LONDON (Reuters) – From bizarre claims about the use of “mercenaries” to tongue-in-cheek travel advisories, countries long used to Western criticism of their own human rights records are relishing Britain’s embarrassment over the riots sweeping its cities.

With its long colonial past and its carefully nurtured self-image as the mother of parliamentary democracy and fair play, Britain is especially vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and double standards.

WARSAW, July 29 (Reuters) – Polish Defence Minister Bogdan
Klich resigned on Friday after a government report listed a
litany of errors and neglect by the crew of the military plane
that crashed in Russia last year killing Poland’s President Lech
Kaczynski and 95 others.

The long-awaited, 328-page report said the crew of the TU-154
Tupolev plane were poorly trained and ignored crucial safety
regulations. It said mistakes by Russian ground staff and poor
conditions at Smolensk airport also contributed to the disaster.

WARSAW (Reuters) – The crew of the plane carrying Poland’s president that crashed in Russia last year killing all 96 on board were poorly trained and ignored crucial safety regulations, a long-awaited Polish government report into the disaster said on Friday.

The 328-page report, which may complicate Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s bid for re-election in October, chronicles a long litany of errors and neglect by both the crew and Russian ground staff leading to the crash, which shook Poland to the core.

WARSAW (Reuters) – The crew of the plane carrying Poland’s president that crashed in Russia last year killing all 96 on board were poorly trained and ignored crucial safety regulations, a long-awaited Polish government report into the disaster said on Friday.

The 328-page report, which may complicate Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s bid for re-election in October, chronicles a long litany of errors and neglect by both the crew and Russian ground staff leading to the crash, which shook Poland to the core.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Lech Walesa chuckles as he recounts a conversation he had in April with reformers in Tunisia, cradle of the Arab Spring.

“They told me they want to purge everybody linked to the old regime,” says the former shipyard electrician who brought democracy to his native Poland in 1989 as head of the Solidarity trade union.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Lech Walesa chuckles as he recounts a conversation he had in April with reformers in Tunisia, cradle of the Arab Spring.

“They told me they want to purge everybody linked to the old regime,” says the former shipyard electrician who brought democracy to his native Poland in 1989 as head of the Solidarity trade union.

WARSAW (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will reaffirm a U.S. commitment to Poland’s security with a deal to set up an air detachment, the White House said on Friday, meeting a key Polish request for “American boots on the ground.”

Obama, on his first trip to NATO ally Poland, will also urge leaders from ex-communist central and eastern Europe assembled in Warsaw to share their experiences of managing a democratic transition with reformers in North Africa and the Middle East.

WARSAW (Reuters) – From missile defense to shale gas, President Barack Obama will reaffirm a U.S. commitment to Poland’s security on a variety of fronts when he pays his first, long-awaited visit to Warsaw on May 27-28.

Relations with Poland, one of Washington’s most loyal NATO allies, are back on a more even keel after a few wobbles early in the Obama administration when the president was sometimes seen as indifferent to central Europe and its security concerns.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland reaffirmed its commitment to developing its shale gas reserves on Wednesday despite French plans to ban drilling, but officials and industry experts said tough regulatory and environmental challenges lie ahead.

The U.S.-based Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last month Poland’s technically recoverable reserves of shale gas are the biggest in Europe at an estimated 5.3 trillion cubic meters, though some experts are skeptical about the figure.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Adam Malkowski thinks the lifting of Germany’s restrictions on east European workers is such good news that he has already voted with his feet and moved there, weeks before the job market formally opens on May 1.

Germany and Austria won a seven-year exemption shielding their jobs markets from ex-communist states such as Poland that joined the European Union in 2004 but that is about to expire, raising the prospect of hundreds of thousands moving west.