Poland

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s most powerful politician has acknowledged that the country bought advanced spyware from the Israeli surveillance software maker NSO Group, but denied that it was being used to target his political opponents.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ruling conservative party, Law and Justice, said in an interview that the secret services in many countries are using the Pegasus software to combat crime and corruption.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Donald Tusk, the leader of Poland’s main opposition party, called Tuesday for the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate surveillance after reports that powerful spyware was used against three people associated with the political opposition.

“This is an unprecedented thing in our history. This is the biggest and deepest crisis of democracy after 1989,” said Tusk, who served as Poland’s prime minister from 2007-2014 and president of the European Council from 2014-2019.

WARSAW, December 9. /TASS/: The European Commission (EC) has sufficient grounds to immediately launch antitrust proceedings against Gazprom and must do it immediately, Polish Minister of Climate and Environment Anna Moskwa said in an interview with the national radio on Thursday.

"We strongly demand that an antitrust investigation be launched against Gazprom immediately," she said.

WARSAW, Dec 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A four-year-old Iraqi migrant girl went missing in an icy forest after being separated from her parents in a scuffle with Polish border guards, humanitarian groups said as they pressed for access to the border region to help find the child.

Poland has sealed off the region along its frontier with Belarus to outsiders as it has sought to keep out thousands of people from the Middle East and Africa who travelled to Belarus in the hope of crossing into European Union territory.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — As 83-year-old Hanna Zientara endured subfreezing temperatures to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot in Warsaw, her 30-year-old grandson was starting a Canary Islands vacation while unvaccinated and stubbornly refusing his grandmother’s repeated pleas to protect himself.

“I am worried about him, but I have no influence over him. None,” Zientara said. “He has many doctor friends who aren’t getting vaccinated, and he says if they aren’t getting vaccinated, then he doesn’t have to.”

07 Dec 2021; MEMO: Poland aims to become an important supplier of high-quality goods and services to Qatar, President Andrzej Duda said on Monday. This is in addition to being an importer of Qatari gas, the Polish Press Agency has reported.

WARSAW, December 5. /TASS/: Polish border guards detained Russia’s freighter Ruslana in the Gulf of Gdansk in the Baltic Sea on Saturday, the specialized portalmorski.pl portal reported.

According to its information, the vessel belonging to a St. Petersburg transportation company was "traveling at a speed of 11 knots directly in the direction of a beach on Sobieszewo Island outside of the allocated waterway."

25 Nov 2021; MEMO: Lilla Swierblewska, a minority Muslim Tatar from Eastern Poland, always wanted migrants to feel at home in her country. Now, having mobilised the kitchen of a restaurant she opened in Bialystok a year ago, she is cooking to support the cause.

That means dinners of turkey meatballs in carrot sauce and chicken with green beans, pasteurised and sealed in jars, then shipped to charities going to the forests of Poland to help migrants who have crossed from Belarus, Reuters reports.

WARSAW/BIALYSTOK, Poland, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The number of migrants trying to force their way into Poland from Belarus fell again on Friday after an apparent change in tack by Minsk that could help calm a crisis that has escalated into a major East-West confrontation.

The Polish Border Guard said on Twitter that there were 195 attempts to cross the frontier on Friday, down from 250 on Thursday and 501 the day before, though Warsaw warned that the migrant crisis was far from over.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish border forces on Wednesday said they were attacked with stones by migrants at the border with Belarus and responded by using water cannons against them.

The Border Guard agency posted video on Twitter showing a water cannon being directed across the border at a group of migrants in a makeshift camp in freezing temperatures.

Polish police said one officer was seriously injured. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital and it is likely his skull was fractured after being hit by an object.