NEWS BRIEFS - HIGHLIGHTS

The editorial board of the CNN special project “CNN Go” has published the list of the most attractive travel destinations in 2012. The “Top Three” places to visit included Southern Korean Yeosu, Antarctica, Ukraine and Poland. Ukraine shares the third position with Poland, thus becoming top European travel destination in 2012, when the two countries will co-host the Euro 2012 European Football Championship. CNN motivates their readers to visit Ukraine and Poland with the catchy “Who doesn't love a major sporting event with ‘crazy road trip’ written all over it? … Euro 2012, the 14th European Football Championship, looks like just the ticket.”

 

The Czech government is discussing a plan to name Prague’s state-owned international airport after Havel after more than 80,000 signed a petition in support. Numerous efforts to rename places to honor the former Czech president who helped bring down communism in his homeland have provoked a Facebook initiative designed to last generations: It demands that all the country’s future presidents bear Havel’s name. Ridiculing the wave of renaming, the initiative calls on Parliament to adopt such a law. It also wants current President Vaclav Klaus, the late Havel’s political archrival, to “immediately” adopt Havel’s name.

 

Polish popular singer Irena Jarocka (right) died on Saturday, January 21, 2012, in Warsaw at the age of 65. After her debut at the Sopot Song Festival in 1968, she had many hits. For many years she lived in the U.S. (most recently Texas) where she gave concerts in many cities, often in support of charity causes. She returned to Poland several years ago.

 

Poland’s unemployment rate reached 12.5% in December 2011, higher by 0.4 percentage points on a month-on-month basis. Unemployment also rose on an annualized basis. Only 34,600 jobs were added in December, 10,300 fewer than in November. The year ended with 1.98 million citizens registered as jobless. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy reports that in the last four months of 2011 the number of unemployed increased by 128,000.

 

A police investigation revealed that the blood forming a river of red that flowed along a road in the small Polish town of Koscierzyna in mid-January had come from a meat processing plant and had seeped onto the streets because of a blocked drain. Confronted with pools of blood on their streets locals reacted with horror. People also questioned how the blood had managed to leave the meat processing plant without any form of treatment, despite possible environmental risks. A spokesman for the municipal authorities said the situation was under control and that the blood had been removed from the streets.

 

Rockstar Energy Drink, produced by U.S. company Rockstar, has entered the Polish market. PepsiCo, which has a distribution agreement with Rockstar on a number of markets, including Poland, recently made it available in the Zabka convenience stores. The energy drink is available in two versions in Zabka stores: Classic and Punched (with guava). A Polish fan page for the beverage has also been launched on Facebook. Meanwhile, Monster Energy Drink, which recently changed its name from Hansen Natural, will soon be available on the Polish market. It is distributed in many markets by Coca-Cola, but the latter stated that it will not be the distributor in Poland.

 

The National Bank of Poland (NBP) management was reported on January 20, 2012, as ready to participate in a bilateral loan for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but a final decision will be made once terms of deal with the IMF are set. In December the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announced that central banks of European Union (EU) countries were to inject up to $264 billion worth of loans to the IMF to aid indebted euro zone economies.

 

The EU Parliament’s outgoing President, Jerzy Buzek, called on the institution to help promote media freedom “both inside and outside the EU.” Speaking on January 9, 2012, Buzek described press freedom as “crucially important. I am particularly aware of this as I am from a country where a democratic media was impossible for decades,” he said. The Member of the European Parliament, whose term in office as President was ending the next week, also appealed to journalists to embrace the “potential” provided by developments in social media.

 

Poland needs to amend a series of laws related to the management of natural disasters because those responsibilities have been transferred to the new Ministry of Administration and Digitalization. The document amending necessary laws was in inter-ministerial consultation in early February, 2012.

 

The parliaments of Berlin and the Poland-bordering German provinces of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have complained to the European Commission over trans-border consultations concerning plans in Poland to build a nuclear plant in its western border Pomerania region. The Polish Energy Group (PGE) announced in December, 2011, that it wanted to start work on the plant in 2016, with possible locations in Zarnowiec, Choczewo or Gaski. Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany announced that the country’s nuclear power industry would be closed down by 2020.

 

According to forecasts by the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency, the number of flights serviced by Polish airports is expected to increase by 14.7% year-on-year in 2012. The 2012 European soccer championships will contribute significantly to the expected increase. The rest of Europe, meanwhile, is forecast to handle 1.6% more flights in the same period. Until mid-December, 2011, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency had recorded over 600,000 flights in Poland for 2011, some 9.2% more than in the corresponding period of the previous year.

 

Two Illinois politicians headed to Poland for talks with officials about adding the country to the visa waiver program. Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk and Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley announced January 9, 2012, at an unrelated event that they were leaving for Poland. Most visitors to the U.S. enter through the program, which allows travelers from dozens of countries that have good relations with the U.S. to temporarily visit without a visa. The politicians said it would be good for Chicago’s tourist economy to enter the program. Experts estimate almost a million Polish nationals and Polish-Americans live in the area.

 

Thousands of protesters took to Poland's streets over the signing of an international treaty activists say amounts to internet censorship. Crowds of mostly young people held banners with slogans such as “no to censorship” and “a free internet.” Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Tokyo on January 26, 2012. The treaty, known as ACTA, aims to establish international standards to enforce intellectual property rights. However, critics say it could curb freedom of expression, and government websites have been hacked in protest.

 

Various European Union (EU) governments are agreeing to sign ACTA, which still needs to be ratified by the EU Parliament, but it has received the most attention in Poland, where there were mass protests. The government still signed, but not everyone in the Polish government agreed. Officials from the Palikot’s Movement held up the famed Guy Fawkes/Anonymous masks in Parliament to protest the vote. A British website noted that a picture of the Palikot political group seemed to show those masks were unauthorized copies of the official Guy Fawkes mask to which Time Warner holds the rights.

 

Poland will attempt to eliminate price caps on natural gas for corporate clients as of January, 2013, and hopes to liberalize the market for retail clients after 2015, the head of the energy regulator URE said on January 10, 2012. Poland’s gas market is controlled by state-controlled PGNiG, whose prices are controlled by URE. The regulator plans to release its official plans for market liberalization after consultations with the Economy Ministry.

 

A spokesman for prosecutors said on January 11, 2012, that seven people, including government officials, have been charged with corruption during the granting of licenses for shale gas exploration in Poland. Waldemar Tyl of the Warsaw Appeals Prosecutor’s Office, who announced the charges, said bribes of tens of thousands of dollars were handed over in the second half of 2011 alone. The Internal Security Agency said three Environment Ministry officials, an employee of the state Geology Institute and three representatives of companies involved in shale gas exploration were arrested on suspicion of involvement in bribery.

 

Skanska Property Poland has embarked on the construction of an office building on Ks. abp Antoniego Baraniaka [Archbishop Anthony Baraniak] Street in Poznan. It will be the first office building in the city to be awarded a LEED green building certificate. Malta House will be a five-story class A edifice with a gross leasable area of 69,000 sq. ft. Tenants will also have access to a parking lot with room for 275 vehicles, as well as a green roof with a view of Lake Malta and a patio garden. The office building will be equipped with a number of sustainable solutions, including adiabatic air humidification based on water mist and a system that utilizes external air to cool the building and heat from offices to warm the garage.

 

Piotr Styczen, Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Maritime Economy, has announced on January 10, 2012, that over 700,000 housing units were under construction in Poland in 2011, a record level in the recent years. The Ministry indicates that 650,000-670,000 housing units were constructed annually in recent years. Expectations in the housing sector the previous year were much worse than the actual market situation. However, crisis tendencies started in 2010 were averted due to improvement in the overall economic situation.

 

More than two million Poles are currently in debt while the country’s total consumer debt climbed to about $11 billion in 2011, reported Rzeczpospolita [The Republic] newspaper. The total debt figure represents a 42% year-on-year increase. On a slightly brighter note, personal debt levels remain relatively low, with more than 60% of those with overdue debts owing less than $1,500.

 

Investments in the Polish railway infrastructure rose by almost 25% to a record $962 million in 2011, according to research firm PMR. In 2010,investment in the development of railway infrastructure reached $776 million, compared to less than $310 million in 2005, when EU grants for rail construction first became available. Experts predict the rail network will experience even more investments this year, ahead of Euro 2012, according to a report by Puls Biznesu [Business Pulse]. Current investment projects and financial settlements have to be completed by 2015 in order to avoid the risk of losing EU funds.

 

Alcohol prices are set to rise in Poland’s restaurants and pubs this coming June because the country is co-hosting of the Euro 2012 soccer championships, reported Dziennik Gazeta Prawna [Daily Law Journal]. Restaurant and hotel owners are planning to increase prices to take advantage of the party mood of soccer fans and their expected willingness to spend money during this summer’s event. It is predicted that as many as 800,000 fans will visit Poland during the three-week tournament and as a result this will inject at least $249 million into the economy.

 

Former Polish Interior Minister, General Czeslaw Kiszczak, will face a fresh trial in February, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported January 13, 2012, after having already received a two-year suspended sentence in another trial the same week. The 86-year-old was convicted of forming an armed criminal group conspiring to impose martial law, declared in Poland in 1981 and lasting until the fall of Communism in 1989. On February 20 he will face trial, for the fifth time, for his role in the death of nine miners, killed when a strike was brutally put down in 1981. Kiszczak is accused of having given police the order to shoot.

 

The Polish American Congress (PAC) prodded the President of Ohio State University to apologize for comparing the problem of coordinating the school’s many divisions to the Polish army. A statement from the PAC called Gordon Gee’s remark on January 11, 2012, slanderous and a slur against a military that the group says has fought valiantly and effectively with the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. The statement says the Ohio State president showed bigotry and ignorance. Afterward, he denied that he was saying something bad about Poland, and he did not immediately apologize.

 

Music legend Elton John is going to Poland to give two concerts. He will play at the at Atlas Arena in Lodz  on July 7, 2011, and the Ergo Arena in Gdansk on the next day. He last visited Poland in May 2010, with a concert at Polonia stadium in Warsaw. In his four-decade career John has sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. His single “Candle in the Wind 1997” has sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best selling single in Billboard history.

 

Robert Kubica (right) was recovering from surgery on his right leg (tibia) in mid-January, 2012, following a fall on an icy street. The Polish news agency Polska Agencja Prasowa (PAP) said the former BMW and Renault driver, who was already sidelined following his horrific rally crash early last year, was operated on in Mantua, Italy. Ansa, the Italian news agency, said the surgery was carried out by an orthopedic specialist and proceeded normally. La Gazzetta dello Sport [The Sport Gazette] said the operation lasted two hours.

 

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman made a working visit to Poland on January 15-16, 2012, at the invitation of Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. The Ministers discussed the current situation in the Middle East, including the consequences of the Arab Spring, as well as the peace process in the region. They devoted special attention to the issue of Iran and its nuclear program, as well as the tensions in the Persian Gulf. Liberman also met with Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak, Minister of National Defense Tomasz Siemoniak, and representatives of the Parliament and the Senate Foreign Affairs Commissions.

 

Tesco, the huge retail sales company, plans to introduce an online ordering service in Poland sometime during the first half of 2012. The online service will initially operate in Warsaw with deliveries being made in vans from three Warsaw-based supermarkets borders. Within the next five years online sale will expand to other large cities in Poland. Tesco will be the second large retailer to introduce internet sales in Poland, after Auchan did so in July, 2011.

 

Sales of condoms and birth control products in Poland decreased by 10% and 3.2% respectively over a year as of October, 2011, the first such drop on record, fresh market surveys indicated on January 17. 2012. Further studies of the data compiled by the Nielsen and IMS Health pharmaceutical market analysts due out in February are expected to pinpoint the causes behind this unprecedented contraction in the contraceptives sector. The fact that Polish health authorities have not launched any high profile public HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaigns in recent years could have contributed to the decline in sales.

 

British detectives flew to Poland in January, 2012, to meet the family of a man who went missing in Leicester more than two years ago. Officers said they wanted to speak to relatives of businessman Grzegorz Witkowski to update them on how the inquiry is going. The team also met with Polish police officers who are also conducting an investigation. Witkowski, then 47, was last seen leaving a party in Bridlespur Way, Leicester, England, on December 12, 2009.

 

Russia has started the extradition from Poland of a former Moscow Region Deputy Prosecutor over his involvement in a multi-million dollar undercover gambling scam. The wanted man, former Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Ignatenko (left), was placed on the international wanted list after police uncovered a massive gambling operation in Spring, 2011. A businessman, Ivan Nazarov allegedly operated illegal casinos in 15 towns in Moscow Region. According to law enforcement authorities, high-ranking officials in the Russian Prosecutor's Office and the Interior Ministry were involved in the casino operations, which generated $5 to $10 million in revenue monthly. Gambling has been illegal in Russia except in four designated zones since 2009, but flourishes in a huge undercover business.

 

Interior Minister Jacek Cichocki told a Sejm [lower house of Parliament] special commission here on January 26, 2012, that Polish security services are ready for Euro 2012, the European football championships, adding that there were no signals indicating possible terrorist threats during the tournament. He put special stress on the role to be played by security services, including the Internal Security Agency (ABW) and the Anti-Terrorism Center. An operations center will be situated in the Warsaw suburb of Legionowo with over 170 Polish and foreign police officials guiding the it during the championships.

 

Officials say that Poland is not intending to adopt the European currency in 2015, but should meet the main financial criteria for admission that year. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said January 30, 2012, in Brussels that in 2015 Poland’s deficit should be brought down to under 1% of GDP, from 5.6% in 2011. That would mean meeting the most demanding criteria for conversion of the zloty, to the euro.

 

Experts from Poland’s Governmental Crisis Management Center (RCB) say bus and plane crashes, rioting fans, flooding, and fires are among the potential disasters that could occur during the Euro 2012 soccer championships. The RCB has identified a group of potential incidents that have a probability of 60% or higher of occurring, with road crashes, fire and power failures all in this category. Less likely to occur, but still potential threats, are chemical contamination, acts of terrorism, communication system failures and radiation pollution.

 

The Luzerne County Historical Society in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, hosted a series of events on January 28, 2012, to culminate its “Polish Heritage” exhibition, which began in October. The multi-faceted exhibit was organized as a way to honor the many families who immigrated to the area in the late 1800s. The day began with a children’s program titled, “Smok the Polish Dragon,” which featured a Polish-themed story-telling hour, craft making and refreshments. The program continued with an afternoon session which featured a Polish-costume embroidery discussion and demonstration.

 

Hundreds of drivers in Poland concerned over rising gas prices staged a protest across the country, driving at a snail’s pace and blocking key routes in a show of frustration. News station TVN24 reported the protests took place January 28, 2012, in dozens of cities as drivers slowed down to 30 to 40 miles per hour, the minimum legal limit, on certain highways to pressure the government to do something about rising gas costs. Gasoline costs about $1.71 per liter (about $8.55 gal.) in Poland now, which is among one of the lower rates in Europe.

 

Poland’s bishops are upset about a decision by the country’s National Broadcasting Council to deny Trwam, a popular Catholic television station, the opportunity to broadcast on digital TV. “The exclusion of a Catholic TV station violates the principles of pluralism and equality before the law,” the administrative council of Polish bishops said in a statement in late January, 2012.

 

Police in southern Poland stepped up a hunt January 27, 2012, for the kidnapper of a six-month-old girl allegedly snatched from her pram after her mother was knocked out. The unprecedented incident, which took place January 24 at dusk in a parking lot of a residential area in the coal mining city of Sosnowiec, has stumped investigators. Municipal CCTV cameras had recorded images of a man following the mother as she pushed a baby carriage holding her baby, named Madzia, walking along a winding route through the city. The images provided only enough detail for a rudimentary police sketch of the suspect who was wearing a hooded jacket and trousers, without facial features. The child's parents, both in their early twenties, appear to have a good relationship despite a custody dispute.

 

Antoni Macierewicz, leader of the Poland’s Parliamentary Team for Investigating Causes of the Tu-154M Catastrophe in Smolensk, Russia, traveled to Canada in early February, 2012. Three meetings presented the research work of Prof. Wieslaw Binienda, member of the Expert Group for FAA/NASA Air Accidents and Professor Kazimierz Nowaczyk from University of Maryland, took place in Montreal and Ottawa, supported and co-organized by the Polish Canadian Congress. Two additional meetings with Macierewicz and two of his experts from the Parliamentary Team were planned for Chicago.