Iceland has opened its first embassy in the Polish capital, Warsaw, this week. The embassy was officially launched on December 1, the anniversary of the day Iceland regained independence in 1918. Poland opened its embassy to Iceland in 2013.
The Icelandic foreign minister stated that the decision to open an embassy in Poland, which will also serve as Iceland’s diplomatic outpost to Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania, had been made “in part due to the political situation and the situation in the region”. He added that Warsaw and Reykjavík already had strong ties, with more than 20,000 Poles living in Iceland, whose population totals 372,000.
Source – Polskie Radio
A watercolour by Wassily Kandinsky, stolen decades ago from the National Museum in Warsaw, has been sold at an auction in Berlin, Polish officials have said. The painting went under the hammer at the Grisebach auction house for EUR 310,000.
The watercolour had been stolen from the National Museum in the Polish capital in 1984, officials said. Poland’s Ministry of Cultural and National Heritage asked the Berlin auction house to cancel the auction so that they could analyse the watercolour and take further steps.
The ministry said in a statement: “Despite the stance of the culture ministry and the action taken by the Polish embassy in Berlin, the Grisebach auction house decided to sell [the] watercolour.” The Polish culture ministry called Thursday’s transaction “highly unethical” and said it would take “all the possible legal steps to retrieve the artwork”.
Source – Polskie Radio
Poland’s First Lady, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, has thrown her support behind an international charity fair that aims to help the needy in the run-up to Christmas.
In a message posted on social media by the Polish President’s Office, she encouraged Poles to take part in the charity event, which will be held by the Association of Spouses of Heads of Diplomatic Missions (SHOM) in Warsaw on Sunday, December 4th. Kornhauser-Duda described the annual event as „a meeting of people of good will who, in the holiday season, show solidarity with people suffering and struggling with life’s problems”.
Source – Polskie Radio
And finally, a routine police check on a vehicle in Gdańsk ended in drama yesterday when the driver of the vehicle fled in his vehicle and ended up crashing into one of the pursuing police vehicles.
At around 10pm yesterday, a Peugeot car was stopped for a routine inspection on Kartuska street. The driver then drove off at speed before hitting one of the police vehicles and colliding with a traffic light. The 25 year old driver was found to be driving without a license or insurance. He tested negative for alcohol. No one was hurt during the incident.
Source – Radio Gdańsk
Weather
Today will be a cloudy and grey day in a gentle breeze with chances of some light snow and temperatures of -3 degrees centigrade (26 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day and -3 degrees overnight. Tomorrow will remain cold and dull in a gentle breeze with chances of snow and sleet and temperatures of 2 degrees during the day and 1 degree overnight.
Martin Caren/am
