WARSAW (Reuters) – Sober calculations of their national interests will keep a rapprochement between Poland and Russia on track, despite tensions over gas supplies and over a probe into April’s plane crash that killed the Polish president.

At weekend ceremonies in Russia marking six months since the crash that killed Lech Kaczynski and 95 other top officials, the first ladies of the two Slavic neighbors said the disaster had brought their nations closer together.

By Gareth Jones

WARSAW (Reuters Life!) – Some of the world’s most talented young pianists are flocking to Warsaw for the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition that opens this weekend, and Asians are especially prominent among them.

The competition, the oldest of its kind in the world, is held every five years in the Polish capital and is avidly followed by lovers of Chopin everywhere but has built up a particularly enthusiastic following in China, Japan and South Korea.

WARSAW, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Poland’s centre-right ruling party
Civic Platform (PO) is trying to avoid painful economic reforms
in the countdown to next autumn’s parliamentary election when it
hopes to increase its majority.

Opinion polls suggest Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s party is
well placed to become the first in Poland since the fall of
communism in 1989 to win a second consecutive four-year term.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Jewish leaders expressed disgust on Wednesday over a visit to Poland by British writer and convicted Holocaust denier David Irving, and an anti-racist group called for legal action against him.

Irving, 72, is the author of several books which defend Adolf Hitler and deny that the Nazis murdered six million Jews during World War Two. He has begun an 8-day study tour of wartime sites in Poland with a group of followers.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish police detained an exiled Chechen leader wanted by Russia on Friday at a congress of activists seeking the region’s independence from Moscow, but a court later ordered him freed.

Warsaw had indicated it was unlikely to extradite Akhmed Zakayev, viewed by Moscow as a terrorist but granted political asylum by Britain in 2003, even though this may harm a steady improvement in long-frosty ties between Russia and Poland.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish police detained an exiled Chechen rebel leader sought by Russia Friday after he came to Poland to attend a congress of Chechens supporting independence for their North Caucasus region.

Akhmed Zakayev, viewed by Russia as a terrorist but granted political asylum by Britain in 2003, fought Russia as a senior rebel commander in two wars in 1994-2000 but now represents the moderate wing of the separatist movement.

WARSAW (Reuters) – The families of people who died with Poland’s president in a plane crash in April have proposed moving a cross honouring the victims to the site of the disaster in Russia in order to defuse a bitter political row.

The simple wooden cross, erected in front of Warsaw’s presidential palace shortly after the April 10 crash, has become the object of a fierce tug-of-war between Poland’s authorities and supporters of the late President Lech Kaczynski.

WARSAW, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Poland’s centrist, pro-business
ruling party Civic Platform (PO) is trying to avoid or at least
defer painful economic reforms in the hope of increasing its
parliamentary majority in an election scheduled for next autumn.

Opinion polls suggest Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s party is
well placed to become the first in Poland since the fall of
communism in 1989 to win a second consecutive four-year term.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk can speed up market reforms now that his party has captured the presidency, but he risks hurting his chances in parliamentary elections next year if he cuts the budget deficit too painfully.

Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) no longer faces the threat of vetos after its candidate Bronislaw Komorowski won Sunday’s cliffhanger presidential election.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Moderate conservative Bronislaw Komorowski won Poland’s presidential election on Monday after a cliffhanger vote that saw his right-wing rival Jaroslaw Kaczynski perform much better than expected.

Komorowski’s narrow victory, which must be confirmed by final results later on Monday, will bring relief to investors who feared Kaczynski, leader of the main opposition party, would veto reforms needed to repair Poland’s battered public finances.