Hundreds of workers threw stones and 'loaded’ snowballs at police officers in from of the JSW HQ after government talks reached a stalemate.

Police only managed to gain control of the mob which gathered in front of the main building of miner Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW) in the early hours of Wednesday, after being pelted by stones, and snowballs packed with screws.

The authorities reacted by shooting rubber bullets into the crowd, injuring at least one protester.

TVN news channel quoted JSW spokesperson Katarzyna Jabłońska-Bajer as saying that the workers were probably joined by right-wing activists and hooligans, who shouted “Thieves. Thieves” at the police.

Around a dozen protesters, aged between 20 and 30, were detained.

No Conclusion

JSW miners are protesting the company’s decision to cut costs as a reaction to the worsening situation in the Polish coal industry.

The plan includes such measures as a freezing of wages in 2015, as well as the removal of bonuses for workers.

Members of the JSW board met with government representatives Tuesday to discuss these issues, but no deal has been struck.

Discussions will be continued on Wednesday afternoon.

The annual Junk Fashion Show concluded Krakow’s Eko Fashion Weekend on Sunday, with models sporting clothes created from recycled materials.

The striking looks were designed by first year students from Krakow’s School of Art and Fashion Design.

According to the school, its students demonstrate that fashion can be created literally from anything.

„You just have to use your imagination and ingenuity. The re-use of paper is not only intended to highlight ecological matters, but also to let the imagination of young artists run wild.”

Models from the Reklamex fashion agency hit the catwalk for the show.

Prizes for outstanding designs were handed out by the Polish Recycling System Organization for Recovery of Packaging.

The number of Poles declaring their intention to buy a new car this year is the lowest since 2007, figures from a new report reveal.

The publication, released by the Conference of Financial Companies in Poland (KPF) along with the Warsaw School of Economics’ Research Institute for Economic Development, shows that Polish households have not planned to buy a new car, the highest number since the outset of the global financial crisis.

The figures are backed up by market trends, as the Samar Automotive Market Research Institute published data at the end of 2014 which shows that while the market grew by 13 percent in 2014, the proportion of individual clients buying new vehicles dropped to under 37 percent.

A Polish woman who underwent IVF treatment gave birth to another woman’s child owing to an alleged mistake at a hospital in the town of Police, north west Poland.

”Put simply, everything indicates that during the IVF treatment, the husband’s sperm was combined with the ovum of another woman, instead of that of his wife,” a doctor told the Głos Szczeciński daily.

The baby girl was born with multiple defects, prompting the couple to call for a DNA test, which revealed that the woman who gave birth to the child was not the biological mother.

The hospital where the mistake occurred is a branch of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, which participates in a government-funded IVF programme.

Joanna Wożnicka, a spokesperson for the university’s clinics, has told the TVN24 news channel that an investigation has been launched into how the mistake occurred.

The child is currently being cared for at the Children’s Health Centre in Warsaw.

Polish black-and-white film 'Ida’ is in the running for best Foreign Film at this year’s awards presented by the French Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques.

“This is further proof that 'Ida’ is a film about a universal message, reaching audiences around the world,” said Ewa Puszczyńska, the film’s producer.

“This film refers to the values which are important for every human being, regardless of geography,” she added.

Other films in the running for the award are ’12 Years a Slave’ (US, dir. Steve McQueen, 2013), 'The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (US, dir. Wes Anderson, 2014), and others.

The awards ceremony will be held on 20 February in Paris.

A Polish soldier has named his newly-born son after an American sergeant who died in 2013 while shielding him from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Michael H. Ollis died in August 2013 during a Taliban attack on a NATO base in Ghazni, eastern Afghanistan.

Several Taliban insurgents blasted their way into the compound, and as a US report recorded, Sergeant Ollis ”stepped in front of a Polish officer as a Taliban insurgent detonated his vest.”

Lieutenant Karol Cierpica has called his son Michał (the Polish for Michael) in honour of his saviour.
Robert Ollis, father of the fallen soldier, has said he and his wife Linda are ”delighted” by the news.
”I thought of the baby as a grandson,” he told US paper the Staten Island Advance.

„We are very happy and honoured.”

A teddy bear (pictured above) knitted from Sergeant Ollis’s khakis has been given to Lieutenant Cierpica’s newly-born son by the Ollis family.

The Ollis family has already visited Poland through an invitation from the foreign ministry, and strong ties have been forged with Lieutenant Cierpica.

Sergeant Michael H. Ollis has also been posthumously honoured with the Polish Army’s Gold Medal.
Poland officially ended combat operations in Afghanistan on 31 December 2014.

The number of new fathers taking voluntary paternity leave went up four times in 2014, figures from the Polish state insurer ZUS reveal.

As many as 129,400 men took the leave in 2014, up from 28,500 in 2013 and merely around 15,000 in 2011, the numbers show.

When taking into account employees of companies with more than 20 personnel, that figure may be even higher, ZUS underlines.

Since 2013, a new labour and social package in Poland now allows men to take two paid weeks off work to look after their newborns, but must be used up until the child turns one.

However, ZUS data shows that Polish fathers are still not keen on taking parental leave, an extra eight weeks to look after children which can be split between the mother and father. In December 2014, only 1,600 men took the leave out of a total of 130,000 parents.

President Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, claimed on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz that Poland is attempting to manipulate the legacy of the Second World War.

Answering questions from Russian journalists, Ivanov disparaged President Bronislaw Komorowski’s recently announced plans to host a WWII victory celebration with EU leaders in Gdańsk on 8 May, clashing with Russia’s own tributes on 9 May.

”Commemorating victory in Gdańsk is a strange idea in my opinion,” Ivanov said.

”What kind of victory was there in Gdańsk?” he reflected.

The Russian dignitary stressed that the war began in Gdańsk.

In September 1939, Poland attempted to stave off a German invasion of the Westerplatte peninsula on the fringe of the Free City of Gdańsk.

For Poles, Gdańsk is also the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union, which brought about the collapse of the Moscow-backed communist regime in Poland. Many regard the Soviet liberation of German-occupied Poland in 1944/45 as the beginning of a second occupation.

”It seems to me that [President Komorowski’s initiative] is one of these attempts to lie somewhat about history, to change it, to correct it, to retouch it,” Ivanov said of the Gdańsk tribute.
Ivanov’s reference to ”attempts” alluded to Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna’s recent declaration that Ukrainians not Russians were the liberators of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Technically, the gates of Auschwitz were wrenched open by the 1st Ukrainian Front, on 27 January 1945. However, these soldiers fought as part of the Soviet Union’s Red Army.
Ivanov said Schetyna’s comments were an attempt ”to insult the sacred remembrance of the people who died here.”

President Vladimir Putin was not invited to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, amid tensions over the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

While critical of some of Poland’s initiatives, Ivanov nevertheless commended the care taken to look after monuments to Red Army soldiers who fell during the liberation of Poland from Nazi German rule.
„In spite of everything I want to thank the Polish authorities for the fact that most of the monuments to Soviet soldiers – I emphasize, the majority – are in good condition, and these are looked after by ordinary people, local authorities.”

The Polish Prime Minister is still without a spokesperson after resignations at the chancellery last week, but elections are looming.

“I have a plan in mind. I have made some decisions, which I will implement shortly,” PM Kopacz told Polskie Radio.

The head of government added, however, that even more important than personnel issues, is Civic Platform’s (PO) electoral programme for the parliamentary elections in autumn.

Commenting on the resignation of former spokesperson Iwona Sulik last week, PM Kopacz said that “after one stage ends, you have to start the next. This is a new year, let us remember that this is an election year, so we cannot get too muddled up in staffing issues, but also about how we will implement the [electoral] programme and how to head into an election.”

There will be two major elections in Poland this year, with Poles voting for a new president probably in mid-May, and a general election later in the year.

Iwona Sulik and PM aide Adam Piechowicz resigned late last week following reports they had coached opposition politicians on how to deal with media issues.

Delegations from around the globe have come to the former Nazi-German death camp to remember its liberation by the Soviet Union’s Red Army on 27 January 1945.

“Auschwitz is a testimony of what human nature is capable of,” Polish President Bronisław Komorowski said in an interview over the weekend.

The camp has become an international symbol of the horrors of war.

It is estimated that around 1.1 million people died at the camp. The vast majority of the dead were Jews. Other victims included ethnic Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and members of Europe’s Roma and Sinti communities.

Final chapter?

Several participants in the commemorations have stressed that anti-semitism has not become a thing of the past.

„If you are a Jew today, in fact if you are any person who believes in the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom in free expression, you know that like many other groups, we are once again facing the perennial demons of intolerance,” Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg was quoted by Reuters as saying. The Hollywood director is in Kraków for the commemorations.

Spielberg directed Schindler’s List (1993) in and around the Polish city of Kraków. The plot revolved around the fate of Jews in the city’s ghetto, and a German industrialist who tried to protect his Jewish workers.

Digital memories

Meanwhile, tech-giant Google has prepared an online museum so that people all over the globe can witness the events which took place at the camp, as well as background to some of the Polish-Jewish families which were eventually sent to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis.

Materials for the interactive presentations were prepared by the National Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, the Polish History Museum, and other institutions around the globe.