WEEKLY zloty with VAT Published by Jargon Media Sp z

WEEKLY 3,00 zloty (with 7% VAT) Published by: Jargon Media Sp. z o.o. Index Number: 236683 ISSN: 1898-4762 NO. 34 WWW.KRAKOWPOST.COM JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 Poland joins Schengen, border-free Europe expands Foreign policy review for 2008 The main goals of Polish foreign policy in 2008 will be maintaining good relations with the U.S. and increasing the nation’s stature in the EU 3 Muggers of tipsy tourists arrested Police in Krakow have arrested a gang of muggers who targeted tipsy foreign tourists for late night attacks in the country’s most popular weekend destination 4 Expensive eco-cars hit EU highways In a move to go green, the European Commission wants to limit cars’ carbon dioxide emissions beginning in 2012 7 Although a blessing for Poland, Polish membership in the Schengen Zone will make it harder for citizens of Poland’s eastern neighbors to enter Poland. PHOTO/Daniel Szysz Michal Wojtas STAFF JOURNALIST Lillium builds Warsaw tower In the capital of Poland, the skyscraper concept is becoming more and more fashionable 8 Warsaw, Krakow homeless fight cold About 300,000 homeless people in Poland are struggling to survive the harsh winter temperatures 10 Poles no longer need to go through a passport check when crossing into most other European countries by car or ship. In March they will be able to take flights to most European countries without a check. The reason is that Poland and eight other countries joined the Schengen agreement Dec. 21. The agreement provides for the unfettered movement of people and cargo across the borders of all member countries. Those countries include most EU members and some nonmembers. Poles are now able to cross into Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania without a passport check. Although a blessing for Poland, Polish membership in the Schengen Zone will make it harder for citizens of Poland’s eastern neighbors to enter Poland. That’s because the Schengen Zone immigration requirements are more stringent than the requirements that Poland used to have in place. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek celebrated Dec. 21 in Porajow, where the borders of their countries meet. With them was Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. Meanwhile, President Lech Kaczynski celebrated the day with Prime Minister Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania at the Poland-Lithuania border crossing point at Budzisk. Both Polish leaders said Poland’s ascension to the Schengen Zone is another step toward full integration with the EU. Tusk underlined the fact that abolition of the border controls will make travel easier. Kaczynski stressed the major contribution that the Law and Justice Party-led government, which preceded Tusk’s, made to ward getting Poland into the Schengen Zone. The zone was created in 1985 with the agreement signed in Schengen, Luxembourg. Its goal is to make Europe a land with no impediments to the movement of people and cargo. While citizens of member countries are free to cross borders within the zone, the agreement makes it more difficult for those outside the zone to enter. Countries that join the zone must agree to a standard set of regulations dealing with visas, immigration and related issues. Border guards and police in zone countries can use the Schengen Information System to help ensure that those who are not supposed to be in the zone are kept out. The system’s database includes information on travelers and on means of transport, such as cars. The zone grew to 24 countries on Dec. 21. Besides Poland, the new members are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia. The zone now encompasses all EU members except Great Britain, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus. Non-EU Norway and Iceland See BORDER on Page 11 Record visitors go to Auschwitz camp A record 1.22 mln people visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 2007, a museum spokesman reports 11 house of entertainment the best entertainment in Krakow piano bar live-music sessions bring card – get prize HOTEL NOVOTEL, ul. Armii Krajowej 11 Tel.: +48 (0) 12 636-0807 2 The Krakow Post R E G I O N A L N E W S Czech Republic asks Myanmar to take democratic path Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg late last week called on Myanmar’s ruling junta to take the country towards democracy on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the country’s independence. In a letter sent to the junta’s leaders, Schwarzenberg said he “hoped that Myanmar’s population would in the near future have the possibility to celebrate real freedom in their country on the state holiday.” He challenged the junta to release all political prisoners, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, and to start talks with the leaders of democratic forces in the country. The junta violently cracked down on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks in September with at least 31 people killed and 74 missing, according to a UN report. Myanmar, formerly named Burma, won independence from former colonial power Britain on Jan. 4, 1948. (AFP) Poland wins wine battle P O L A N D JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 Poland’s new government weighs U.S. missile shield: minister AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Belarus president threatens to expel U.S. ambassador Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko late last week threatened to expel the U.S. ambassador to Minsk if Washington tightens sanctions against what it calls Belarus’ “oppressive” regime. “As soon as sanctions are imposed that are fundamental to our economy, we will react in the most severe manner,” Lukashenko said in comments broadcast on Channel One television. “The first person to be thrown out will be the ambassador of the U.S.,” said Lukashenko, who went on to warn of damage to U.S. interests “not only in Belarus.” The U.S. last month imposed sanctions on Belarus’ largest petrochemical company, Belneftekhim, on the grounds that it was under the control of the “oppressive” Lukashenko. Washington also has a visa ban in place on top officials in the country, which U.S. officials have described as “Europe’s last dictatorship” due to political repression and human rights abuses. (AFP) Man charged after skinhead attack on Roma in Slovakia A young man was charged with promoting racial and ethnic hatred and assault late last week after four skinheads punched and kicked young Roma in the Slovak town of Krupina during New Year celebrations. In the attack two Roma brothers suffered head injuries which will require two to three weeks to heal, police spokeswoman Maria Faltaniova told the Sita agency. Before launching their attack, the skinheads shouted Nazi abuse. The 21-year-old suspect faces up to three years in prison if found guilty of a racially motivated attack, the agency added. (AFP) Wine barrels. Michal Wojtas STAFF JOURNALIST Czech MPs to discuss EU reform treaty this month The Czech government will send the EU’s reform treaty to lawmakers for approval by the end of the month, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra said late last week. “We will not artificially hold this up,” he said on Czech public television, cautioning though that ratification by all the EU’s 27 member states could take 18 months to two years. He said the process could be complicated by the desire of some lawmakers from the main Czech government party, the right-wing Civic Democrats, to ask the constitutional court to rule on whether the treaty conforms with the constitution. The government strongly believes there is no clash and does not expect any negative opinion, Vondra added. The reform treaty, signed by EU leaders on Dec. 13, aims to streamline the functioning of the expanded bloc after a proposed constitution was derailed by referendum rejections by French and Dutch voters in 2005. (AFP) Agriculture ministers of the EU member countries have reached an agreement on reform of the common wine market and its subsidies. The union will pay its farmers to remove some of their vines in order to cut the surplus wine production. The ministers also have rejected a proposal to restrict the label “wine” to drinks made from grapes. This decision will satisfy Polish fruit wine producers. The limitation in the naming of alcoholic beverages was proposed in July by the European Commission and supported by the biggest grape wine producers: France, Italy and Spain. A coalition of countries where wine is made from other fruits – Poland, Germany and Sweden – was established to oppose the change, and it succeeded both in the European Parliament and then among the agriculture ministers. Poland is the biggest fruit wine producer of the EU. Its climate doesn’t suit grapevine growing, and grape cultivation is popular only in Poland’s southwestern regions. In other parts of the country, wine is made from apples, cherries, pears and currants. Much of the Polish alcohol production is lowquality fruity drinks to which the Polish term “jabol” is applied. The cheap drinks, with apples a common ingredient, are often consumed by alcoholics. Other higher-quality traditional fruit wines are produced by small wineries, many of them family businesses. These owners have been concerned about meeting the same Polish alcohol production standards as the big factories. The proposed “wine” label limitations would also have created higher marketing expenses for them. This was the second dispute in the EU in 2007 over the naming of alcoholic drinks. Earlier, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and three Baltic states protested against allowing the word “vodka” on labels of spirits distilled from materials other than grain and potatoes. The battle was lost, much to the dismay of Polish vodka producers. Now even beverages made of bananas can be officially named vodka. Currently the most popular alcoholic beverage in Poland is beer. According to a poll conducted last June by the Indicator marketing analysis center, 75 percent of Poles who drink alcohol have bought beer while 56 percent have purchased vodka. Champagne (32) and wine (22 percent) were less popular. The EU is the world’s biggest wine producer, but it faces growing competition from overseas in its own market area. Last year, imports of wine from the Americas, Australia and Africa grew by 10 percent, while 15 percent of the EU wine production remained unsold. Poland’s new liberal government is weighing the costs and benefits of a controversial U.S. plan to install a missile defense shield in Poland, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said. “The U.S. will profit by building the shield in Poland ... NATO will too, because the (missile) base could protect the largest part of the alliance’s area,” the minister told Poland’s leading liberal Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. “But there are also risks, and both the risks and benefits should be evenly and fairly distributed. It can’t be that we will have to carry all the cost ourselves.” Sikorski said in the interview published Saturday that no decision on the project had been taken yet. “This is an American project, not a Polish one. We don’t feel threatened by Iran. However, when an important ally makes a request in an important matter, we take it very seriously,” said Sikorski. “The worst scenario is a situation in which Poland would agree to the shield, will incur the political costs and then the base is not built, because of a change of government in the U.S.,” he said, referring to the possible switch from a Republican to a Democratic president in U.S. presidential elections in November. Washington is currently in negotiations with Warsaw to install 10 interceptor missile bases in Poland by 2012 to ward off potential attacks by so-called rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. The plan calls for associated radar stations in the Czech Republic. Sikorski said it was difficult to say whether the negotiations would be finalized in 2008. “This depends not only on Poland but also on the U.S., whether it will present us the kind of offer that the government will be able to convince parliament to accept.” Recent opinion polls show that a majority of Poles object to the installation of a U.S. missile shield on Polish soil. Many are concerned the move could turn Poland into a target for extremist attacks. Poland’s eastern neighbor Russia also vehemently objects to the project, branding it a grave threat to its national security. The U.S. has repeatedly reassured Moscow the project poses no threat to Russian security interests. A Russian delegation led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Kislyak is expected in Warsaw in mid-January to discuss the issue for the first time directly with Polish officials. Meanwhile missile defense will also be high on the agenda of Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich during a Jan. 14 visit to Washington. Poland launches Baltic cod count after spat AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Ukraine says foreign films must be dubbed in Ukrainian A Ukrainian court early this week banned the screening or distribution of any foreign films which are not dubbed or subtitled in the national language, following a campaign against movies translated into Russian. The constitutional court said foreign films would not be aired or distributed if “they are not dubbed or post-synchronized or do not have the captioning data in the state language.” The move follows a campaign by the Ukrainian public movement Varto! calling for a boycott of foreign films dubbed in Russian or carrying Russian subtitles. Ukraine, a former Soviet republic with 47 mln inhabitants, is split over the language issue. Almost 42 percent of 1,800 people questioned in a poll say Ukrainian should be the only state language, whereas 30 percent want Russian to be also declared an official language, according to a poll released Monday. (AFP) Ukraine says ready for next NATO step in April Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said late last week he expects to join NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), a precursor to full membership, at its April 2008 summit, CIS news agency Interfax reported. “I expect consolidation of Ukraine’s position at the Bucharest summit will allow us to join (MAP) with a view to entering the alliance,” Yushchenko said during an event marking 90 years since Ukraine’s first diplomatic efforts. Such a development would constitute “a fresh step” towards “the creation of a panEuropean security system,” he said. (AFP) Poland has launched a study aimed at estimating cod populations in the Baltic Sea after the EU newcomer disputed an EU cod fishing ban imposed on Polish fishermen last year, a scientist said late last week. “This is a reaction to the opinion of fishermen who contend that existing statistics under-estimate the real population of cod in the Baltic,” Tomasz Linkowski, director of the Polish Fisheries Institute (MIR) in Gdynia, told AFP. MIR observers will travel aboard four Polish fishing boats operating on the Baltic year-round to carry out detailed surveys of their catches, including fish which must be returned to the sea, Linkowski said. Warsaw contested the European Commission’s decision in July to close down cod fishing for the year after Brussels ruled Polish fishermen had exhausted their annual quota. Many Polish fishermen defied the ban, while former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his then government, losers in a general election in October, accused Brussels of overstating the fishing stocks problem. A compromise was reached on Oct. 23 when Poland agreed to respect the fisheries closure in return for smaller than planned Baltic cod quota cuts next year. The cod catch quota in the eastern Baltic, the main Polish fishing zone, will only be reduced by five percent in 2008 whereas the EC had sought a 22.65 percent reduction in order to allow the threatened stocks to replenish. In the western Baltic, where Germany and Denmark are the main operators, the quota cut will be much more pronounced at 28 percent, compared with the 32.84 percent Brussels had called for. Poland has a fleet of 430 trawlers fishing for cod in the Baltic, employing 5,000 people on board and in the onshore processing industry. A bunch of cod. JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 P O L A N D The Krakow Post 3 Polish aide warns Germany regarding expellees’ claims AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Foreign policy review A senior Polish diplomat late last week called on Germany to assume responsibility for possible property claims against Poland by German World War II expellees who fled territory the Allies handed over to Poland after the war. “The issue for us is for the German state to take responsibility in a more unequivocal way for all possible claims of German citizens against Polish citizens,” Wladyslaw Bartoszewski said in an interview posted on the web site of Poland’s commercial TVN24 news channel. A respected survivor of the Nazis’ death camp at Auschwitz and a two-time minister of foreign affairs, Bartoszewski was recently nominated a special envoy for delicate foreign affairs matters by Poland’s new liberal government. Germany and Poland should sign a joint declaration making Berlin legally responsible for any compensation claims by Germans who left behind property in what became Polish territory after World War II as they fled or were forced out following Germany’s defeat, said Bartoszewski. The spritely 85-year-old called for a “diplomatic-legal document formulated as a declaration by the two heads of state or two prime ministers.” Threats by German expellees and their heirs to sue Poles who took over abandoned German homes or land after the war have set off alarm bells in Poland. Repeated pledges by Germany not to support any such claims have failed to allay fears among Poles worried they could lose their homes. The Polish government has long argued that post-war treaties, drawn up by World War II allies Britain, France, the former Soviet Union and the U.S., that handed over German land to Poland make impossible any legal recourse for ethnic Germans who lost property in the process. Over the last two years, under the leadership of President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother, then Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s relations with Germany reached their lowest point since the end of communist rule in 1989. The pair pursued a conflict-prone nationalist brand of foreign policy which the new liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was elected in October, has vowed to transform into a more conciliatory, cooperative style. Former PM Kaczynski creates videoblog AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A celebration marking Poland’s joining the Schengen zone was held in the western Polish town of Porajow at the German and Czech borders. Karolina Nowak STAFF JOURNALIST The main goals of Polish foreign policy in the new year will be maintaining good relations with the U.S., increasing Poland’s stature in the EU and improving relations with Russia, Germany and other neighbors, analysts say. If those sound familiar, it’s because they are the goals Poland has made a priority for several years. Post-Cold War relations with Germany have not been easy. The Catholic Church in the two countries actually stepped in after the fall of the Berlin Wall to try to help facilitate a new set of relations. The Polish Cardinal Jozef Wyszynski was a key player in those talks. At the end of the 1990s, the head of Germany’s Federation of Displaced People, Erika Steinbach, raised the issue of compensation for Germans whom Poland expelled after World War II after national borders were redrawn. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a Polish historian and former foreign minister, said in an interview with Die Zeit that Steinbach was unable to distinguish “the perpetrator from the victim.” He was referring to the fact that the Germans killed more than 6 mln Poles during the war. The issue of displaced people arose when the Big Three victors of the war – the U.S., the Soviet Union and Great Britain – redrew the political map of Europe at the Yalta Conference in 1945. The agreement gave Russia much of the eastern part of prewar Poland. To compensate Poland, the agreement gave Poland territory to the west that had belonged to Germany. The redrawing of the borders meant that millions of Poles who were suddenly on soil that was now Soviet had to resettle in Poland. Similarly, Germans who were suddenly on soil that was now Polish had to move to Germany. Steinbach’s group isn’t the only German organization pressing for compensation. The Prussian Claims Society is demanding the displaced Germans receive restitution for property they lost when national boundaries were withdrawn. Polish groups have countered that Germany owes them much more compensation than Poland owes Germans. In addition to issues that have lingered since World War II, but have resurfaced since the break-up of the Soviet Union, current issues have strained ties between Germany and Poland. Germany was upset about Poland’s decision to send troops to Iraq, although a number of NATO members besides Poland did so. Poland’s new Tusk administration has signaled that the troops will come home this year, however. Meanwhile, Poland was upset about a German gas-pipeline agreement with Russia that it sees as allowing Russia to commit energy blackmail against Poland. The Nord-Stream pipeline is being laid below the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland. It would allow energy-rich Russia to cut off gas to Ukraine, Poland and other Eastern European countries that it wants to intimidate without disrupting supplies to Germany and other Western European countries. The Russians have already used energy blackmail to punish Ukraine for seeking closer ties with the west. And it is using energy blackmail to try to force Belarus into agreeing to a Russian-Belarus confederation, political analysts say. In addition to subjecting Poland to energy blackmail, the Nord-Stream pipeline may cost Poland millions of dollars. That’s because Poland levels a transit fee on gas that Russia sends See POLICY on Page 5 Former conservative Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski may not have a driver’s license or bank account, but he does now have a videoblog. “It is a good way to meet people. I would like to use it regularly. Three times per month to communicate, to transmit to people something important, interesting, something about the news that merits commentary,” Kaczynski said. In his first appearance on the blog, the former prime minister avoided speaking about political topics. He simply transmitted his best wishes to viewers for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. “Let this new year be good for all of us, let it be a good year for Poland and also for the Internet,” Kaczynski said. Kaczynski, 58, recently caused surprise when he said he did not have a bank account or driver’s license. The former prime minister is a bachelor who lives with his mother, and he said in May that he gives his entire salary to her. Kaczynski lost power after his Law and Justice (PiS) party suffered a defeat in a snap election in October at the hands of the liberal Civic Platform. Kaczynski’s twin brother, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, remains the country’s president. Analysts say a weak Internet presence contributed to the party’s electoral defeat, with the PiS more popular among older voters than younger ones. Kaczynski’s video blog is at: www.polityczni.pl/jaroslaw_kaczynski What’s On? www.krakowpost.com Poland on road to eurozone AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Check out our weekly entertainment listings at: Poland slashed its public deficit last year by a third from the forecast figure, the Finance Ministry said late last week, marking a big step towards EU targets and eurozone membership. “We can say with certainty that the (2007) deficit did not exceed 19 bln zloty,” Deputy Finance Minister Elzbieta Suchocka-Roguska told journalists here against a background of efforts to meet eurozone entry criteria within the next four years. The figure of 19 bln zloty compares with a projected 2007 deficit of 30 bln zloty (8.3 bln euro, $12.2 bln) approved by the previous conservative and euroceptic Law and Justice government. That forecast figure amounted to 3.7 percent of gross domestic product, substantially exceeding a 3.0-percent target for eurozone membership. The ministry did not say what the actual deficit now represents in terms of output, but the European Commission had estimated that the ratio would fall to 2.7 percent of output in 2007, rising again to 3.2 percent in 2008 and 3.1 percent in 2009. The 2008 budget, recently passed by the liberal, business-friendly Civic Platform administration which took office in November, forecasts a deficit of 27.09 bln zloty, or 3.2 percent of GDP. Under the Maastricht Treaty which created economic and monetary union, and laid down obligations and conditions for EU members to adopt the single currency, a public deficit should not exceed 3.0 percent of output. The Stability and Growth Pact, which reinforces this discipline for countries in the eurozone, requires the public accounts to move into surplus in the medium term. The public deficit covers central government, social, and local authority budgets. When Poland joined the EU in May 2004, its EU partners gave it until 2007 to bring its deficit into line with the 3.0-percent ceiling. Under Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the liberals predict GDP growth of 5.5 percent in 2008. The economy grew by 6.4 percent in the third quarter of last year on a 12-month comparison. In November, the EC urged Tusk’s freshly installed liberals to take action to cut the country’s public deficit amid evidence that it would breach the 3.0percent level in 2008. Tusk has insisted that he will adopt a strong pro-EU policy after two years of euroceptic conservative PiS government, which often clashed with the EC. When Poland joined the EU in 2004, it became bound to work towards achieving criteria for membership of the eurozone which, with the accession on Jan. 1 of Cyprus and Malta, now has 15 members from the 27 countries in the EU. The main targets concern inflation, interest rates, currency stability, and containment of the public deficit and debt, together with independence of the central bank in managing monetary policy. While euro adoption is the priority for Tusk liberals, Finance Minister Jan Rostkowski has said swapping the zloty for the EU single currency is at least four years away. 4 The Krakow Post N E W S P O L A N D JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 R E G I O N A L Ukraine opposition figure gets top security job Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko reached out early this week to the opposition in this deeply divided ex-Soviet republic by appointing one of its leaders to a top security post. Yushchenko named Raisa Bogatyreva, parliamentary leader of the pro-Moscow opposition Regions Party, as secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, a statement on the presidential administration’s web site said. Regions Party is headed by Yushchenko’s arch rival Viktor Yanukovych, who was prime minister until last week when parliament confirmed Yushchenko’s pro-Western ally Yulia Tymoshenko to the post. The parliament is almost evenly split between the Regions Party and Yushchenko’s supporters. Bogatyreva became the first opposition figure to be given a high-ranking post in government. (AFP) In vitro fertilization: National debate continues ther underground, or else takes place abroad more and more often,” Malgorzata Ksiezopolska, deputy president of the Polish Federation for Family Planning, told AFP. “Access to sex education, information on contraception and family planning remains very limited,” she added. Polish feminist groups estimate that up to 180,000 illegal underground abortions take place in Poland each year. Illegal abortions are relatively easy to obtain in Poland. Newspapers advertise “complete gynaecological services” or so-called morning-after pills along with mobile telephone number contacts. “Wealthier women will always find a solution for their problem, especially within a EU without borders” where they can undergo an abortion in a country where it is legal, left-wing lawmaker Izabela JarugaNowacka said. Abortion had been freely available under Poland’s communist regime, which fell in 1989. Under the influence of Poland’s powerful Roman Catholic church, Polish lawmakers in 1993 approved new rules. More than 90 percent of the country’s 38 mln-strong population is Catholic. Polish feminists on Monday criticized the systematic efforts of conservative politicians and the powerful Roman Catholic Church to toughen the existing abortion law. “This legislation is a compromise among men: men of politics and men in cassocks, who ignore the right of the feminine half of the citizens of this country,” Jaruga-Nowacka said. In April 2007, Poland’s former conservative government narrowly failed to pass a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed protection for human life from conception to natural death. Polish bishops also condemned in vitro fertilization as “inadmissible and undignified” in an open letter in December. The document argued that the method used by couples unable to conceive “kills numerous embryos and constitutes a kind of sophisticated abortion.” Ukraine’s state-run energy firm near bankruptcy Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz is on the verge of bankruptcy and a special commission will be formed to try to save the group, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said early this week, Interfax news agency reported. “The company is on the verge of bankruptcy,” Tymoshenko was quoted as saying at a meeting with the company’s new chairman, Oleg Dubina, who estimated the company’s losses for 2007 at 5.0 bln hryvnia ($1.0 bln.) “It is difficult to imagine that the country’s key energy company has been brought to such a situation that it is necessary to form a government commission with emergency powers ... to try and put its finances in order,” Tymoshenko was quoted as saying. Tymoshenko, a western-leaning populist who replaced Russian-backed rival Viktor Yanukovych as prime minister in late December, has long criticized the management of the country’s gas infrastructure. A key export route for Russian gas to Europe, Ukraine is dependent on Moscow for its gas supply and Tymoshenko has accused her predecessors of agreeing to shadowy deals with Russian partners to appease the Kremlin. Russia succeeded in forcing higher prices on Ukraine in 2005 after it cut off its supplies to the country. The move caused disruption to gas supplies to Western Europe. In December, Ukraine agreed on another price rise for 2008, defusing a possible new dispute. Russian giant Gazprom said Ukraine had agreed to pay $179.5 (122 euro) per 1,000 cubic meters for gas deliveries following talks between Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Ukrainian Energy Minister Yury Boiko. The price in 2007 was $130. (AFP) In vitro fertilization. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Polish campaigners early this week slammed the “climate of fear” sparked by the country’s abortion law, which for the past 15 years has been one of the most restrictive in Europe. Adam Bodnar, from the Polish branch of the International Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said women were being refused abortions even in the limited number of cases where terminations were allowed. A “climate of fear” led physicians to deny women their legal rights, said Bodnar – and women had no recourse in such cases. In Poland, abortion is currently only permitted in cases of rape, incest, danger to the mother’s life or irreversible malformation of the foe- tus. In the rest of the 27-nation EU, only Ireland and Malta have such strict rules. Official statistics register just 200 to 300 legal abortions annually in Poland. Doctors in Poland who break the law face a two-year jail term, although women who have a termination do not face sanctions. “Fifteen years after the adoption of the law, abortion is being driven further and fur- Muggers of tipsy tourists arrested: authorities Police in Krakow have arrested a gang of muggers who targeted tipsy foreign tourists for late night attacks in the popular weekend destination, authorities said late last week. “Typically one of the muggers would approach a drunk tourist going to their hotel late at night and ask for the time,” Krakow regional press officer Dariusz Nowak told AFP. “If it turned out to be a foreigner, gang members would follow him and then attack using tear gas in a dark alley.” The muggers stole cash and valuables, but made sure their victims retained their identity documents in the hope that they would not report the attacks to police, Nowak said. “Some of the apparent victims were drunk to the point they weren’t entirely certain whether they’d been mugged,” he said. Around 20 attacks were reported to police over the last three months. The muggers were finally caught after special plain-clothes officers were stationed on Krakow’s scenic mediaeval Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square) near which most muggings took place. Officers managed to catch two muggers redhanded during an attack on a 62-year-old U.S. citizen. A third was detained later. The majority of victims were British. Budget flights from Britain have made Krakow in southern Poland a popular spot for short breaks, especially for groups of young men on stag nights. The muggers, aged 31 to 34, face up to 12 years behind bars for assault using tear gas. LUK Agency Estonian author Jaan Kross dies at 87 Estonians late last week paid tribute to the Baltic state’s most celebrated contemporary author Jaan Kross, following his death in the Estonian capital Tallinn aged 87. “Jaan Kross suffered at both the hands of the Nazis and the Soviets, he was imprisoned and deported,” Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in comments published by Estonia’s leading Postimees daily. “The similarity of actions of those two criminal regimes made the writer often sneer later in his life on that similarity and to see it as depicting the irony of history.” “Words were weapons for Jaan Kross and he had admirable skill to beat the enemy with his own weapon,” Estonia’s Ministry of Culture, Writers’ Union and Museum of Estonian Literature said in a joint statement. “In the totalitarian society during the Soviet era, this was unthinkable in any other way.” Kross, who died on Thursday, was nominated several times for the Nobel prize for literature, most recently this year, but never won. He ranked as the most translated and internationally bestknown Estonian writer and won numerous awards at home, including the People’s Writer of the Estonian SSR (1985) and he received the State Prize of the Estonian SSR (1977) under Soviet rule. Kross was born on Feb. 19, 1920 in Tallinn and was arrested by both the Nazi and the Soviet regimes. In 1946, the Soviet Union deported him to a Stalinist Gulag detention camp in Siberia. Kross returned to Tallinn in 1954 to become a professional writer. Nazi Germany occupied Estonia between 1941-44. Moscow annexed the small Baltic state in 1944, occupying it until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Kross’s best known works include “Kolme katku vahel” (Between Three Plagues), “Keisri hull” (The Czar’s Madman), “Vastutuulelaev” (Sailing Against the Wind), “Wikmani poisid” (The Wikman Boys), “Paigallend” (Treading Air) and “Tahtamaa” (Wanted Land). He also wrote poetry, short stories and plays. A book of memoires, “Kallid kaasteelized” (Dear Fellow-Travelers), was published in 2003. Kross’ novels and short stories are almost universally historical. He has been often credited for the rejuvenation of the genre of the historical novel. Most of his works take place in Estonia and usually describe the relationship of Estonians and Baltic Germans and Russians. (AFP) AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Tourists relaxing in Krakow. Six people asphyxiated in own home: police AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Six people, including two children, died early this week from asphyxiation due to a suspected leak of carbon dioxide from their coal-fired stove, local police said. The incident occurred at a house in the town of Zychlin, near Lodz in central Poland. “The adults were found dead on the scene. Two children found near them were rushed to hospital, but attempts to revive them failed,” a spokesman for the Lodz police said. A fault with a coal-fired stove used to heat the house is “the most likely cause” of the accident, he added. Coal-fired stove. JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 P O L A N D The Krakow Post 5 Oscar nominated Kawalerowicz dies at 85 GDFL:1.2:www.prezydent.pl Foreign policy outlook From POLICY on Page 3 AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Oscar-nominated Polish film director Jerzy Kawalerowicz died aged 85 in Warsaw late last week after suffering a hemorrhage, Poland’s Association of Cinematographers confirmed Friday. Among the fathers of the 1950s “Polish school” of cinematography, Kawalerowicz directed 17 feature films during his life-time. He was best-known for his Oscar-nominated 1965 costume-drama “The Pharaoh” and the 1961 “Mother Joanne of the Angels” for which he won a jury special prize at the Cannes Festival. The 2001 screen production of “Quo Vadis,” a novel by Poland’s 19th Century Nobel-prize winning author Henryk Sienkiewicz, was his most recent work. In 1978, Kawalerowicz received a Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear for life-time achievement at the Berlin Film Festival. He was also awarded honorary doctorates by France’s Sorbonne University and Poland’s renowned Lodz Film School. He was born Jan. 19, 1922 in what was then the Polish town of Gwozdziec, now in Ukraine. Police hunt octogenarian Romeo fraudster through the Jamal pipeline that runs through the country. To try to minimize the threat of Russian energy blackmail, Poland is seeking other sources of gas and oil. The Germans also oppose a U.S.-sponsored anti-missile shield for Western Europe, part of which is being built in Poland and part of which is going up in the Czech Republic. The Russians have become apoplectic about the shield, believing it is aimed at them – and the Germans believe the project is an unnecessary provocation against Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin showed his displeasure about the shield recently by pulling Russia out of a treaty with NATO that limits conventional weapons in Europe. The U.S. maintains that the shield is to protect Europe from rogue Middle East regimes such as Iran and Syria that might consider launching missiles northward. It is also to protect Europe from North Korean missiles, Washington says. Russia, which is trying to counter growing American influence in Central and Eastern Europe, is angry with Poland for agreeing to let part of the shield be built on Polish soil. A step forward in Polish-Russian relations, which have been frosty for centuries because of Russian occupation and intimidation of Poland, was Poland’s decision in December to allow Russia into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Every OECD member essentially has a veto on a non-member joining, and Poland had exercised that veto for more than two years, enraging the Russians. OECD is an international organization of developed countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and a free-market economy. Poland saw Russia as being committed to neither principle so it opposed Russia joining the OECD, especially after Russia slapped an embargo on Polish meat and vegetable products in 2005. The Russians claimed that Poland was violating Russian safety standards on imported food, but political observers viewed the embargo as political – a way of punishing Poland for foreign policy decisions that Moscow was unhappy with. Just before last month’s parliamentary elections in Russia, Poland finally dropped its opposition to Russian membership. The timing of the announcement – just before the elections – may have been aimed at depriving Putin’s forces of an argument that could help them win votes: that Poland, an important new member of NATO, was governed by Russophobes. If that was Poland’s intent, it didn’t work. Putin’s forces won in a landslide. But Russia quickly rewarded Poland for its OECD decision by lifting the 2005 Polish meat embargo. Political scientist Andriej Piontkowski told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita that the lifting of the embargo was a step forward in Polish-Russian relations. How should the new Tusk government balance relations with the major powers – the U.S. and Russia – that are trying to influence its policies? Aleksiej Muchin, the head of the Center for Political Information in Russia, said Poland should act in its own interest, not just do what the U.S. wants. Muchin said Poland and Russia should discuss the issue of the missile shield, for example. Of course, the next president that Americans elect in November of 2007 could drop the shield idea, which would mean it was no longer a sticking point in Polish-Russian relations. But that remains to be seen. In deciding foreign policy, political observers say, Poland should take into account where it stands in the scheme of U.S. foreign policy. It’s true that Poland has had troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been willing to install a missile shield. But as former American Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski once said: “We shouldn’t overestimate the strategic role of Poland in U.S. foreign policy.” In other words, while Poland is important to U.S. foreign policy, it is not a linchpin of American policy. Those who want Poland to have a foreign policy more independent of the U.S. say Warsaw should have its own geo-strategic vision. It should help in Iraq and Afghanistan because those missions strengthen ties with the U.S. and could diminish the threat of terrorism on Europe. But Poland should not have to choose between the U.S. and Europe. It should cooperate with both. Poland has yet to play an important role in EU foreign policy, although the country makes up part of the EU’s border with countries that have long been in Russia’s sphere of influence. Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain still play the most important roles in EU policy. But Poland could enhance its stature by carving out a role as a broker between the EU and its eastern neighbors. For example, it could give the EU good policy advice on Ukraine’s desire to join the EU. Poland has been benefiting from EU development money, but of course there is no such thing as a free lunch. The EU will be expecting more from Poland and its other new members. That will include help in foreign policy, privatization and the stamping out of corruption, among other things. Last month Poland finally signed a EU Reform Treaty that included a Charter of Fundamental Rights. The only EU country to drag its feet on signing the treaty besides Poland was Great Britain. Poland’s reluctance, which the rest of the EU resented, involved a handful of issues. One was lack of a phrase in the rights document about Christianity’s contribution to European development. Another was that the document banned human cloning in most circumstances but allowed it in specified situations. Another provision to which Poland objected was a ban against discrimination on the basis of political conviction. Polish leaders felt this could help prompt a return of fascism or communism. Poland’s signing of the treaty, despite its reservations, helped improve relations with a number of EU members. A bottom line in foreign policy that Poland must not forget is that the main goal is preserving or enhancing the national interest, which for every country includes security and political and economic strength. Thus Polish leaders shouldn’t allow worries about the international perception of the country to trump Poland’s national interest. As the late French President Charles de Gaulle once said: “ Nations don’t have feelings, only interests.” No matter how friendly the relations between countries’ leaders, it is their countries’ national interests that count. The way a country achieves its national interests, of course, is important in foreign policy. It needs to do so in a calm, cool-headed manner – one that suggests it is acting from a position of wisdom and strength. Is there a chance for Poland to become the kind of leader in Europe that Germany and France have long been? Perhaps. For Poland to take a seat in the front row, however, its leaders need to come up with strategy that earns the country the leadership stature that other European countries have achieved. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Polish police asked for help from the public early this week to find an 80-year-old man who allegedly swindled the life-savings of women looking for love through matchmaking agencies. Photographs of the man, identified as Eugeniusz Gadomski, were published on the Internet site of the Warsaw Metropolitan Police. “The man we are seeking is 170-175 centimeters tall, brown eyes, he may wear a moustache, grey hair, but he may color it,” reads the police profile. “He changes hairstyles often and has been seen wearing a ponytail, a brush-cut, hair combed back and parted on the side,” it says. Suspected of a long string of swindles, the 80-year-old has been in hiding since 1998, according to police. “Eugeniusz Gadomski defrauded a significant sum of compensation for having been in a (WWII) concentration camp in which it turned out he never set foot,” according to the statement. “Moreover, he has swindled many single women, one of whom he also severely injured,” it says. Despite several warrants for his arrest, the octogenarian has successfully eluded police for years. Poland to boost Afghanistan troops in wake of assassination AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Poland will boost its forces in Afghanistan by 400 troops to a total of 1,600 in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said late last week. “The destabilization of the situation in Pakistan and the danger that this instability will expand in the region and to Afghanistan has forced us to reinforce our military contingent,” he told the commercial TVN24 news channel. Klich said the additional troops would be deployed in April or May. Around 180 of the extra soldiers will be tasked with maintaining eight helicopters Poland has vowed to send to Afghanistan. Poland currently has 1,200 soldiers deployed in the 36,000-strong UN-mandated and NATOled International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Get your message across! 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Wielopole 15 Tel. 012/ 429-6556 www.ego.zaprasza.net 6 The Krakow Post N E W S P O L A N D JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 R E G I O N A L Ukraine president hails new government’s first budget Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko late last week signed off on Ukraine’s 2008 budget, which he hailed as proof that the country’s razortight parliamentary majority was functioning effectively. “This is the first serious result of cooperation between the president of Ukraine, the democratic parliamentary coalition and the new government,” Yushchenko said in comments published on his web site. Yushchenko ally Yulia Tymoshenko secured passage of the budget through parliament on Friday, 10 days after being elected prime minister with one vote to spare in parliament. Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc together secured a narrow majority of seats in September elections to unseat their Russia-backed rival Viktor Yanukovych from the prime minister’s office. Tymoshenko said a 2008 budget deficit of 18.5 bln hryvnias ($3.66 bln, 2.5 bln euro) would be financed in part by privatizations, the Interfax news agency reported. The budget envisages income of 215.36 bln hryvnias ($42.6 bln, 29 bln euro) and expenses of 235.43 bln hryvnias ($46.6 bln, 31.7 bln euro), the news agency reported. The budget is based on GDP growth of 6.8 percent and inflation of 9.6 percent, Interfax said. (AFP) Record New Year’s Eve numbers disputed Grazyna Zawada STAFF JOURNALIST First humanistic wedding service Rising cost of living sours New Year cheer Iwona Bojarczuk STAFF JOURNALIST Lithuanians charged with sending prostitutes to sheiks Four Lithuanian women have been charged with forcing girls into prostitution in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Britain, where alleged clients included sheiks, prosecutors said late last week. “The accused women promised girls modelling work, but involved them in prostitution and profited from their prostitution,” the Lithuanian prosecutor general’s office said in a statement. “The Lithuanian girls were sent to many countries, and were also specifically transported to Arab sheiks to provide sexual services,” the office said. None of the suspects, nor their victims or clients, was named by the prosecutor’s office. The four women are accused of involvement in trafficking in 2001-2005. Prosecutors identified 19 separate occasions where groups of six or seven girls, sometimes including minors, were sent to foreign countries. “The women were in permanent contact with their ‘customers’, sent then pictures and personal data of the girls, and selected them for the clients,” the prosecutor’s office said. Besides the United Arab Emirates, other destinations included the Seychelles, Monaco, France and Britain. Under Lithuanian law, convicted sex traffickers can face up to eight years in prison. (AFP) Czech Republic braces for healthcare revolution In a country long used to free access to healthcare, Czechs are facing a major change in their health system – paying charges for medical services and prescription drugs starting from early this week. Charges of 30 koruna (1.12 euro, $1.66) will be levied on every visit to the doctor and on prescriptions, with a 60 koruna charge for each day spent in hospital, and 90 koruna for emergency services as part of reforms pushed through by the center-right government. The Health Ministry says the charges will bring 3.5-4.0 bln koruna into the healthcare system and save around 4.0 bln a year. “People will be less wasteful and abuse the health system less,” the ministry said in a booklet explaining the changes. Czechs visit doctors on average 13 times a year and stay in hospital nine days a year, putting them near the top of the European league, it added. The Czech Association of Patients argues payments will go into doctors pockets and not help the system and says changes will take many by surprise. (AFP) Now that the partying is over, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Krakow are bickering over who had the best New Year’s Eve turnout. A mix of national and foreign performers (not A-list) were featured at each event. All of the events operated from around 20:00 to 01:30 with expenditure ranging from 3.5 mln zloty in Warsaw, 2.3 mln zloty in Krakow and 2 mln zloty in Wroclaw. Police reports were consistent across the cities with no serious offences or injuries reported. Warsaw reported that 20,000 people attended its New Year’s celebrations, with Katarzyna Ratajczyk from the Warsaw Promotion Bureau named Krakow’s claim of 190,000 people impossible because Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square) could not hold more than 45,000. Krakow’s mayoral spokesperson Marcin Helbin riposted that if Ratajczyk didn’t believe the numbers, she could spend the next New Year’s Eve in Krakow. However, when Wroclaw’s mayoral spokesperson Marcin Garncarz announced the attendance of 200,000 people at their New Year’s celebrations, Krakow began screaming foul. For all the bombastic rhetoric and cajoling, only Warsaw based its figures on official police statistics of people per square meter in the venue area. For this the police have been criticized by Warsaw’s Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Krakow’s unofficial police statistics also indicate a smaller audience than that claimed by event officials. Krakow’s Festive Bureau gave a number of 190,000 for “Rynek Glowny and neighboring streets” at “the climax of the party.” It is unlikely that the disputed figures will change for Krakow. “We won’t give any official numbers – our colleagues from Warsaw did and they got into trouble. We don’t want to get our fingers burned,” said Dariusz Nowak police spokesperson for Malopolska. Krakow and Wroclaw event organizers have stirred up old rivalries among officials and citizens from both cities with internet forums overloaded by incendiary comments about the authenticity of competing claims. Obviously they are unaware of the saying “less is more,” though definitely partial to the methods of “give or take…” Joanna Zabierek STAFF JOURNALIST A Warsaw couple has been married in Poland’s first humanistic, or non-religious, wedding ceremony. The Polish Rationalists Association helped organize the wedding of Monika Szmidt and Milosz Kuligowski, both 24. The difference between a civil ceremony and a humanistic ceremony is that a civil ceremony takes place at a government office while a humanistic ceremony takes place in a non-government venue that the couple decides. A humanistic ceremony is an alternative for those who don’t want to be married in a church because they are atheists or couples of mixed religions. Polish law has yet to accept a humanistic marriage, so to be legally married a couple also has to go through a civil ceremony. The Szmidt-Kuligowski wedding was held in the former Museum of Agriculture and Industry. When it began the only light in the room was from candles. The bride and groom walked in to the accompaniment of violin music. All guests received red tulips, which they gave the newlyweds after the ceremony. The ceremony was conducted by what are known as celebrants – a man and woman – rather than clergymen. “That marriage was special not only for the couple but also for all of us gathered here because it was the first humanistic wedding in Poland,” said celebrant Krzysztof Panecki. Having both men and women celebrants emphasized the equal positions and rights of “both sexes in society,” he said. The most important part of the ceremony was the marriage vows, which were the same for both bride and groom. Each said: “You may love me when I’m happy and when I’m sad, when I’m successful and when I’m defeated. If you want to, you can miss me when I go somewhere, even if it is just the next room. I promise we will watch movies together, sing, dance, laugh and cry together. I promise to share everything with you, my thoughts, my property and everything you want.” After the vows the couple placed rings on each others’ fingers and signed a symbolic marriage compact. The newlyweds said a humanistic ceremony fit their values. “We want to live our lives this way,” Monika said. Humanistic marriage services have the same legal status as traditional church weddings did before 1998, when the institution of concordat marriage was launched. Since then, a church ceremony is enough to be considered legally married. Humanistic ceremonies are legal in the U.S., Norway and Scotland. In many countries it is common to have a humanistic ceremony immediately after a civil ceremony. Price rises, attributed to the ongoing hike in fuel costs, are predicted in 2008 across the board for basic goods and services in Poland. Oil broke the $100 barrier at the beginning of the year which has resulted in a knock-on effect throughout the economy. Everyday goods such as bread, milk and cheese may rise up to ten percent according to some experts. Economists warn that if government intervention to reduce costs for imported goods and petrol prices is not undertaken immediately, consumers will begin to feel the pinch. Car owners will be directly affected by fuel costs at the pump with prices increasing by 0.7 to 0.8 zloty per liter. The price of power is also expected to rise by 10 to 15 percent with the average family spending around 160 zloty more for electricity per annum. The end of price control via the Office of Power Industry Regulation for electricity has resulted in the increase, as price is now determined by companies selling energy. Refuse collection is expected to increase with collection companies being slugged by a new tariff of 75 zloty per ton up from 15 zloty for nonsegregated refuse. Residents will bear the brunt of the increase from January, paying up to 100 percent more for rubbish collection services. This translates to 5 zloty per person per month or double the previous rate, with individual rubbish bin owners paying 22 zloty, up from 14 zloty for a 120 liter bin. Residential flat prices are set to increase, especially in towns and smaller cities, and be compounded by a rise in mortgage rates. Communal leases in Krakow will also increase with residents to pay from 4.42 to 7.87 zloty per square meter. In concert with EU thinking on discouraging smoking, cigarette prices are set to rise with an increase in government tax which is allegedly going to be passed on to physicians and teachers through wage increases. The government expects to raise 2.3 mln zloty from price increases of up to 0.5 zloty per pack of cigarettes. Some relief from the rising cost of living is expected through an increase in minimum wages, lowering of superannuation and higher allowances for children via PIT tax. Stary Kleparz Pharmacy Get your message across! 28 Miodowa St. tel. 012 4296929 info@momotownhostel.com www.momotownhostel.com 10% discount with this ad! Momotown Hostel We speak English and French. Rynek Kleparski 14 Tel.: (0) 12 430-0410 www.starykleparz.pl Advertise in The Krakow Post! Contact: Andrzej Kowalski, Marketing Manager +48 (0) 798-683-160 JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 B U S I N E S S The Krakow Post 7 Second Chinese company to sell cars in Poland GFDL:1.2:MarcinJLewandowski GFDL:1.2:Zzyzx11 Expensive ecological cars hit EU highways Poland and Slovakia to build large aquapark THE KRAKOW POST Iwona Bojarczuk STAFF JOURNALIST Iwona Bojarczuk STAFF JOURNALIST Great Wall will soon become the second Chinese auto maker to sell its products in Poland. It plans a grand opening of its first dealership in Radom in central Poland. China Motors already has a dealership in Gdansk. Like China Motors, Great Wall will offer cars much cheaper than those made in Europe. The company will offer two models to start with – the off-road Hover and the Deer pick-up. The Hover, which boasts an automatic transmission and leather upholstery, will cost 70,000 zloty, or 30,000 less than a comparable Japanese model, the Toyota RAV4. The Chinese and Japanese models look similar, but experts say the Toyota has a more modern engine. The Hover’s engine was designed in the 1990s. The Deer, whose engine also was designed in the 1990s, costs about 50,000 zloty, or 30,000 less than a comparable Toyota Hilux or Mitsubishi L-200. The Hilux boasts a modern diesel engine that burns much cleaner than the Deer’s. In addition, it has air bags, while the Deer does not. Although Chinese cars may not be at the cutting edge in technology, rivals will never be able to compete with them on price. The key is cheap Chinese labor. An auto worker gets 28 euro an hour in Europe, 20 in the U.S. and three-fourths of a euro in China. In addition, the quality of materials that the Chinese use are nowhere near as good as those in European, American or Japanese cars, auto experts say. That may be one reason that Chinese cars perform poorly in safety tests. But Bohdan Bogucki, a China Motors representative, said the time for Chinese cars has come. Chinese companies are already offering vehicles that can compete with other makers, he said. In his opinion, the only thing keeping Chinese cars from gaining a bigger toehold in Europe is lack of a major investor. European makers, fearful of Chinese cars’ price advantage, hope they can manufacture cars with more cutting-edge technology for years to come. They are aware, however, that Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans were once considered cheap and unsophisticated. Today Japanese cars are the best in the world. Some Polish auto journalists contend that comparing the Japanese cars of yesteryear with today’s Chinese cars is unfair to Japanese makers, however. Japanese cars that were made decades ago were not put together in the slipshod fashion that some of today’s Chinese cars are, these writers say. Price will play a role in the Chinese cars’ success in Europe “but not the leading one,” said Tomasz Puchalski, who writes for Auto Tydzien. Time will tell whether Poles will embrace Chinese cars. For the time being, many are skeptical. “Once someone said that poor people cannot afford cheap things,” said automotive journalist Wojciech Walczuk. “It is true.” Many Poles will be reluctant to spend thousands of zloty on a Chinese car because it is untried and untested, he said. “We know nothing about Chinese cars – about their durability, quality and technology,” Walczuk said. Other auto writers say Chinese auto makers will prove themselves over time. “We should not look down on Chinese companies,” said Jarosalw Maznos, editor in chief of Auto Moto. They “will achieve higher standards,” he said. The problem is that much of Chinese auto-making is based on the technology of 15 to 20 years ago. This means their cars are still not comparable to those made in Europe, Japan or the U.S. Great Menu. But if the jumps in JapaGreat Fun For 350 PLn nese and Korean quality over teL.: +48 (0) 12 292-8020 the decades is any example, biuro@Poezjasmaku.PL Chinese cars are likely to get uL. jaGieLLonska 5 better and better. Cars and trucks generate more than a fourth of all the carbon dioxide emitted in the EU each year. To address the problem, the European Commission is proposing to limit cars’ carbon dioxide emissions beginning in 2012. The EC wants all cars sold in Poland and the rest of the EU to produce no more than 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. Today’s average luxury car emits more than twice the carbon dioxide of the proposed standard – about 254 grams per kilometer. An average sports car emits 218 grams. And even small cars – the Fiat Panda, for example – exceed the standard at 218 grams per kilometer. Cleaner-burning engines would yield most of the reduction in carbon dioxide that the EC wants. Smaller reductions could be obtained by improving tires, air conditioning systems and other auto parts, and using more biofuels. A sizable decrease in carbon dioxide emissions would help fight global warming, said the EU’s commissioner for environment, Stavros Dimas of Greece. He said stricter regulations on emissions would “encourage the auto industry to invest in new technologies” that would create jobs. Companies that produce big cars, such as German makers, would have a harder time decreasing emissions than companies that produce smaller cars, such as French and Italian makers. But the EC would give makers the choice of teaming up to generate an average emission that would meet the 120-gram requirement. If a maker of luxury cars teamed up with a producer of smaller cars, the big-model maker’s cars could exceed the emission standard as long as the average emission of the two companies’ cars met the 120-gram requirement. Neither environmentalists nor the auto industry likes such an approach, however. Greenpeace member Franziska Achterberg of Germany said allowing some cars to exceed the 120-gram standard is a cop-out that will limit the reduction in emissions in the EU. “A few days ago, in Bali, the EU roared like a lion” at an international meeting aimed at preventing global warming, she said. “Today it behaves like a lamb, preferring short-term factory profits to the survival of humankind.” Car manufacturers complain that allowing companies to team up to produce an average emissions rate will reduce industry competitiveness. The EC wants to put teeth into the emissions-standard regulations by levying stiff fines against makers that fail to comply. In the first year the regulations take effect, the commission proposes a fine of 20 euro for each gram that a car emits over the 120-grams-per-kilometer limit. The penalty would increase to 35 euro per gram in 2013, 60 per gram in 2014 and 95 per gram in 2015. Makers that miss the standard by a wide margin could end up paying tens of millions of euro in fines per year. Industry wide, the consequence of failing to meet the standard could cost makers billions of euro over several years. Makers say they are in a no-win situation over the short term. If they fail to meet the standard, they will pay tens of millions of euro in penalties. But meeting the standard will cost them even more – in designing new engines and retooling assembly lines. They contend that, one way or another, customers will foot the bill. If auto makers have to pay penalties, they will recoup their costs with higher car prices. If they meet the emissions standard with redesigned engines and assembly-line retooling, they will have to charge customers more to cover the additional costs. In fact, some makers say the cost of meeting the standard will add anywhere from 1,000 euro to 4,000 euro to the price of a new car. Lower emissions are likely to mean smaller, more fuel-efficient engines, which means customers will save on fuel costs, however. The savings will amount to about 2,700 euro over the life of a car that meets the 120-gram standard, as compared with today’s average car. NEW EMPLOYMENT PORTAL LAUNCHING NOVEMBER 2007 REGISTER FOR FREE TODAY BE FIRST! SEND YOUR CV NOW MAKE YOURSELF VISIBLE TO EMPLOYERS IN IRELAND, UK AND MIDLAND EUROPE REGISTER NOW ON www.snazzyjobs.ie A Polish-Slovak consortium plans to build Poland’s biggest aquapark in the Pieniny Mountains, one that uses geothermal water so visitors can swim in winter. The Slovaks are already looking for a source of geothermal water so they can build an aquapark on their side of the border. The search has focused on the village of Stara Wies. Preliminary search results indicate springs in the area with temperatures as high as 75 Celsius. If the Polish-Slovak consortium can find hot-water springs in Poland, work on an aquapark could begin in the first half of 2009. Results of the consortium’s search for a spring will likely be known by the end of the month, said Stanislaw Chmiel, who represents the village of Sromowce Wyżne in the project. The consortium has yet to design the park because a design depends on the capacity of the springs. The companies involved in the partnership have yet to be revealed. The aquapark will become one of the area’s three biggest tourist draws, along with relaxing at Czorsztynskie Lake and rafting on the Dunajec River, predicts Czorsztyn village administrator Waldemar Wojtaszek. Geothermal swimming pools already are the biggest tourist attraction on the Slovak mountains. The 40 pools attract about 4,000 people a day in summer and 3,000 a day in winter. In the old days, just swimming and relaxing around a pool was enough to draw visitors to hot springs. These days, however, people want more, including water slides, hydromassages and saunas. That demand has led to a boom in aquaparks in Poland. Cities with such parks include Krakow, Sopot, Leszno, Polkowice and Darlowo. The parks attract not only tourists from nearby areas, but people from some distance away. The Tatry slope of the Antalowka Mountains has an aquapark with three swimming pools that attract 2,500 visitors a day. That facility’s popularity has led to plans to build aquaparks in Banska Nizna and Bukowina Tarzanska. The Banska Nizna complex will feature five swimming pools and the Bukowina Tarzanska complex 12. Krakow’s aquapark is at ul. Dobrego Pasterza 126. Its attractions include three large swimming pools, eight jacuzzi with salt water, water slides, a wild river stretch, a climbing wall, outdoor sports facilities, a Tibetan bridge, hydro-massages, dry and steam saunas and a solarium. The facility also boasts a fitness club that offers classes in yoga, taichi and dancing, conference and banquet rooms, restaurants, shops and a beauty salon. 8 The Krakow Post R E G I O N A L B I Z B U S I N E S S JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 Poland inflation spikes to four percent in December Inflation in Poland spiked to 4.0 percent yearon-year in December, according to a Finance Ministry estimate released late last week. November saw inflation jump to 3.6 percent year-on-year from 3.0 percent in October, according to official data released by Poland’s Central Statistical Office (GUS). Prices rose by 0.3 percent in December compared to November, the ministry said. The GUS is expected to release the official December inflation rate on Jan. 15. (AFP) Lithuanian economy up 10 percent in 2007, set to slow The Lithuanian economy surged by about 10 percent in 2007 but will slow sharply this year, the Economics Ministry said late last week. “Economic growth continued in the last quarter of 2007, and we expect that GDP (gross domestic product) growth for 2007 will be about 10 percent,” the ministry said. The ministry forecast that growth would dip to 5.3 percent this year, mainly because of a labour shortage and tougher rules for issuing consumer credit. The ministry’s forecast is pessimistic compared to the outlook from the Lithuanian Central Bank at the end of October estimating that the Baltic country’s GDP would grow by 7.4 percent in 2008. The Lithuanian economy grew by 7.5 percent in 2006 and is one of the fastest growing in the EU, which it joined in 2004, 14 years after declaring independence from the crumbling Soviet Union. Thousands of Lithuanians have taken advantage of the EU’s free movement rules to find work in other member states of the union, notably Britain and Ireland. In an attempt to deal with the ensuing labour crunch in this country of 3.3 mln people, Lithuanian authorities have been trying to tap neighboring former Soviet nations for workers. Data from the Lithuanian labour bureau on Thursday showed that the number of permits issued to foreign workers had more than doubled in the first nine months of 2007. A total of 4,253 permits were issued in January-September 2007, compared with 2,050 permits in the same period of 2006, the bureau’s figures showed. Forty-two percent of those granted permits came from Ukraine, and 38 percent from Belarus. (AFP) Czech deficit ends lower than expected at 2.51 bln euro сс:2.5:Chosovi Lillium builds Warsaw skyscraper Urszula Ciolkiewicz STAFF JOURNALIST Czech government mulls selling fewer CEZ shares The Czech government must decide whether to proceed with the planned sale of a 7.0 percent stake in state-controlled electricity giant, CEZ, or sell less in view of the share price’s recent rise, Premier Mirek Topolanek said in an interview late last week. “The discussion is different today. It is about whether we sell at a level for the required return or for the already agreed percentage,” Topolanek said in response to questions from the business daily Hospodarske Noviny. “At this moment, the return [from the sale] would be a lot higher. No decision has yet been taken,” he said, pointing out that the government initially set a minimum price per share of 950 koruna (36.1 euro, $53.5) while CEZ now trades around 1,400 koruna. The government set an original target of earning at least 30 bln koruna by cutting its stake of just over 67 percent in Central Europe’s biggest electricity company, the newspaper pointed out. Thanks to the share’s appreciation, it would now only have to sell a 3.6 percent stake, with shares amounting to 1.63 percent already offloaded, to land the same privatization windfall, the CTK news agency reported. (AFP) In the capital of Poland, the skyscraper is becoming more and more fashionable. Nearly every week the media inform us about the next sizable project in Warsaw. The latest front-page news concerns a 250-meter giant to be designed by Zaha Hadid, one of the greatest stars of contemporary architecture. The undertaking will be financed by a company called Lilium (lily). The new skyscraper will be built near the Marriott hotel oppo- site the Central Railway Station and reach a height of 70 floors. It will be built on the plan of an irregular cross, with a shape resembling the lily. Part of the Marriott will be rebuilt to make way for the new building. The building is scheduled to be completed in 2012 to coincide with Euro 2012 football championships. Architect Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad. She obtained a degree in mathematics at Beirut University, then graduated from the Architectural Association School in London, which became her home and workplace. In 1980, she established her London office. Today her firm employs more than 300 people and has branches throughout the world. Since 2001, she has been a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at Columbia University in New York. Three years ago, Hadid was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is popularly called the architects’ Nobel Prize. In her private life, Hadid is an active feminist and makes a point of distancing herself from the stereotypical image of Arabian women. Native English Teacher Top Management MINI A school of English in Krakow is looking for a native English teacher. The position is available immediately for a period of one year. The individual should be enthusiastic and creative, possession of a recognized teaching qualification (CELTA/TEFL) and some relevant previous experience in work with groups is required. If you are interested in this vacancy or would like further information please do not hesitate to send your CV. eng_schoolkrakow@ yahoo.com MINI M 31, University degree in engineering, 6 years of top management experience in leading companies in industrial cooling, refrigerating sector. Project management. Negotiations. Prepare technical solutions. Full scope of technical support: pre-planning. PC. Contact: jerrybarrows@ yahoo.com AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Poland jobless rate eases to 11.2 percent in November Unemployment in EU newcomer Poland declined slightly to 11.2 percent in November from 11.3 percent in October, the Central Statistical Office (GUS) announced late last week. The November figure is down 3.6 percent on a 12-month comparison, with joblessness tallying at 14.8 percent in November 2006. The GUS figures showed that about 1.72 mln of Poland’s 38 mln citizens were registered as unemployed at the end of November. (AFP) The deficit in the Czech state budget for 2007 was held to 66.4 bln koruna (2.51 bln euro, $3.71 bln) rather than an originally forecast 91.3 bln koruna, Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek said late last week. “These better than expected results are the common feature of all eurozone economies. All are developing in a better direction,” Kalousek said, adding that the lower Czech deficit reflected cuts in state spending, higher than planned tax revenue and a sound overall economic performance. The 2007 shortfall would translate into an expected public sector deficit of just under 2.0 percent of gross domestic product according to the EU’s methodology for calculating the country’s eligibility to join the eurozone. The center-right government counts on a deficit of 70.8 bln koruna for this year, which would still be below the 3.0 percent of GDP limit for switching to the euro. The Czech government has not set a target date for entering the 15-nation eurozone. We are currently looking for people to join our Marketing & Sales team. Successful applicants will: - enjoy the art of selling and meeting new people - have a minimum of one year of sales experience - be communicative and flexible with a non-09:00-17:00 mentality If you are interested, please write to us: jargonmedia@gmail.com VACANCY Marketing & Sales Enthusiasts!!! You are wanted! RESUME Place a career resume here! jargonmedia@gmail.com Business/Personal Assistant MINI Place a job offer here! jargonmedia@gmail.com Helper/Au-Pair MINI International Women’s Association of Krakow www.iwak.pl iwak_krakow@yahoo.com VACANCY We are looking for a Helper/Au-Pair. Native English speaker preferred. aupair152krakow@ yahoo.com Place a job offer here! jargonmedia@gmail.com RESUME ANNOUNCEMENT Talented, experienced lady is looking for a job of Business/Personal Assistant (full- or part-time) Degree in Philology, 10 years experience in Western companies. Very responsible, goal excellent organizational and interpersonal skills. Please contact me at: hiopole@mail.ru Place a career resume here! jargonmedia@gmail.com JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 B U S I N E S S The Krakow Post 9 Boom predicted for Krakow and other regional airports LUK Agency Poland wants talks with Russia, Germany on contested pipeline AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE PMR CONSULTING The immense increase in the number of passengers using the Krakow Airport in 2007 was one of the highest in Poland, according to the Krakow-based PMR consulting company. Regional airports such as Krakow’s will continue to post higher growth rates than Warsaw’s, which is “maxed out” until a new terminal opens, PMR predicts. To meet rising demand for flights to and from Poland, government and corporations will pour billions of zloty into expansions of existing airports and the building of new ones in the next five years. The total is expected to top 7 bln zloty between 2008 and 2013, according to PMR. One of the reasons for the jump in airport construction is an anticipated surge in flights to and from Poland because of the Euro 2012 soccer championships. A third of the airport facilities spending will be at regional airports. The largest projects in the pipeline are at Euro 2012 venues. A record 19 mln people flew in or out of Polish airports last year, PMR said. The highest growth rates were at the regional airports in Krakow, Katowice, Wroclaw and Gdansk. In fact, growth was so robust outside Warsaw that 2007 was the first year in which fewer than half of all passengers flying in Poland either took off from or landed at the Warsaw-Okecie airport. One reason is that construction of Warsaw’s second terminal has yet to be completed. The terminal would greatly increase the facility’s capacity. Another reason that Warsaw’s dominance of Poland’s passenger traffic declined was a surge in the number of low-cost airlines serving regional airports. PMR predicts that the regional airport boom will continue. It believes that by the year 2020 regional facilities will handle nearly twothirds of Poland’s passenger traffic. Poland wants talks with Germany and Russia about a controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline project steered by Russian giant Gazprom, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in an interview published early this week. “I want to launch an in-depth discussion,” Tusk said in the Polish edition of the magazine “Newsweek.” “We need to demystify the problem. We need to understand why the Russians are holding out for this project under the Baltic, which is three times more expensive than a gas pipeline crossing Poland, and what the conditions would be for changing it,” he said. The Nord Stream consortium, of which Gazprom controls 51 percent, agreed in 2005 to build a 1,200-kilometer (740-mile) undersea pipeline from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany. Gazprom and its German partners BASF and EON, which each hold a 20percent stake in the project, aim to use the pipeline to supply energy-hungry Western Europe from 2011. But the project has raised hackles in Germany and Poland, as well as environmental fears in Baltic Sea neighbors Sweden and Finland. Warsaw fears that opting for an underwater rather than a land route will enable Gazprom to cut off supplies to Poland without hurting its Western European customers. Russia has regularly been accused of using Gazprom’s control of a hefty slice of Europe’s gas market for political ends, allegedly turning off the taps to punish governments that fail to toe Moscow’s line. Warsaw’s previous conservative nationalist government, which lost power to Tusk’s liberals in an election last October, was fiercely opposed to the Nord Stream project. Germany has also faced accusations of sidelining the interests of other members of the EU in formerly Moscowdominated Eastern Europe simply to secure gas supplies. The German government has dismissed the criticism and called for less “hysteria” in the debate. Although Tusk’s campaign platform included a pledge to mend ties with Germany and Russia on a string of issues, he has not signalled that Poland will climb down on the pipeline issue. Poland has not been the only active opponent of the pipeline project. Several months ago, Estonia refused to grant Nord Stream the right to carry out surveys in its waters, citing security and environmental worries. Estonia’s fellow ex-Soviet Baltic states Latvia and Estonia have also been deeply critical of the plan. Lithuanian Snoras bank flags stake in Dutch Spyker sports cars AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Lithuanian bank Snoras announced late last week that it had agreed to buy 29.8 percent of Dutch luxury and sports car maker Spyker Cars. Under the agreement, Spyker Cars will make two share issues reserved KrAKow post .CoM for Snoras with a total value of 18.6 mln euro ($26.7 mln). Snoras has also agreed to make Spyker Cars two loans totalling 15.9 mln euro, one of which worth 9.56 mln euro may be converted into Spyker shares at any time over three years. Snoras is the fifth-biggest bank in Lithuania. It also owns Latvian bank Krajbanka and has a presence in Ukraine, Estonia, Belgium and the Czech Republic. The bank earned 14 mln euro in the first 9 months of 2007. Spyker Cars, a Dutch sports and luxury car maker, reported sales of 36.3 mln euro last year. 10 The Krakow Post Warsaw, Krakow homeless fight cold Kinga Rodkiewicz STAFF JOURNALIST W A R S A W JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 Holiday feast for the homeless on Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square). Wilhelm Sasnal exhibits Zofia Owczarek STAFF JOURNALIST About 300 thousand homeless people in Poland are struggling to survive the winter. The belowzero (Celsius) temperatures of the new year signify the most difficult period for the homeless, not only because of the cold but also because of the diseases which attack them. In November, two people died from hypothermia. Recently in Warsaw, a man died after an explosion in a warm shaft which he used as a shelter from the cold. According to law, each homeless person has the right to help from local authorities. This includes shelter, warm meals, clothes and medical service. From the end of October to February, the homeless can count on extra warm meals, shelters and free phone numbers from which they can gain information where they will find help. Street workers within the program called “Winter” are trying to persuade the homeless to spend nights in shelters. Unfortunately, many homeless people don’t accept the help. They prefer freedom to security. Shelters have rules: a time for waking up and a time for turning off the lights. In the winter, the shelters relax the rules by accommodating all people – including those who don’t fulfill the alcohol abstention condition. Doctors warn that alcohol can be a greater danger to human life during cold weather. “The opinion that alcohol warms the human body is deceptive,” said Warsaw Dr. Marek Niemirski. “The alcohol widens blood vessels and gives the feeling of warmth. However, the temperature from the wider blood vessels runs down quicker.” Kitchens offer nourishment and warmth to those don’t want to stay overnight in shelters. In Warsaw, 12 kitchens serve about 3,000 meals each day. “The hot soup is served for people who don’t want to spend cool days in the shelters,” said Teresa Sierawska from the social politics bureau in the Municipal Office in Warsaw. The kitchens also deliver soup to the suburbs and to the Vistula River, where homeless people gather. In the Mazowsze region there is a special day-night phone number 92-87 for people who need shelter or food. Jacek Polanczyl of the Mazowsze Province Office said the phone has been ringing much more often recently. In Warsaw’s, shelters can house 2,000 people, with accommodations for another 1,000 being prepared. In Krakow, according to the Municipal Office for Social Help, there are about 2,400 homeless. The local council has budgeted almost 4 mln zloty for assistance. There are eight shelters for men and five shelters for women and mothers with children. The most widely known organization in Poland that helps the homeless is the non-governmental, Catholic charity organization called St. Brother Albert’s Aid Society. It was founded in 1981 to help people recover from homelessness through social work. The society has 62 homes in which about 3,000 people can find shelter. According to the St. Brother Albert’s Society web site, the homeless are mostly Poles, but also foreigners, especially those from across the eastern border. There are more men than women in the shelters, most often divorced husbands and fathers. They include alcoholics, drug addicts and ex-prisoners, but also men who have lost their jobs as well as elderly people left alone by their families and people with mental disorders. In many cases, the mental problems resulted from miserable childhoods spent in pathological families or orphanages. Among the homeless women, the largest groups are unmarried mothers rejected by their families and closest friends, women ill-treated by their alcoholic husbands, and elderly women abandoned by their adult children. According to St. Brother Albert’s: “There are needs that individuals cannot be deprived of by the general public, and these are: bread and the roof over your head.” Polish art lovers have until March 2 to see work by the most promising artist of the younger generation, William Sasnal. His exhibition, which opened Nov. 27 in Zacheta National Gallery of Art, is titled “Years of Struggle” and presents works created over the last few years, including paintings, portraits, films and so-called music paintings – attempts at capturing music in its visual form. Sasnal is the most popular young Polish artist of our time. Born in 1972, he has already become an icon of Polish art, his works selling for enormous sums on international auctions and prestigious awards coming his way. He received the Vincent van Gogh award, the most important European artistic award, in 2006. In the 1990s he was a member of an ar- tistic group Ladnie, which he created with Marcin Maciejowski and Rafal Bujnowski. However, his painting has evolved quite far from his early artistic enterprise. Sasnal is not only a painter. Other means of expression such as film and photography are equally important to him. His films are produced in a traditional way, by use of 8 and 12 mm tape, and so presented. A room is devoted to them in the Zacheta exhibition. Sasnal’s works are inspired by various events, contexts, times and places, presented symbolically in his creations. The themes displayed in the Zacheta exhibition include, for instance, World War II and the Holocaust, the life of the postwar People’s Republic of Poland, as well as trivial aspects of contemporary reality and some autobiographical elements. Many of the works will be shown in Poland for the first time. ANNOUNCEMENT CLASSICAL GUITAR MUSIC FOR TOP RESTAURANTS krakowpost.com Get your message across! Our repretoire of Spanish, Argentinian and Italian classical music will create the special ambience you need to maximize your guests’ fine-dining experience. Good rates and top quality. guitarcatering@gmail.com Advertise in The Krakow Post! Contact: Andrzej Kowalski, Marketing Manager +48 (0) 798-683-160 JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 K R A K O W The Krakow Post 11 Orchestra Xmas charity returns Jan. 13 Kinga Rodkiewicz STAFF JOURNALIST The 16th Great Finale of The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity will collect money on Jan. 13 for children with larynx and vocal cord problems. The Great Finale, a foundation set up by Jerzy Owsiak, will use 120 thousand volunteers throughout Poland to collect the money in cans. In exchange for the money, donors will receive red hearts, the symbol of the foundation. The Great Finale is the basis for all the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity’s projects. Sponsored by large companies, the Great Finale is the source of funds spent by the foundation on medical equipment for public hospitals throughout Poland. During the nationwide, one-day collection, volunteers collect money on the streets of their hometowns and organize fundraising parties, concerts, auctions and shows. “We are proud of our volunteers,” the foundation‘s web site says. “They are honest, reliable, and fully dedicated to our ideas. We appreciate their great spirit and we thank them for the help and hope that they’ve been giving us for over a decade.” The Great Finale in Krakow will begin on Rynek Glowny (Main Market Square) with band concerts by Trebunie Tutki, Püdelsi, Nutshell, The Dollars Brothers Band, Alergen, DreadRock, Latajace Talerze, Marvels, Kulturka, Chłopacy, Per-Wers and Pikantik. The mayor of Krakow, Jacek Majchrowski, has given the charitable auction a symbolic key to the gate of the city and a gold coin from the Ceremony of the Anniversary of 750 years of Krakow’s location. The foundation of The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity was registered in 1992 by Owsiak. It is a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization which operates on a nationwide scale. In 1993, Owsiak led a national drive which collected more than $1.5 mln. The money was spent for new equipment for 10 pediatric cardio surgery divisions in Poland. Since that year, the Great Finale has become an annual tradition. Between 1993 and 2006 the Great Orchestra has collected $65 mln and has bought ambulances, oxygen blenders, infusion and drainage pumps, pulse oximeters, infant ventilators, new beds and anti-bedsore mattresses. Record visitors go to ex-Nazi death camp Auschwitz cc:sa:Wulfstan EU borders open to Poland From BORDER on Page 1 AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A record 1.22 mln people visited the former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 2007, a spokesman for the museum in southern Poland said early this week. “The majority of visitors are from abroad, mainly from Great Britain, the U.S. and Germany,” museum spokesman Jaroslaw Mensfelt told AFP. Last year, 755,000 foreigners visited the twin death camps, including 104,000 British citizens, 91,000 Americans and 60,000 Germans, he said. “We’ve seen a distinct increase in the number of foreigners since Poland joined the EU in 2004 and the start of budget flights to nearby Krakow at around the same time,” Mensfelt said. Last year, visitors from Asia including 38,000 South Koreans, 6,800 Japanese and 4,500 Chinese nationals also toured the site, an international symbol of the Holocaust. With a total 456,000 visitors, Poles remained the most numerous national group to visit the site in 2007. Founded in 1947 at the site of the Nazi-era death camp, the staterun Memorial and Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Oswiecim, received one mln visitors in 2006 compared to half that number in 2001. Historians estimate 1.1 mln people died at the hands of Poland’s German occupiers at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940-1945, either asphyxiated with Zyklon B gas in the notorious gas chambers or from starvation, disease or exhaustion. Ninety percent of the victims were European Jews, most of whom perished in the gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau was one of six death camps, also including Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek and Belzec, created by Nazi Germany during World War II to kill Jews from across occupied Europe. Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war were among the other prisoners and victims at Auschwitz-Birkenau and similar death camps. also are members. Most Poles are enthused about joining the zone. Fifty-seven percent believe membership will be beneficial, according to a poll conducted by the OBOP public opinion institute. Only 2 percent think membership will have negative consequences. Most of the nay-sayers fear that easier border crossings will lead to more drugs coming into Poland. The rest of those surveyed – 41 percent – had no opinion on whether joining the zone would be a plus or minus. Although Polish membership in the zone means that Poles will not generally be subjected to border checks, in some cases checks can be made. So travelers should bring their passports with them, just in case. They also should be aware that even though they can travel around the Schengen Zone with no impediments, individual countries’ immigration rules – such as requirements to register in case of a longer stay – remain in force. Also remaining in force will be individual countries’ limits on importing excise-taxed goods like alcohol and cigarettes. The lifting of passport checks on Dec. 21 applied only to ground and sea border crossings. Airport checks will be lifted March 29. The delay at airports involved the necessity of rearranging terminals to divide passangers into two groups – those traveling among Schengen Zone countries and those entering from or traveling to non-Schengen destinations. Polish airports have already spent 150 mln zloty on the changes. Transport company owners and employees are among the most enthusiastic backers of Polish membership in the Schengen Zone. Until Dec. 21, truck drivers had to wait in long queues at border crossings with Germany or the Czech Republic to have their passports checked. Now they can get across those borders quickly. Polish membership in the zone is likely to mean even longer waits for those trying to enter Poland from the east, however. That’s because Schengen Zone immigration requirements are stricter than the Polish requirements they replaced. Thus, citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia will find it more difficult to get a visa to Poland. Because being in the Schengen Zone means border-free crossings among 24 countries, a visa to Poland equates to a visa to all of those countres. That’s why the requirements are tougher. Lines at Polish consulates in Lviv or Moscow are likely to become longer because of such Schengen Zone immigration requirements as checking a visa applicant against the Schengen Information System database. Those processing visas will also demand a declaration of purpose for the visit and verification that the visa applicant has at least 500 zloty for his stay in Poland. The more stringent requirements are likely to lead to a drop in the 1.2 mln visas that Poland issued last year to citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. That may pose a particular problem for Ukrainians. Hundreds of thousands are working in Poland. Estimates range from a low of 100,000 to as many as 500,000. Another hardship for citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia is that visa processing fees will be much higher. Before Dec. 21, Ukrainians paid nothing for a visa to Poland. Now they have to pay 35 euro. The mountain resort of Zakopane in southern Poland is already feeling the impact of the new regulations. Last year 50,000 tourists from Ukraine and Russia spent winter holidays there. This winter half of the citizens from those countries who had booked rooms in Zakopane cancelled after the new visa rules were introduced. Poland’s next step toward full EU integration is adopting the euro as its currency. Tusk and Polish economic experts say that should happen in 2012, just after Poland serves as president of the EU in the second half of 2011. krakowpost.com Quality Accommodation for Less TOURNET Guest Rooms ul. Miodowa 7 Kazimierz District, Krakow Tel.: (0) 12 292-0088 www.accommodation.krakow.pl 12 The Krakow Post “The Philadelphia” to premier in Polish Adelina Krupski STAFF JOURNALIST K R A K O W JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 On Jan. 11, 2008, the Center for Contemporary Art Solvay (CSW Solvay) in Krakow will be offering the public a chance to see a performance of “The Philadelphia,” a comedy by contemporary American playwright, David Ives. Directed by Bartlomiej Piotrowski, the one-act play will be in Polish and, excitingly, will involve modern-style multimedia projections. Though performed on stage, “The Philadelphia” will also feature filmed segments shown on cinema screen, which are integrated into the theatrical piece. “The Philadelphia” is one of six acts comprising “All in the Timing,” the most popular book of plays by David Ives dating from 1987 to 1993. Consequently, it is characterized by frequent wordplay, theatrical ingenuity, and quick humor. The story revolves around a young man who runs into strange situations. Everything happens completely opposite to what he wants. As it turns out, he suffers from a metaphysical state called Philadelphia, where everything goes wrong and, as a result, life gets extremely complicated. Finally, the character finds a clever yet peculiar solution to the dilemma. It is a drama filled with tragic comedy, snappy talk and absurd plot twists. The play is not only fun, but also inspires reflection on philosophical and existential topics. Born in 1950, Ives worked with an underground theatre in New York called “Pierogi,” whose establisher worked with director Bartlomiej Piotrowski before emigrating to the U.S. Together, they prepared a number of theatre performances in Krakow and Zakopane. Organized by the U.S. Consulate in Krakow and CSW Solvay, “The Philadelphia” will begin at 7:00 p.m. in CSW Solvay, ul. Zakopianska 62. For more information, contact: CSW Solvay tel.: (012) 266 98 12 solvay@solvay.krakow.pl Grand premiere of “Rezerwat” Costume rental stores now offer carnivals outfits Agata Kolomyjska STAFF JOURNALIST Always dream about being a swashbuckling pirate? Wanted to try your luck as a sexy doctor or test your charm as a naughty nurse? Carnival season, full of fancy dress parties, costume balls and theme masquerades, provides the perfect chance to dress up and adopt that alter ego you’ve been itching to take on. If you lack the sewing skills, imagination or time needed to make your own costume, a visit to one of Krakow’s several dress rental companies can solve your problems. And that’s exactly where more people are turning, says Bogumila of Balerina costume rental (ul. Batorego 2). “Several years ago, people were interested mostly in kids’ cosMartyna Olszowska STAFF JOURNALIST tumes, but now adults also come in and rent outfits for various social events,” Bogumila says. As she notes, costumes based on the latest blockbuster movies are often the first to go, although a few classics are still going strong. “A couple of years ago, Harry Potter was all the rage, and one year we even had a fist fight over the costume between two little boys. This year nobody seems to remember about Harry or Hermione,” Bogumila says. “On the other hand, the popularity of some characters never fades. For example, Superman, Batman and Spiderman have been popular for years and are still among the most frequently sought costumes.” But the absolute hit of each year for men is Zorro, while women often opt for a princess costume. “Zorro’s popularity seems to be timeless and unchanging” Bogumila says. “We’ve had it in stock since we opened our rental 14 years ago. And princesses? It’s a dream of all girls, big and small, to become a princess for at least this one night.” A party’s theme often dictates a customer’s decision, and this year’s top themes appear to be connected to fairy tales, Mexican fiestas, magic and history. “When we have a number of customers daily asking about a particular costume, we know there is a big theme party coming the nearest weekend,” Bogumila says with a laugh. Costumes stores are open year round, but the business really cranks up in December, as they rent outfits for Nativity plays and Christmas Parties, and continues throughout the Carnival period until Lent. And the number of opportuni- ties to dress up in other seasons is on the rise. According to Ewa, of Gama costume store and rental (ul. Krowoderska 60), the latest trend is to organize a fancy dress party for 18-year-old birthdays. She says the most popular outfit for these parties is a priest or nun outfit. Costume charity balls also help stimulate demand for classic masks and wigs. Costume prices depend on how elaborate a get-up you desire. A hat or a belt can cost 10 zloty per day, while a full costume can run around 30 to 40 zloty a day. Other stores renting costumes include Il carnevale (ul. Szafirowa 8) and Wypozyczalnia Kostiumow Scenicznych i Karnawalowych (ul. Kremerowska 7). So if you’ve always wanted to try your luck in Superman’s blue tights and padded chest muscles, carnival’s the time to do it. The grand premiere of “Rezerwat” (“Preserve”), the first feature film by Lukasz Palkowski, took place on Jan. 7 in Kino Pod Baranami. Director and actors met with the audience. The movie, with English subtitles, can be seen regularly at the theater beginning Jan. 11. We often say that we have two Warsaws – the one on the left side of the Vistula River and the one on the right side. Praga is a district on the left side. A few decades ago, prudent city dwellers from the right side were reluctant to go to Praga. It was an intriguing world, but more dangerous. But as it was in the case of the Kazimierz district in Krakow, Praga got a new life in the 1990s. Fashion clubs, cafes and restaurants were opened. “To be in Praga” started to be trendy. However, the Palkowski film shows not a trendy Praga, but the older one. From the decrepit tenement houses and its residents, Palkowski creates a delightful, warm, optimistic story about friendship and memory. In the movie, Marcin, a freelance photographer, comes from the trendy side of Warsaw. After a stormy breakup with his girlfriend, he has to leave her luxurious apartment. He moves to a dilapidated, old building in Praga. There his new landlord hires him to prepare a photographic documentation of the deplorable state of the house. During his work he gets to know the different personalities of ul. Brzeska, and it lets him look into his own life and to change himself. Palkowski, a young director who has never graduated from a film school, won audience hearts at nearly all the film festivals last summer. “Preserve” also won five prizes at the prestigious Polish film festival in Gdynia. Sonia Bohosiewicz, who plays a girl called Hanka in the film, is now being hailed as one of Poland’s most talented young actresses. During the last decade Polish cinema has faced two problems: Trying to tell about the new reality after the fall of communism in 1989, the films hit a dead end with pessimistic, dull stories. On the other hand, there were the genre movies, which were copies of Hollywood comedies and crime films. Mostly, these were failures. Of course, Polish comedies were popular, but, with the exception of a few movies, the gags in them were of low quality, especially when compared to the great comedy films of the 1970s and 1980s. Palkowski gives a new breath to Polish cinema and puts aside the stupid gags and dull atmosphere. “Preserve” is not a masterpiece. But it is a good, entertaining movie, telling a funny, moving and also intelligent story. In some ways, Palkowski portrays an idyllic reality, perhaps a fairy tale. But he likes his characters and he can make audiences like them, too – local boozers, an old owner of a photographic studio, a woman from the kiosk who knows everything about everyone, a taxi driver (some days a policeman). Ordinary, simple people. Palkowski observes it all through the eyes of the main character, Marcin. The view is reserved at the beginning, with sympathy displayed at the end. In the era of the Internet, in this trendy world, there is another reality – with people who don’t need web sites to communicate, who have their own rules, customs and who help each other. The reality is brutal, sometimes primitive, but Palkowski looks into this world to find its beauty. And we find it with him. JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 A R T S & I D E A S The Krakow Post 13 By Adelina Krupski Grandmother as best model The Krakow Post: What led you to photography and to the opening of this exhibit? Maria Burzak: Firstly, I studied art –painting is my main passion, whereas photography is somewhere on the side. So really, I consider myself as a half-amateur photographer. Yet I think these photos of my grandmother came out well for me, and I approach them very personally as she was very close to me. I hope to continue photography. Q: Do you see similarities between painting and photography? A: Yes. For example, I am very interested in lighting – equally in photography as in painting. I do think that they are connected. Q: How did the idea for this series originate? A: The idea was very spontaneous. I simply wanted to take photos of my grandmother because I always liked photographing her. As for the costume ideas, I simply took out what I had from the closet and my grandmother came out so well, playing different roles. We had a lot of fun, both of us. And it turned out that each of the photos is different because, well – thanks to my grandmother, who was a doctor but turned out to be not a bad actress either. She was brilliant. A marvelous person. Q: You write in your introduction that “old age hides magnificent stories.” What influence did your grandmother’s stories have in the creation of these photos? A: Oh, they had a great influence – to this day I remember everything my grandmother told me about her life: incredible occurrences during wartime, her wonderful childhood, as well as tragic outcomes, some very sad – but generally, it seems to me that my grandmother had a good life, despite the difficulties – because Poland after the war, well, undeniably, everyone suffered with financial problems – but my grandmother finished her medical studies in 1939, then during the war she already started working as a young doctor, continued to do so after the war. She moved from Warsaw to the Silesia region, as she was born in Warsaw, and truthfully it seems to me that her whole life was very good. She devoted herself completely to her profession, genuinely a doctor by calling, an honest person who wore her heart on her sleeve and, on occasion, revealed an amazing sense of humour, which I think is visible in these photos. Q: Did her stories bring inspiration for the scenes in the photos? A: Not directly from my grandmother’s life, no. They were more my ideas – some from scenes in films: some kind of femme fatale, Moulin Rouge, a little girl with her teddy bear, a beggar … so I mainly made up the costumes myself. Q: It’s likely our grandmother forgot about her age during the photo shoot. What did you like best about photographing her? A: Yes, it wasn’t even the taking of the photos, but seeing that she really enjoys it, which showed me that she feels good, that I’m taking care of her, that I’m devoting time to her – it seems that it was good fun for her, too. Now the photos are very valuable to me, as they are kind of a souvenir since she passed away a few years ago. Thanks to these photos, she is alive. That’s the value they have for me – to her, simply the moment that I took care of her, that we had a laugh together and just played around. Q: During what time period were the photos taken? A: They were all taken during the one session, it didn’t take long maybe about 30 minutes, one hour, one photo after the other, it went by fast, it was this impulse. They were taken about five years ago, during my second year of college. I took the series as a free project. This is my first professional exhibit. My friends sent in my mini-portfolio without my knowledge, and I’m very happy that it worked out this way and that they are exhibited here. Q: My grandmother, for instance, very much dislikes being photographed. What is it that made your grandmother “the best model”? A: I think that she simply had this approach to life, where she was distanced from herself, with a great sense of humour, where she was able to maintain a broad perspective on things. She wasn’t worried about the way she would look, what her granddaughter put on her head, and that’s probably why – she just had such an approach on life, she was very spontaneous and open to my ideas. I think she loved me very much, the same way I loved her, and I don’t know whether she expected to ever have her photos displayed on the walls of a gallery, but I don’t think she would have anything against it. Q: What are the reasons for some of the technical decisions you made, such as dramatic lighting, black and white and posing of the subject? A: Firstly, I like black and white photography. I like to emphasize the shape and lines of the face by using light, and it’s true, I illuminate the subject with a strong light. To see how the face changes depending on whether it’s lit from below or from the side. Q: And how did you come up with the poses? A: Well, my grandmother was 88 years old, had weak legs and was unable to do a huge variety of things, so she mainly remained sitting, and the portraits were mostly taken as she was sitting. But she was very energetic and still managed to do a lot with gestures – so despite staying in place there was a lot of movement. Q: What are you hoping people will discover in viewing this exhibit? A: As I wrote in the introduction, I hope that they will stop and think: who was she? Maybe it won’t occur to them that she was a doctor, probably instead that she was an actress, or I don’t know … a teacher, of music for instance, but really to pay attention to an older person, because now there is a lot of focus on youth. I find there is a great beauty in an older person, and often they are much more interesting than someone younger. Let them wonder whether they have family members or neighbors to whom they could dedicate some time. I now have a neighbor whom I go to like I used to visit my grandmother, whom I no longer have, and spending time with her brings me a lot of joy. I enjoy it very much, and suggest it to others who would like to do the same. Q: How, do you think, would the effect on young viewers contrast with the effect on older viewers of this exhibit? A: It’s likely that young viewers would approach it in a more humorous way, but on the other hand maybe those who are older will also find that it’s worth having a bit of fun at their age, that there is nothing wrong or embarrassing about it. As a matter of fact, it brings great pleasure to an older person to joke around and be reminded of what it was like to be young. I hadn’t thought about how someone young or old would view these photos – it seems to me that it would depend on the person, regardless of their age. I realize that these photos wouldn’t appeal to everyone – so I think it really depends on the person, like my grandmother, who was eightyeight years old, was very young in spirit, maybe even younger than I am. Q: What’s next? A: I would like to have more projects – though there is currently this situation in Poland that not everyone who comes out of the Academy of Fine Arts gets to realize his or her artistic plans, because they have to first find a job to finance things. Photography is very expensive, as is painting. I just hope that I will be able to continue to photograph and paint. As for a topic that I know will always interest me, it is, most importantly, the individual. And if I continue on this path, then the individual will always stand at the center of my creation – with its sadness, its joy, and everything that I, too, carry with me. That’s how I imagine it. Q: How would you like to sum up? A: This exhibit is a symbol of gratitude for my grandmother, a tribute to her from me, her granddaughter, for everything she gave me in life. She was so intelligent, so kind, and I most likely will never achieve being like that. It’s a shame she can’t be here with me but I think she is close to me and that she would be happy that I succeeded in having such a fine exhibit. And she probably wouldn’t have anything against her photos being displayed publicly. For more info, contact or visit Pauza: ul. Florianska 18/3 1st floor pauza@pauza.pl www.pauza.pl The exhibit by Maria Burzak, titled “The Best Model,” made up of 15 black and white portraits of the artist’s grandmother, is currently on display at the Pauza Club in Krakow, continuing until Feb. 1. The Krakow Post had the opportunity to ask the artist about her work, the life of her grandmother, and her perspective on old age. EPE Translations English - Polish - English Agency providing translation services for companies working in multicultural environment as well as for private individuals. Deliver standard, technical and sworn translations at competitive prices. Also provide interpreters located in Ireland, UK and Poland. Check out www.epetranslations.com tel: (0048) (0) 12 4212300 FOR PERMANENT, TEMPORARY AND CONTRACT STAFF IN IRELAND & UK l Ireland tel: (00353) 45 883420 e-mail: claire@issrecruitment.com l Manchester, UK tel: (0044) 0 161 9090050 e-mail: issrecruitment@yourcomms.net www.issrecruitment.com krakowpost.com 14 The Krakow Post Polteraband: Mutz’s Silesian song Kinga Rodkiewicz STAFF JOURNALIST K A T O W I C E JANUARY 10-JANUARY 16, 2008 The 20th-Century history of Silesia and its inhabitants has come alive in Katowice. The play “Polteraband,” written in Silesian dialect by Stanislaw Mutz, has received a preview at the Silesian Theatre in Katowice. “The text of the play has something in common with poetry, with elegy connections,” Tadeusz Bradecki, the director of “Polteraband,” told the Polish Press Agency. “However, it doesn’t mean that it is without a good sense of humor. It is a song about Silesia.” “Polteraband” is also the theatrical debut of Stanislaw Mutz. The author presents an ordinary Silesian family with dramatic choices while offering a sophisticated history of the next generations. The story begins at the end of World War I and moves on through the three Silesian Uprisings against German rule which took place from 1919-1921. The author reminds us that in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, after the defeat of Imperial Germany and AustriaHungary in World War I, it was decided that the population of Upper Silesia should hold a plebiscite to determine the future of the province. The League of Nations decided that the province should be split into areas where the majority voted for Poland going to Poland and areas where the majority voted for Germany going to Germany. The plebiscite finally was conduct- ed in 1921 and ended with a complete German victory. That led to the Third Silesian Uprising and the eventual division of the land by Germany and Poland in 1922. The play’s story continues until 1945 and the end of the Second World War. The history of Silesia, as dramatic and complicated as it may be, is only the background for the individual dramas in the play, Mutz says. The individual Silesian identities are highlighted by Wieslaw Slawik as a father, Alina Chachelska as a mother and Ewa Lesniak as a grandmother. Author Stanislaw Mutz is also a linguist, artist and poet. In 2007, he was a scholar for the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. A castle in the village of Konczyce Wielkie located in the Slask Cieszynski region of southern Poland has been bought by private investors for 1.6 mln zloty. Soon it may become an exclusive hotel. The castle was built in the late 17th or early 18th Century by the Baron Jerzy Fryderyk Wilczek. Surrounding the castle was an English park with a lake. In 1825, the castle became the home of the Count Larishow von Mannichow family. However, the most well-known resident was the castle’s last aristocratic owner, Gabriela von Thun-Hohenstein. A noted philanthropist and the founder of the Silesian Hospital in Cieszyn, she was known as the “Great Lady.” Gabriela was born in 1872 in Wien. At the age of 21, she married Count Feliks von ThunHohenstein, who was the marshal of the army in Austria. They received the castle from Gabriela’s parents. According to documents, many of the area inhabitants in Silesia survived World War II only because the “Great Lady” gave them work in the castle. After the war, when she was old and ill, she still cared for the needy, including alcoholics and the homeless. She died in 1957. At the end of the World War II, the castle was damaged by Russian soldiers. The entire estate came under government ownership. For a few years after the war, the castle was an orphanage. In 2006, the local council in Cieszyn decided to sell the castle because of the high costs of housekeeping. Pawel Bragiel, a councilor from Cieszyn, told the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza that several auction attempts failed because of the deterioration of the castle. Finally, three businessmen from Mazowsze bought the castle, planning to convert it into an exclusive hotel. All works in the castle would be under the control of an art conservator. Preservation is spreading. Thanks to private investors, an 18th-Century castle in Czechowice-Dziedzice and a 16th-Century castle in Grodziec Slaski also have a good chance to be renovated. Konczyce Wielkie Castle quietly awaits tourists Underground strike at coal mine THE KRAKOW POST About 100 miners from the Budryk coal mine in Ornomontowice in Silesia have been on strike while 700 meters underground. Although the directors of the mine have blocked the shafts, the miners have found ways to get below the surface. Among those underground is a miners’ rescuer who supports the strike. “We will stand up. All of Poland will see how much time underground a miner is able to stand up to,” a striker said. The striking miners have demanded pay equal to that of miners employed in the Jastrzębie Coal Co., which incorporated the Budryk mine in January. The Budryk board has proposed an additional 5 zloty per day for the 2,400 miners. The strikers have demanded 12 zloty more per day, which would boost their wages to about 600 zloty per month. The leaders of the protest say they are willing to begin talks with the board of Budryk. The board has stated that the economic situation excludes the possibility of meeting the miners’ de- ARKA NOEGO Our restaurant is located in one of the oldest buildings in Kazimierz. We serve all kinds of Jewish cuisine, based mostly on local recipes. Come to enjoy delicious Jewish dishes. Live klezmer music every night at 20:00. Open daily: 09:00-02:00 ul. Szeroka 2 +48 (12) 4291528 arkaszerok2@op.pl www.arka-noego.pl Get your message across! Advertise in The Krakow Post! Contact: Andrzej Kowalski, Marketing Manager +48 (0) 798-683-160 GDFL 1.2:Walbrzych:KWKWalbrzych THE KRAKOW POST mands. The Budryk board also says that the strike is illegal. The walkout is being led by four of the nine trade unions at the mine: “August 80,” “Staff,” “Unity of the Workers” and the “Trade Union of Mining Rescuers.” The other five unions have agreed to work under the conditions proposed by the mining board. On Jan. 5, families of the strikers gathered at the front of the mine and lit candles in support of the protest. “This candle is a symbol of light which should show that we are with them,” a miner‘s wife said. “We want to show that they are fighting for a good cause. We come here to present our solidarity with our men.” Budryk Coal Mine JointStock Co. is the youngest and one of the most modern coal mines in Poland. There are more than 40 coal beds in the mine. The first ton of Budryk coal was mined on March 14, 1994. 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