WARSAW (Reuters) – Poles mourned on Sunday their former president and 95 others killed in a plane crash one year ago, but their commemoration was marred by political divisions and anger with Russia over the removal of a memorial plaque.

President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and a sizeable chunk of Poland’s military and political elite died on April 10, 2010, when their plane crashed in thick fog while trying to land at Smolensk in western Russia.

WARSAW (Reuters) – A diplomatic row has erupted over a plaque marking last year’s plane crash in Russia that killed Poland’s president and 95 others, casting a shadow over Sunday’s commemoration of disaster’s first anniversary.

The spat has laid bare the raw emotions still swirling among Poles one year on from the crash, which stunned their nation, exacerbated its political divisions and revived historic suspicions about Russia, their former Cold War master.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Fiscal risks to Poland’s sustained economic boom are growing and the center-right government will have to deliver long-delayed reforms if it wins a second term this year to placate increasingly jittery markets.

Economists agree that plans to slash the deficit by nearly two-thirds by 2012 are unconvincing but they have given Prime Minister Donald Tusk time as he shies away from further unpopular moves ahead of an increasingly tight election race.

WARSAW, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Poland’s centrist ruling party
appears on track to win an autumn general election despite
rising criticism over its shakeup of the pension system, a large
budget deficit and its handling of relations with Russia.

Opinion polls put Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic
Platform (PO) ahead of its rivals, though with a narrowing lead,
and it looks set to become the first Polish party since the end
of communism in 1989 to win a second consecutive four-year term.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticised as “unacceptable” on Friday a Russian report on the plane crash that killed Poland’s president, a view that may upset Warsaw’s cautious rapprochement with Moscow.

President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria and 94 others, mostly senior Polish officials, died on April 10 when their Tu-154 plane crashed in thick fog near Smolensk airport in western Russia.

WARSAW, Dec 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, as well as the results of a first round of
municipal and regional elections held on Nov. 21, 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, Nov 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) – Russia’s Yulianna Avdeeva won the prestigious 2010 International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition Wednesday after a three-week musical marathon followed by classical music lovers around the globe.

The competition, the oldest of its kind in the world, is held every five years in the Polish capital and has built up an especially enthusiastic following in Asia.

WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s slowly-slowly approach to reducing its budget deficit and public debt load is justified and will persist even after next year’s election, a top adviser to Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday.

Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, himself a former prime minister, also said he was concerned about a possible rapid appreciation of the Polish zloty as a result of funds flowing into emerging economies such as Poland.

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.