the beatroot

“It is so sad that 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz a Polish cleric still engages in anti-Semitic rhetoric because so much Jewish blood was shed on Polish soil," said Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, reacting to Bishop Pieronek’s comments that the Holocaust...

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Polish pink pop princess Doda stole a kiss from President Lech Kaczynski at a prestigious journalist’s ball.President Kaczynski is obviously pleased about the experience. In fact, I think she awoken certain urges he hasn’t felt for years. Allegedly. But is the head of state aware that he has let the...

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The theft of the "Arbeit macht frei" sign from Gate I at the site of the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz showed one politician from the ruling Civic Platform party has delusions of an outside conspiracy, trying to make Poland look bad. (photo: Police image of alleged criminal working...

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Football club releases excruciating Christmas song. Reindeers weep. So does Cliff Richard.There have been some great Christmas songs in the past - but not many. There have been a few mediocre Christmas songs in the past - but not that many, either, What there has been, however, is a great...

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A politician, drugs, prostitutes, blackmail, cross-dressing and video tape. It’s the mix of a tabloid editor’s (wet) dream. It’s the story of Krzysztof Piesiewicz - screenwriter for Krzysztof Kieslowski, a lawyer who helped in the prosecution of the murderers of Father Popieluszko, and a senator for the Civic Platform party...

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Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) has accused a diplomat who spent years in a communist prison of being a communist secret agent.The IPN’s education office released a statement yesterday accusing Maciej Kozlowski - who is currently Deputy Director of the Department of Africa and the Middle East - of...

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Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) is to release documents which appear to show that General Jaruzelski did indeed request support from Moscow if Solidarity protests got out of control.Professor Antoni Dudek at the institute writes on his blog that the documents - to be released in the IPN’s December...

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Something is rotten in the capital of Denmark. Prostitutes are offering free sex in protest against a local government campaign urging Copenhagen climate change delegates to steer clear of the city’s brothels. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, 97 other leaders of governments, 30,000 researchers and delegates from NGOs - plus 5,000...

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It's here at babybeat09...

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President Lech Kaczynski is the 116 hottest leader of state in the world, according to a Canadian satirical web site. The Hottest Heads of State web site has ranked 172 leaders of state, or government, in terms of their sex appeal.No criteria is given, or methodology. But Lech Kaczynski is...

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I have seen the future, and the future is...Father Tadeusz Rydzyk! The restless, ultra conservative, media empire of the founder of Radio Maryja, TV Trwam, the newspaper Nasz Dziennik, a ‘media school’ in Torun and much more besides, is now moving where no restless, ultra conservative, media mogul has moved...

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So outraged are some of the more religiously minded in Poland, that they are organizing a mass pray-in to keep her out of Warsaw on August 15. She is the Material Girl who charges outrageous sums of money for concerts - the tickets here have been retailing at eye-watering prices...

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And thanks to readers who sent emails for me to keep going, but I have been a little distracted, recently.I won’t bore you with the details - other than to say that money - or the lack of it - is the root of all evil: especially when your employer...

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Seventy years ago, as the dark clouds of war gathered over Europe, Poland was in secret alliance with Nazi Germany, and Japan, preparing to invade the Soviet Union. (caption on poster, above, says: Under the great leadership of Stalin, forward to communism!) I know that your history book...

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The media have gone wall-to-wall here in Poland celebrating, remembering, analysing the first round of the elections in 1989 that eventually brought about the first government led by non-communists for decades. A good chance to declare a national holiday! (phot0 - 20th Anniversary of Polish People's Republic Street crossed out)But...

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A candidate for Libertas in the UK has resigned from the party because of Declan Ganley’s alliances with ultra nationalists like the League of Polish Families (LPR). (hat tip: Bueys Own)Candidate for the North West England European election constituency, and UK policy director, Ben Tallis (pictured above), has had enough...

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As the European parliamentary elections loom - scheduled for Sunday, June 7 in Poland - the amount of space in the press and time taken up on air by stories about the anti-Lisbon Treaty Libertas party far outweighs the amount of votes they will get on polling day. On February...

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The German weekly Der Spiegel has stirred up a hornets nest in Poland by suggesting - by daring to suggest - that some Poles (they single out farmers) collaborated with the Nazis during WW II. And not just Poles - French, Romanians, Latvians…etc - collaborated with the Nazis, says...

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The New Labour government in Great Britain has appealed to Poles living in the UK to register and vote in the June European elections - otherwise, says a government minister in London, “The British National Party will win!”Last week, British trade unionists and Labour Party politicians met in the House...

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Here’s a strange one from the Iranian Fars news agency, reporting on the visit to Tehran at the weekend of Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Jacek Naider. He met with the Iranian foreign minister, then with his counterpart:The Polish official […] held talks with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs...

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The icon of many a young, idealistic bedroom revolutionary, Che Guevara - a regular on T-shirts the world over - could become outlawed in Poland, if the government gets its way. Yes, the often-called “liberal” government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has proposed to make all images that promote dictatorship,...

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The United Nations in Switzerland descended into farce today as Poland, the US, Germany and many more boycotted a UNESCO conference on fighting racism in fear that the Iranian president would turn up and accuse Israel of “racism.”Well, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad duly obliged. In his speech to the depleted hall...

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The fire killing 22 - maybe more - people in a sheltered housing building in the north west of Poland over the Easter holiday was tragic and sad. But why have the minute of silences and the state pronounced day of mourning turned into minutes and days?Nobody knows why fire...

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When western political elites appear in Afghanistan - President Lech Kaczynski was the latest to turn up today - it reminds me of the old hippy trail, when disaffected, angst-ridden sons and daughters of ruling elites and the middle classes travelled from Istanbul to Kabul in ‘search of themselves’ and...

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Back in Rome to see the ruins of the old Roman Empire, and a troubled press secretary of the gaff-prone, current one.Italy has been trading on its past for quite a while now - centuries, even. And it’s all here in Rome: the emperors, the popes, the Renaissance, the food…the...

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