - just joking, I would actually say "Heart" (in the sense of having a big...

Senator Schumer is coming under sharp criticism from the government of the Czech Republic and from Polish-American and Romanian-American leaders in America after writing an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that America should accommodate what he called Prime Minister Putin's "dream of eventually restoring Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe." Diplomats and community leaders who read the Journal article in response to inquiries by The New York Sun said they were taken aback by the suggestion by the New York Democrat that America should try to gain Russia's backing for tougher sanctions on Iran by abandoning NATO plans...

On the eve of the MotherÂ’s Day, which is celebrated in Poland every year on the 26th of May since 1923, residents of the Polish capital together with guests from different cities and countries, could take part in the third annual March for Life and Family - a joyful celebration of traditional values and a call for respect for the fundamental human right to life. Several thousand people, many families with children and youth, marched through the heart of Warsaw on Sunday in a joyful affirmation of Judeo-Christian values. Participants called for respect for the natural family and fundamental human...

Text of report in English by Polish national independent news agency PAP Warsaw, 28 May: Presidents of Poland and France Lech Kaczynski and Nicolas Sarkozy signed on Wednesday [28 May] a declaration on Polish-French strategic partnership. The French president is paying a one-day visit to Poland. Having signed the document Poland and France have obliged themselves to conduct close political, economic, social and cultural cooperation both in bilateral relations and on the EU and NATO forum. Source: PAP news agency, Warsaw, in English 1058 gmt 28 May 08

WARSAW, May 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On the eve of Mother's Day, Polish citizens, together with a variety of international guests, took part in the third annual March for Life and Family. Several thousand marched through the streets of Warsaw in a joyful affirmation of Judeo-Christian values. Participants called for recognition of the traditional family and fundamental human right to life for everyone from conception to natural death. Slawomir Olejniczak, co-organizer of the March for Life and Family, reflected on the wave of the culture of death that has swept over Europe and the need to “return to family values”:...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States should grant Poland the same level of aid to modernize its armed forces as it does to other key allies if it wants to site part of its missile defense shield there, Poland's defense minister said on Monday. Bogdan Klich said Poland was in no rush to clinch a deal with Washington to host 10 U.S. interceptor rockets on its soil. "We count on the U.S. treating us, in connection with the talks on the anti-missile shield, similar to the way it treats its strategic partners in other parts of the world," Klich said...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Poland and Sweden sought support Monday from other European Union nations for a new outreach program to build closer ties with Ukraine and the EU's other former Soviet neighbors to the east. The plan would go beyond the EU's current "neighborhood policy," which groups eastern European countries such as Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus with nations in North Africa and the Middle East. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said it was important to make a distinction because the easterners are European nations who could one day apply to join the EU. Poland and Sweden presented the plan...

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2008 – In the first “full honors” ceremony he’s hosted as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen welcomed his counterpart from Poland at the Pentagon today. In full-dress Navy “whites,” Mullen greeted Gen. Franciszek Gagor, chief of general staff of the Polish armed forces, and his staff when they arrived in black sport-utility vehicles. In less formal receptions -- known as “honor cordons” -- the military leaders would have disappeared into the Defense Department headquarters without much fanfare. In contrast, before their closed-door meeting today, Mullen led Gagor onto a podium...

MOSCOW (AFP) — Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has refused to testify in the trial of Poland's last communist leader, blasting the court case as "baseless persecution" in an interview published Friday. "What is going on with him now is persecution, and it is baseless persecution," Gorbachev told the daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the official newspaper of the Russian government. His comments came two days after a Polish court ordered prosecutors to question Gorbachev in the trial of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who stands accused of "communist crimes" for declaring martial law in the country in 1981. Gorbachev stressed Jaruzelski's old age...

In what is becoming a game of brinkmanship between the United States and one of its closest European allies, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday that Washington was prepared to seek a different location for part of its planned antiballistic missile shield if the Polish government could not agree on the terms. ... Senior Polish government officials said Wednesday in Warsaw that they were extremely concerned that they were failing to persuade the Bush administration to finance the modernization of the Polish armed forces in exchange for deploying part of the shield on Polish territory. They said it appeared that...

Poland paused this week to pay tribute to Irena Sendler -- a Catholic social worker who risked her life during World War II to smuggle 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto, saving them from the ravages of the Holocaust. Sendler died Monday at 98, and after a large crowd flocked to her funeral at a Warsaw church yesterday, Poland's Orthodox chief rabbi offered prayers at her graveside. Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said: "Irena Sendler's courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate...

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland said on Tuesday recent U.S. proposals to strengthen Polish defenses in return for hosting a controversial American missile shield fell short of its demands. Washington wants to install 10 land-based interceptors in Poland as part of an anti-missile system designed to protect the United States and its NATO allies from attack by what it calls "rogue states," especially Iran. Russia opposes the plan. "We have the right to set our own conditions and expectations. At the moment the U.S. proposals have not reached a satisfactory level for Poland," Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters. "There will...

WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who helped save some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities, has died. She was 98.

The U.S.-planned missile shield in Europe, including on Czech soil, enjoys majority support in the U.S. Congress though certain doubts persist on the part of some Democrat congresspeople, Bud Cramer, himself a Democrat member of the House of Representatives, told CTK in Prague Monday. If a candidate of the opposition Democrats became the next U.S. president, it would change nothing in the missile defence plans of the current U.S. Administration of George W.Bush, a Republican, Cramer said. If a Democrat won the the presidential elections later this year, it would turn out that the missile defence plan had reached the...

(IsraelNN.com) Polish authorities are investigating a soccer player whose T-shirt showed anti-Semitic writing, the French news agency AFP reported. The player, Arkadiusz Mysona, is suspected of calling for hate on an ethnic basis and committing a public offense against a country. His team, LKS Lodz, has fined him $13,000 and prohibited him from playing in a championship game. Mysona explained that an unknown supporter gave him the shirt and that he did not check to see what was written on it. "A fellow member of the team drew my attention and when I saw the inscription, I removed it at...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

For many months the US felt that, “We want to help protect you from the threat in the Near East, and you are still holding out your palm for more money,” in relation to previous Polish actions to the US. Yet, when many months passed and the uncle from the West was not persuading their little Polish brother, the Americas began to change their tone. It suddenly became evident to the US that the Polish requests for financial and military help were justified. This was undoubtedly a success of Polish diplomacy. The important issue now is that success be achieved....

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has asked Congress for $20 million for military aid to Poland as it seeks to complete a missile defense deal. The administration wants to build a European missile shield that would include a radar installation in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors in Poland. Officials have been trying to reach a deal with the two countries before President Bush leaves office in January. The U.S. is nearing a deal with Prague, but negotiations with Warsaw have lagged. The talks had been complicated by Poland's demand for help to upgrade its military in exchange for allowing...

Gorbachev signed JP II KGB death warrant Created: 27.04.2008 15:50 The weekly Wprost, out tomorrow, shows a politburo document, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, which appears to warrant a KGB contract killing on John Paul II. So claims Polish journalist David Dastych in a book, also released tomorrow, Chodzi o papieża szpiedzy w watykanie - (About the Pope: Spies in the Vatican). The politburo document says: "Use all available possibilities to prevent a new political trend, initiated by the Polish pope…" The document, which dates back to November 1979, - one year after Karol Wojtyla became pope - is signed by...

Poland Pressured on Abortion and Sexual Orientation by UN Human Rights Committee Canada pushes Poland to advance homosexual rights By Maciej Golubiewski WASHINGTON, DC, April 24, 2008 (C-FAM.org)- The government of Poland was pressed on the issue of abortion and sexual orientation by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week. The grilling came during something called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process mandated by the UN General Assembly. At the meeting on April 14th, the Polish delegation was questioned by various members of the committee about Poland's human rights record. Norway said that Poland should "facilitate access...