DIPLOMATIC TRAVEL PLANNED

FOR PRESIDENT KOMOROWSKI

Warsaw (PMN)—Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski (pictured, below right) is already doing considerable international traveling in 2012. He will lead a Polish delegation to a NATO summit in Chicago, attend the Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and take part in a UN General Assembly session in New York.

In late January the Polish president went to Davos and in early February to Munich to attend an international security conference.

In May President Komorowski will lead a Polish delegation to the NATO summit in Chicago, planned to discuss the future of the Afghan mission. The Polish president will again pay a visit to the U.S. in autumn to attend a UN General Assembly session in New York during which Komorowski is expected to present Poland's position on significant international issues.

Reportedly, in 2012 Komorowski will continue to work for the strengthening of Poland’s position in the EU, developing bilateral contacts with EU member states and consolidating transatlantic relations within NATO and with the U.S.

The President will also attend regional meetings, such as summits of the Visegrad Group or of Central European presidents.

POLISH CHEMIST SENTENCED

FOR VODKA SCAM IN ENGLAND

London, England (PMN)—A Polish chemist at the center of a scam that led to fake vodka being sold in Salford, England, has been given two years in jail. Wojciech Jan Herbst (left) now faces extradition from Poland after being sentenced in his absence.

Hundreds of bottles of the toxic alcohol were recovered in Salford during a nationwide investigation. Several shops in the city were found to be stocking the counterfeit vodka, as well as others in South Wales and London. It was being manufactured on an “industrial scale” by a gang at a farm in a remote corner of Leicestershire.

Herbst, a Polish national, took methylated spirits and made them clear before diluting them, bottling them and passing them off as genuine vodka. Forensic analysis showed it was unfit for human consumption. The sixth and final member of the gang to be sentenced, Herbst was given a jail sentence in absentia. Five other men were given prison terms last year for their role in the plot.

Simon De Kayne, Assistant Director of Criminal Investigation for HM Revenue & Customs, said, “His [Herbst’s] gang would have known they were putting this highly-toxic product into a bottle for human consumption. However, they were only interested in lining their pockets, with no regard for the health of consumers or the safety of those working at the unit or for the local environment. The revenue loss to public finances was £1.5 million ($2.4 million).

Evidence showed around 165,000 bottles of the fake vodka had been distributed across the Britain for sale.

POLES CAST DOUBT ON RUSSIAN

REPORT ABOUT SMOLENSK CRASH

Warsaw (PMN)—Polish investigators cast doubt January 16, 2012, on a Russian assertion that an intoxicated Polish air force general pressured pilots into making a risky landing in fog that resulted in the 2010 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Statements by the Polish investigators added to a sense of distrust toward Russia that has deepened following the plane crash (right) near Smolensk, Russia, that killed President Kaczynski and all 95 other people on board, many of them top Polish civilian and military leaders.

A Russian investigation said a year ago that a voice on the black box of the plane was that of the Polish air force commander, General Andrzej Blasik. The probe concluded he had alcohol in his blood, and that his presence in the cockpit and words he spoke to the pilots put them under psychological pressure to attempt a dangerous landing.

A Polish military prosecutor, Ireneusz Szelag, said at a news conference in Warsaw that new examinations of the black box could not turn up evidence that Blasik was in the cockpit. Investigators also said that a voice that the Russian report had attributed to Blasik was instead that of the plane’s co-pilot.

Polish investigators said Russian air traffic controllers confirmed that the plane was on the right course for descent, while, in fact, it was flying lower than the crew believed in the moments before it clipped a tree and crashed. Russian officials have, in turn, denied that.

AGNIESZKA HOLLAND TO DIRECT

FILM ABOUT CZECH ICON

Prague, Czech Republic (PMN)—Director Agnieszka Holland, whose Holocaust drama “In Darkness” is an Oscar contender, will tackle the story of Czech “martyr” Jan Palach.

January 19, 2012, marked the anniversary of the death of Jan Palach (right), the 20-year-old Charles University law student who four decades ago set himself on fire in a bid to rouse Czechoslovakia from the apathy that had set into society in the wake of the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion sent to crush the reforms of the Prague Spring.

Palach died of his injuries three days after his act of self-immolation. His funeral in Prague, attended by an estimated 200,000 people, was an outpouring of grief and anger at the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet forces.

Agnieszka Holland, one of Poland’s most prominent TV and film directors, was a student at Prague’s famous Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) during the Prague Spring and the subsequent “normalization” period that followed it. In collaboration with HBO, Holland is to begin shooting a three-part miniseries about Palach this March.

In an interview with Polish Radio, Holland said, “In 1969 I was a student of the film school in Prague. [All] that the script covers, I was very engaged in … Therefore, it is a very important story for me because of personal reasons, as well.”

PUTIN SCORES WITH FREE

SOCCER FLIGHT SUGGESTION

Moscow, Russia (PMN)—Meeting with a group of soccer fans in his hometown of St. Petersburg on January 19, 2012, Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister and presidential hopeful, suggested that the country’s airlines would be happy to provide free transport to the UEFA European Football [Soccer] Championship kicking-off in Poland and Ukraine this June.

Since then, Russian carriers Aeroflot and Transaero have confirmed that they will be offering a limited number of free flights to the Russian team’s matches. The first, a Group A opener against the Czech Republic, is scheduled for June 8 in Warsaw.

Irina Dannenberg, an Aeroflot spokesperson, said the airline had yet to decide how many flights it would dedicate to a free Euro 2012 shuttle or whether any of the flights would travel to Warsaw, where all three of Russia's group-stage matches are scheduled.

Transaero said it will provide a single free flight from Moscow to Kyiv [Kiev] and back, a trip that might normally set its passengers back some $250 or more.

Such a flight would only take place should the team advance to the tournament's elimination stages. It will also offer a special reduced rate to fans for the remainder of the tournament, which ends in Kyiv on July 1. The airline currently does not fly to Warsaw.

INDIAN AND POLISH DRAMA SCHOOLS

SIGN EXCHANGE PROGRAM AGREEMENT

New Delhi, India (PMN)—India’s National School of Drama (NSD) and Poland’s Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theater Academy signed a memorandum of understanding on January 9, 2012, for an institutional exchange program relating to theater students, teachers, experts and productions. The memorandum, valid for four years (2012-2016) was signed by NSD chairman Amal Allana and the Polish varsity’s vice-chancellor Andrzej Strzelecki in the presence of the Polish ambassador.

Poland is also the current international country of focus at India’s National School of Drama.

Announcing the program, Allana said that the “exchange program is designed to explore teachers, experts, students, as well as traditional, folk, contemporary theater, performances and related exhibitions in each other’s country on a reciprocal basis.”

Under the agreement, Polish experts will hold workshops in direction and puppetry with final year students of the drama school for two weeks while teachers of Kalaripayattu, Thang Ta, Chau and Parsi theater from India will visit Poland for three weeks of intense training. A team of three teachers, who are experts in Indian performing traditions, will visit Poland for six weeks and a teacher of acting from the Warsaw Academy will come to India for six weeks.

The school of drama will send students fellowship productions to theater festivals in Poland and the academy will respond by sending Polish productions to the Indian school’s festivals.