The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the Polish ambassador to Israel will return to his post in Tel Aviv, despite a call from the Israeli foreign minister for him not to come back from his summer holidays. A diplomatic row between Poland and Israel started at the weekend when President Andrzej Duda signed a legal amendment making it harder for people to recover property lost during and after World War Two.
The Israeli foreign minister, Yair Lapid, responded by calling the new law “antisemitic”, and said the Israeli chargé d’affaires in Warsaw had been recalled.
The legislation puts a 30-year time limit on claims relating to property stolen by Nazi Germany, and then seized by Poland’s communist regime.
The majority of such claims had been made by Poles, and in recent decades the restitution process has become mired in legal chaos.
Source: PAP, BBC
Polish military planes are on their way to Afghanistan to begin an evacuation operation, with a third one to follow.
The aircraft will begin airlifting around 100 people, including Poles and Afghans who’ve cooperated with Poland in the past.
The operation comes as Afghanistan enters deep political instability, with the Taliban occupying Kabul, and the president having fled the country at the weekend.
The head of the Chancellery of the Prime Minster, Michał Dworczyk, said that the evacuation mission began in June, but that it’s been stepped up in response to the rapidly-changing situation in the country.
Source: polsatnews.pl
Investigators have seized almost half a billion zloty’s worth of criminal assets so far this year, according to figures released yesterday.
The 490 million zloty haul includes real estate, luxury cars, jewellery and company shares, all of it bought using proceeds from criminal acts.
Officers from the Central Police Investigation Bureau exposed one case where 45 million zlotys had been swindled out of the European Regional Development Fund.
Some of the seizures of heavy machinery such as electrical generators, vacuum pumps and air compressors will be passed onto hospitals to aid with fighting the Covid pandemic.
Source: polskieradio24.pl
Residents of Gdansk are being invited to enjoy their city as if they are tourists, in a week of special events that started yesterday.
The programme includes an open-air book corner with coffee tasting and a special zone just for comics..
There will also be acrobatic workshops for children, and a walking tour following in the footsteps of Gdansk legends.
The event is designed to encourage people to sign up for a Residents’ Card, which gives benefits to locals when visiting the city’s attractions.
More information can be found >>>HERE.
Source: radiogdansk.pl
Weather
A mass of cool air is moving in over Poland today, which will stay till the weekend. This will bring more autumnal weather with lower temperatures and rain. Today in Gdansk the high will be 18 degrees Celsius, 64 Fahrenheit, with a chance of rain this evening.
Andrew Carter/ua
