Edward Lucas re-posts The Economist's obits of Mieczyslaw Rakowski, a Polish Communist journalist and politician, who died on Nov. 8, and of Boris Fyodorov, a Russian economic reformer, who died on Nov. 20. Borut Peterlin notes the death of Vilko Filač, the “cameraman of Emir Kusturica’s best movies.”
Discussions on whether Poland is a “racist country” - at the POLSKI blog, Raf Uzar, and Eternal Remont.
One of the Catholic churches in Poznań, Poland's fifth largest city, generated a lot of online buzz yesterday, when the media (POL) published articles about a religious flyer printed by a Catholic weekly Mały Gość Niedzielny and distributed to children.
Olive harvesting in Albania, John Paul II monuments in Poland, a Soviet military hardware “cemetery” in Moscow, and more: Central and Eastern Europe-based bloggers share their recent travel observations and photos.
Albania
- Stepping Stones has posted photos of two elderly Albanian village women: the first one is harvesting olives in “the old-fashioned way”; the second one has her black apron filled with “tiny daisies,” which she is picking for a local company and gets paid less than $1 per kilo.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Poznań, Poland, 1-12 December 2008. The goal of the meeting is to move from "discussion to negotiation mode in 2009- prior to the later scheduled Copenhagen Denmark meeting", "at which the negotiations are set to conclude". (Look below for summary excerpts of announcement.)
Risk Of Acid Rain In Europe
Writing for TreeHugger does bring some unpleasant surprises. Last year I was astounded to learn that the US State of Utah gets 93% of its electricity from coal burning power plants. (See Coal Released Mercury Ruins Fishing and Duck Hunting.) How could it be any worse? Poland and surrounding central European nations, it seems, have the record for extreme coal dependency.
Raf Uzar writes that the Polish president “is doing everything he can to get noticed much to the chagrin of most of Poland’s political elite, journalists and tired citizens” - and among his recent blunders is this line from a congratulatory letter to Barack Obama: “the President of the United States of Northern America.”
After a huge success of Nasza-klasa.pl (”Our Class”), the most popular Polish social network similar to the British FriendsReunited, a new project is becoming well-known in Poland: Nasz-parlament.pl (”Our Parliament”) invites its users to become e-members of parliament and take part in e-voting to show the government the real opinions of the real citizens!
The 8th Circle writes about Ukraine's three current problems: politics, economics and sports.
The 8th Circle reports that citizens of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia will now be able to visit the United States for up to 90 days without an entry visa; Polish citizens, however, are not included in this list: “It’s ironic, because of the immense role that Poland has played (and continues to play) as a stedfast ally of the United States. It’s also awkward, because Bush has promised visa-free travel to Poland’s neighbors while not being able to do the same for Warsaw.”
Sylwia Presley writes about her parents' village in Poland and ‘golden Polish fall’, among other things: “There is a sense of magic in the fact that Poles do not clear the paths from leaves - it makes the parks look like a golden carpet at this time of the year.”
Sylwia Presley discusses some issues raised in Polly Courtney's novel about Polish immigrants in the U.K., “Poles Apart.”
The photographer is Szymon Szczesniak
The house is designed by moomoo architects
Go see it at yatzer
The beatroot hosts a discussion of the Polish-Russian-American relationship in the aftermath of the Russian-Georgian conflict.
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