Polish President, Andrzej Duda, was in Washington DC yesterday for a high-level meeting with his American counterpart, President Donald Trump.
It’s understood the two leaders discussed a range of bilateral issues, but the highlight of the meeting was the announcement of a new defense cooperation agreement between the two countries.
According to reports in Polish media, the deal could involve moving up to 2000 US troops into Poland as well as the purchasing of new military equipment for the Polish armed forces, including C-130 transport planes.
President Trump recently announced plans to cut US forces stationed in Germany by almost 10,000, with the suggestion that some of these could be relocated to Poland.
The meeting comes as both Presidents fight tough election campaigns. President Duda is leading in polls ahead of this Sunday’s election in Poland, but remains short of the 50% needed to win in the first round.
In a likely second round in July, Duda could face a tougher challenge. Earlier this week a poll by Ipsos had the incumbent Duda trailing behind his likely second round rival Rafał Trzaskowski by as much as 4 points.
Representatives from the 27 EU states are to meet tomorrow to discuss the reopening of the Unions external borders.
According to reports by BBC News, ambassadors are to consider reopening of borders to some non-EU countries but are as yet undecided on which countries should be included.
Countries such as Brazil, Chile, Panama, and Saudi Arabia have been highlighted as more risky and would likely be excluded because of their high infection rates. The United States would likely also be barred, though US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said he is keen to find a solution with the EU „within weeks”.
Canada and Turkey, on the other hand, have better chances as their infection rates remain low and have been largely successful in containing the virus.
Plans have been revealed for a new high speed rail link between Gdansk and Warsaw which could see journey times cut below two hours.
Speaking in Gdansk on Tuesday, Deputy Infrastructure Minister Marcin Horała announced the planned route. It’s part of a massive nation-wide infrastructure project connecting Poland’s major cities to the capital and the Central Transport Hub, the new super-airport planned for central Poland.
The route would include and entirely new stretch of track from Gdansk to Grudziądz, cutting journey times to Warsaw to 1 hour 45 minutes. Journey times to the South could also be significantly reduced, with high speed trains running Gdansk to Krakow in 3.5 hours.
Specialists from Gdansk University of Medicine have successfully carried out the world’s first intraperitoneal chemotherapy on a child under the age of 1.
Until now, the procedure, which involves delivering chemotherapy into the abdomin to treat a tumor, had only been done on patients over 2 years of age.
The team from GUMed, lead by Professor Piotr Czauderna and Professor Tomasz Jastrzębski, had to specially adapt the procedure to make it safe for an infant patient.
It’s reported that the patient, a 7-month old girl from Krakow, is doing well and has been drinking milk and tea.
Weather
A very pleasant afternoon today, Partly cloudy today with highs of 24°C, 76°F. Light winds from the east keeping things cool.
Warming up as we go into tomorrow though, with temperatures going back into the high 20s Celsius.
TAH/am
