Poland’s President, Andrzej Duda, spoke of „Solidarity” in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.

Addressing the meeting of over 100 world leaders in New York, President Duda questioned whether wealthy countries had done enough to support poorer nations during the pandemic.

Mr Duda praised those who had worked to develop and distribute vaccines but challenged whether access to vaccines had been fair around the world.

The President went on to discuss the ongoing diplomatic crisis with Belarus, calling on the Eastern European country to release political prisoners and criticising what he described as „an attempt to create an artificial humanitarian crisis” on the border.

He finished by reflecting on achievements in protecting the environment in Poland and asking if the nations would „pass the test of solidarity” in the post-pandemic world.

The 76th meeting of the UN General Assembly got underway in New York on Tuesday and has seen speeches from a host of world leaders. It’s set to wrap up at the end of the month.

Read the whole speech in English here:

Watch the speech with English interpretation:

The Polish government has said it will not close a controversial lignite mine in the southwest of the country despite a European Union court ruling and daily financial penalties.

The Turów mine near Poland’s border with Germany and the Czech Republic has been ordered to cease operations by the EU’s Court of Justice but the Polish government is contesting this ruling. Earlier this week, the Court imposed a 500,000 Euro daily penalty on Poland for keeping the mine open.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki again dismissed calls to stop work at the mine, claiming doing so would weaken the Polish energy grid and result in major job losses. He reiterated that Poland would dispute the CJEU’s ruling.

The Turów mine and neighbouring Turów power station – which is one of Poland biggest greenhouse gas emitters – have been criticised by Germany and the Czech Republic, who have claimed the mine is causing environmental issues and problems to water supply on their sides of the border.

Facebook has become the latest major international company to open an office in Gdansk.

According to reports by gdansk.pl, the office, run by customer service giant Telus international, is set to employ as many as 500 people working with Facebook business customers in Central and Eastern Europe.

Facebook now joins other international giants like Intel, Amazon, and State Street in opening offices in the city.

Weather

Cloudy with a chance of some showers throughout the rest of today. Temperatures milder than they have been at a high of 16°C, 60°F.

The weather to watch out for today, though, is wind with strong winds blowing in from the western Baltic bringing some very powerful gusts later on this evening and overnight.

Gdansk should be sheltered, but the strongest gusts could reach strong gale or even storm force of 100km/h further along the coast.

The wind is caused by unusually large differences in air pressure between weather systems over the Baltic and the continent.

Thomas Holdstock/MarWer