tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:32:26 +0000Politics and current affairs of Poland and Central Europehttp://beatroot.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (beatroot)Blogger707125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1219243087787196351Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:12:00 +00002009-12-08T10:36:12.713+01:00Poland'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 bulletin - are records of a conversation between Jaruzelski and General Viktor http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/12/jaruzelski-did-ask-for-1981-soviet.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-9046963395006796164Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:36:00 +00002009-12-06T16:34:41.000+01:00Something 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 accredited journalists - will not be the only ones showing up this week http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/12/no-sex-pleasewere-danish.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-318727572130615806Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:40:00 +00002009-12-05T11:42:43.791+01:00It's here at babybeat09http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/12/follow-beatroot-on-twitter.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-5818449424323987918Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:55:00 +00002009-12-07T01:20:31.003+01:00I ain’t done much on this here blog recently, have I? Weird thing is it still gets 30,000 hits a month - obviously to the large archive of posts I have done. I do promise, however, to start up again very soon. I had to get my wind back. Tired. Too much work, income shrinking as shit hits proverbial fan in Poland‘s media. Employers in their usual, habitual turmoil.Poland. don’t you just love the http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/11/to-my-loyal-readers-from-your-non.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-7173662240442977987Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:14:00 +00002009-10-16T23:14:58.822+02:00President 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 ranked just nine places below Chancellor Angela Merkel - natch! - but three places above Mahmoud Abbas, http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-sexy-is-president-lech-kaczynski.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-968356908925098555Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:41:00 +00002009-07-13T21:44:15.509+02:00I 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 before: the mobile phone market!It’s a logical business move. Take the loyal audience you http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/07/rydzyks-hotline-to-heaven.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)201tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-7704238551154761202Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:56:00 +00002009-07-08T10:11:26.397+02:00So 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 - around 250 euro for a seated ticket. She’s a Kabbalist, exhibitionist, African baby-poacher. She is the conical - http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/07/madonna-versus-black-madonna-in-poland.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-8530502589940934721Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:12:00 +00002009-06-23T20:18:37.782+02:00And 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 seems to not have very much of it. Suddenly.Anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah...http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/06/sorry-i-have-been-away.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-5079500080751681388Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:31:00 +00002009-06-23T20:39:53.524+02:00Seventy 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 in school never told you that, but that’s what Russians are being told. I know your history book told you http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/06/poland-japan-and-nazis-were-going-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-3120504938790093583Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:17:00 +00002009-06-06T00:34:17.025+02:00The 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 no. While prime ministers and presidents from ex-communist http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/06/media-have-gone-wall-to-wall-here-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-133610366579642157Thu, 28 May 2009 20:03:00 +00002009-05-28T22:45:38.169+02:00A 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 of Libertas’s contentment to ally themselves with some strange far right http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/05/lpr-alliance-forces-uk-libertas.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-3661878933472170954Sun, 24 May 2009 17:42:00 +00002009-05-24T20:15:40.799+02:00As 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 1 this year, a few hundred delegates turned up in Warsaw for a meeting with Libertas founder, the Irish millionaire Declanhttp://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/05/polands-strange-fascination-with.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-4119145969883185685Thu, 21 May 2009 19:02:00 +00002009-05-21T21:13:43.593+02:00The 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 Der Spiegel’s lead story this week.It’s really an article about Ukrainian SS officer John Demjanjuk, just extraditedhttp://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/05/der-spiegel-and-polands-nazi.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-3610681991132554380Mon, 11 May 2009 19:38:00 +00002009-05-13T22:41:05.436+02:00The 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 of Commons with Polish organizations such as Poles to Polls, Poland Street and the Federation http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-labour-government-in-great-britain.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-3878218316572773159Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:01:00 +00002009-04-27T20:17:12.877+02:00Here’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 Mehdi Safari in which he said Iran's role in Afghanistan and Iraq is positive and http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/04/heres-strange-one-from-iranian-fars.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-996238995133224379Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:26:00 +00002009-04-24T22:25:08.972+02:00The 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, communism or fascism illegal from public display. This would also include banning the http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/04/poland-to-ban-che-guevara-t-shirts.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-9134548550627179294Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:03:00 +00002009-04-21T18:59:22.297+02:00The 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 - he was the only head of state that bothered to turn up to the event - he said:"In http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/04/poland-joins-un-conference-boycott.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-7356252190252678715Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:59:00 +00002009-04-14T20:21:18.182+02:00The 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 swept through the building housing families down on their luck on Sunday night/Monday morning, killing 22, including young http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/04/mourning-sickness-in-poland.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-867418030935865943Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:07:00 +00002009-04-09T19:50:40.859+02:00When 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 a meaning of life back home seemed unable to provide.But what did they hope to find among the http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/04/afghanistan-where-western-leaders-go-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-2368994826892130403Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:35:00 +00002009-03-31T00:41:16.315+02:00Back 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 Fiat 500. I was so busy the first time I was in Rome - in October last year - I didn’t have much of a chance to see it in http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/03/beatroot-in-rome-part-ii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-2189002701328294167Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:46:00 +00002009-03-17T20:47:39.665+01:00I wish I could say that there have been no posts because I have been involved in heroic acts, which have changed the coarse of history. Or that I had been doing worthy things for the good of Humankind. Or even that I forgot my passwords. But no…just a bit knackered, still. Going to Rome, and will post in first week of April.http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/03/back-in-april.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-3956842299664875785Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:41:00 +00002009-02-22T21:20:32.774+01:00Solutions put forward to stave off the worst of the global financial meltdown - now knocking angrily at the door in Poland, like some aggressive and impatient Repo Man - have split into good old fashioned rightwing and leftwing remedies. But are they all missing the point?The deliciously named Moody ratings agency alarmed everyone last week when they published a rather moody warning that they http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/02/buddy-can-you-spare-grosz.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-733477839594798316Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:28:00 +00002009-02-22T21:02:19.369+01:00Q: What have former President of the Republic of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski (he's the one below) and World’s Most Wanted, Super Terrorist, Uber-Weird Beard and Cave Dweller, Osama bin Laden got it in common?Answer: They are both fans of Arsenal FC!Kwasniewski used to work in a pub opposite the old Arsenal football ground in north London and ended up going to see ‘the Gunners’ often.Osama bin http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/02/friday-quiz-on-saturday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-8015982250162697673Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:23:00 +00002009-02-17T20:24:52.616+01:00Just a bit knackered…http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/02/normal-service-will-be-resumed-soon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-4782664651486067462Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:34:00 +00002009-02-10T08:15:41.252+01:00“And we were so close to getting him released…,” said Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, after confirming that Piotr Stanczak, the Polish engineer kidnapped four months ago in Pakistan, had been beheaded by the Taliban.The now expected grisly video of the moment of death is being circulated on the internet adding to the utter horror that this type of story produces.What’s worse, the voice of http://beatroot.blogspot.com/2009/02/brutal-taliban-beheading-shocks-poland.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (beatroot)38