Artists, academics defend LGBT rights in Poland

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Dozens of authors, artists and scholars — including writer Margaret Atwood and film directors Pedro Almodóvar and Mike Leigh— have expressed outrage at the hostility being directed toward LGBT people in Poland by the country’s president and other politicians.

In what they called a letter of “solidarity and protest,” they wrote to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, calling on the European Union to defend human rights values “being blatantly violated in Poland.”

“Homophobic aggression in Poland is growing because it is condoned by the ruling party, which has chosen sexual minorities as a scapegoat with no regard for the safety and well-being of citizens,” the letter said.

The letter, dated Monday, comes amid a bitter cultural clash in Poland, where calls for greater rights for LGBT people have been met with a furious backlash from the powerful Roman Catholic church and the right-wing ruling party, Law and Justice.

President Andrzej Duda, a party ally, won a tight reelection in July after a campaign vowing to defend the country’s traditional Catholic identity. He called the LGBT rights movement move dangerous than communism.

In the letter, also signed by Poland’s Nobel laureate for literature Olga Tokarczuk, came to the defense of activists who have been detained this month for protesting the anti-LGBT rhetoric.

“We speak out in solidarity with activists and their allies, who are being detained, brutalized, and intimidated,” the letter said. “We voice our grave concern about the future of democracy in Poland, a country with an admirable history of resistance to totalitarianism and struggle for freedom.”

Recently the EU did react by rejecting small amounts of funding to six communities that had declared themselves to be “free of LGBT ideology,”

On Tuesday, the Polish justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, said that one of those communities, Tuchów, had become the victim of “ideological persecution” by the EU and that his ministry was earmarking 250,000 zlotys ($68,000 or 57,000 euros) to support it from a special fund.

He praised the town for what he said was the support of “well-functioning family” life.

Associated Press

Confirmed virus cases hit 10 million as Poland, France vote

ROME (AP) — Worldwide confirmed coronavirus infections hit the 10 million mark Sunday as voters in Poland and France went to the polls for virus-delayed elections.

New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.

Wearing mandatory masks, social distancing in lines and carrying their own pens to sign voting registers, French voters cast ballots in a second round of municipal elections. Poles also wore masks and used hand sanitizer, and some in virus-hit areas were told to mail in their ballots to avoid further contagion.

“I didn’t go and vote the first time around because I am elderly and I got scared,” said Fanny Barouh as she voted in a Paris school.

While concern in the U.S. has focused on big states like Texas, Arizona and Florida reporting thousands of new cases a day, rural states are also seeing infection surges, including in Kansas, where livestock outnumber people.

The U.S. handling of the outbreak has drawn concern from abroad. The European Union seems almost certain to bar Americans from traveling to the bloc in the short term as it draws up new travel rules to be announced shortly.


The infection surges prompted Vice President Mike Pence to call off campaign events in Florida and Arizona, although he will still travel to those states and to Texas this week to meet with their Republican governors. Those three governors have come under criticism for aggressively reopening their economies after virus lockdowns despite increasing infections in their states.

After confirmed daily infections in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000 on Friday, Texas and Florida reversed course and closed down bars in their states again. Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey reversed himself and allowed cities and counties to require face masks in public even though he hasn’t been seen wearing one.

“This is not a sprint, this is a marathon,” said Dr. Lisa Goldberg, director of the emergency department of Tucson Medical Center in Arizona. “In fact, it’s an ultra-marathon.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stressed that “the window is closing” for the U.S. to take action to effectively curb the coronavirus.

Azar pointed to a recent spike in infections, particularly in the South. He says people have “to act responsibly” by social distancing and wearing face masks, especially “in these hot zones.”

Speaking on NBC and CNN, Azar argued that the U.S. is in a better position than two months ago in fighting the virus because it is conducting more testing and has therapeutics available to treat COVID-19.

But he acknowledged that hospitalizations and deaths could increase in the next few weeks.

Globally, confirmed COVID-19 cases passed the 10 million mark and confirmed deaths neared half a million, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India having the most cases. The U.S. also has the highest virus death toll in the world at over 125,000.

Experts say all those figures significantly undercount the true toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing and missed mild cases. U.S. government experts last week estimated the U.S. alone could have had 20 million cases.

Workplace infection worries increased after Tyson Foods announced that 371 employees at its chicken processing plant in the southwestern corner of Missouri have tested positive for COVID-19.

In the state of Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee put a hold on plans to move counties to the fourth phase of his reopening plan as cases continue to increase. But in Hawaii, the city of Honolulu announced that campgrounds will reopen for the first time in three months with limited permits to ensure social distancing.

Britain’s government, meanwhile, is considering whether a local lockdown is needed for the central English city of Leicester amid reports about a spike in COVID-19 among its Asian community. It would be Britain’s first local lockdown.

“We have seen flare-ups across the country in recent weeks,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC on Sunday.

Polish voters were casting ballots, in person and by mail, for a presidential election that was supposed to have taken place in May but was chaotically postponed amid the pandemic. President Andrzej Duda, a 48-year-old conservative backed by the nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, is running against 10 other candidates as he seeks a second five-year term.

Iwona Goge, 79, was encouraged to see so many people voting in Warsaw.

“It’s bad. Poland is terribly divided and people are getting discouraged,” she said.

French voters were choosing mayors and municipal councilors in Paris and 5,000 towns and cities in a second round of municipal elections held under strict hygiene rules. Key battlegrounds include Paris, where the next mayor will preside over the 2024 Summer Olympics. The spread of the virus in France has slowed significantly but is still expected to hurt Sunday’s turnout.

Italy was honoring its dead later Sunday with an evening Requiem concert in hard-hit Bergamo province. The ceremony in the onetime epicenter of the European outbreak came a day after Italy registered the lowest daily tally of COVID-19 deaths in nearly four months: eight.

European leaders were taking no chances in tamping down new clusters. German authorities renewed a lockdown in a western region of about 500,000 people after about 1,300 slaughterhouse workers tested positive. Swiss authorities ordered 300 people into quarantine after a “superspreader” outbreak of coronavirus at a Zurich nightclub.

In Asia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his country must focus on bolstering the economy as it exits lockdowns, even as the number of coronavirus cases still keep on climbing. On Sunday, India reported additional 19,906 confirmed cases, taking its total to nearly 529,000 with 16,095 deaths. The pandemic has exposed wide inequalities in India, with public hospitals being overwhelmed by virus cases while the rich get expert treatment in private hospitals.

China reported 17 new cases, all but three of them from domestic transmission in Beijing. But authorities say a campaign to conduct tests on employees at hair and beauty salons across the city has found no positive cases so far.

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Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

Poland marks Army Day with parade, call for US military base

WARSAW — Poland's president voiced hope for a permanent US military presence in his country, in a speech as the nation put on a large military parade on its Armed Forces Day holiday yesterday replete with tanks and people marching in historic uniforms.

Poland is fearful of Russia's renewed aggression, and President Andrzej Duda said that a permanent presence by the US Army would "scare away every potential attacker."

The US military, on its own and as part of a NATO effort, began rotating troops in and out of Poland and other nervous countries on NATO's eastern flank, including Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, after Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

Poland has recently been lobbying for a permanent US base and more American forces. There hasn't yet been a response on whether Washington will agree to a move that would be expensive and sure to infuriate Moscow.

Some of the American troops currently in Poland also marched in the parade, US flags held high. Poland considers the US its key protector, with some doubts about whether Europe's NATO members really would ever come to its defense.


Duda said if the economy allows, he also wants Poland to increase its own defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP, above the current 2 percent NATO target, which Poland already meets.

The parade is part of a national holiday observed every Aug. 15 that celebrates Poland's defeat of Russian Bolsheviks in 1920 near Warsaw — celebrated as a near-miraculous victory for a country that has seen more than its share of defeat and occupation in past centuries.

"We won. Yes, we won. We Poles won," Duda said. "Today we look with pride at those times."

This year's event was especially large and colorful to mark the centenary of Poland regaining its independence in 1918 after having been swallowed up for 123 years by Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

There was a show of military might by the armed forces, while hundreds of members of historical reconstruction groups also paraded in historic uniforms, including from the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic era and the 20th century.

source: philstar.com

UN talks approve climate pact principles

WARSAW - UN negotiators reached consensus Saturday on some of the cornerstones of an ambitious, global climate pact to be signed in 2015 in a bid to stave off dangerous warming.

Nearly 24 hours into extra time, a plenary meeting approved a modified text, thrashed out during an hour-long emergency huddle in the Warsaw National Stadium hosting the annual round of notoriously fractious talks.

Later, in a closing plenary session of the conference, delegates applauded as the text was given the green light.

Notably, negotiators had replaced the word "commitments" for nationally-determined greenhouse gas emissions cuts, with "contributions".

Developed and developing nations have clashed in the Polish capital ever since negotiations opened on November 11 to lay the groundwork for the new pact to be signed in Paris by December 2015.

It will be the first to bind all the world's nations to curbing Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and gas.

A key point of contention in Warsaw was the opposition of emerging economies like China and India to any "commitments" that were equally binding to rich and poor states and did not take into account their history of greenhouse gas emissions.

The issue is a fundamental one that has bedevilled the UN climate process since its inception 18 years ago.

Developing nations, their growth largely powered by fossil fuel combustion, blame the West's long emissions history for the peril facing the planet, and insist their wealthier counterparts carry a larger responsibility to fix the problem.

"Only developed countries should have commitments," Chinese negotiator Su Wei earlier told fellow negotiators. Emerging economies could merely be expected to "enhance action", he said.

The West, though, insists emerging economies must do their fair share, considering that China is now the world's biggest emitter of CO2, with India in fourth place after the United States and Europe.

Delegates had also reached a consensus agreement on financing to help poor countries deal with climate change effects.

But early Saturday evening, no agreement had yet been struck on creating a "loss and damage" mechanism for future climate harm that vulnerable countries say is no longer avoidable.

source: interaksyon.com

As rich, poor nations butt heads, troubled UN climate talks run into extra time

WARSAW -- UN climate talks were blocked in Warsaw Saturday more than 12 hours after they were to have delivered a roadmap towards a global pact to stave of dangerous global warming.

The belligerent negotiations were to have closed at 1700 GMT on Friday, but by breakfast time Saturday, diplomats were still shuttling to and fro in a last-ditch bid to find consensus.

"There will be no forcing of decisions against the will of parties," conference president Marcin Korolec of Poland told a brief stock-taking meeting at 0600 GMT -- and said it was "premature" to set a time for the closing plenary meeting.

"We will reconvene here in a formal setting at 9am (0800 GMT) to address the situation and find a way forward to conclude the conference," he said.

The Warsaw round of the notoriously fractious annual talks have seen rich and poor nations butting heads since November 11 about their respective contributions to the UN-backed goal of limiting average global warming to 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.

UN nations had agreed to sign a global deal by 2015 to meet this goal with binding targets for all countries to curb climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions.

The pact must be inked in Paris in two years' time, and will enter into effect in 2020.

Negotiators from over 190 countries argued in the Polish capital over apportioning targets for carbon emissions cuts between rich and poor states, and over funding for climate-vulnerable countries.

On current emissions trends, scientists warn the Earth could face warming of 4.0 C or higher over pre-industrial levels -- a recipe for catastrophic storms, droughts, floods and land-gobbling sea-level rise that would hit poor countries disproportionally hard.

A major sticking point was the insistence of some developing nations like China and India, their growth fuelled by fossil fuel combustion, to be guaranteed less onerous emissions curbs compared to wealthy nations.

In hotly disputed language, some wanted the new deal to impose "commitments" on developed countries, whose long history of emissions they blame for the current state of affairs, and seek only "efforts" from emerging economies.

The West, though, insists emerging economies must do their fair share, considering that China is now the world's biggest emitter of CO2, with India in fourth place after the United States and Europe.

A draft text that negotiators mulled over on Saturday underlined that the pact would be "applicable to all parties".

And it invited the world's nations to announce their emissions-curbing commitments "well in advance" of the Paris gathering.

Money was also a bone of contention.

Developing nations insist that wealthy nations must show how they intend to keep a promise to ramp up climate aid to $100 billion (74 billion euros) by 2020, up from $10 billion a year from 2010-12.

Still struggling with an economic crisis, however, the developed world is wary of unveiling a detailed long-term funding plan at this stage.

A separate draft text on finance "urges" parties to mobilise funds "at increasing levels".

"We came here for a finance COP (Conference of Parties). What we got was peanuts," Bangladeshi negotiator Qamrul Chowdhury told AFP of the text on Saturday.

The funding crunch lies at the heart of another issue which bedevilled the talks: demands by developing countries for a "loss and damage" mechanism to help them deal with future harm from climate impacts they say are too late to avoid.

Rich nations feared this would amount to signing a blank cheque for never-ending liability.

Observers said a compromise on this point may be announced soon.

On Thursday, environment and developmental observer groups stormed out of the conference, saying the talks had produced little more than hot air and were "on track to deliver virtually nothing".

source: interaksyon.com

Poland's Catholic church apologizes as pedophile scandal spreads

WARSAW - Poland's powerful Roman Catholic church on Friday apologized over two alleged pedophile priests as prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic began probing the men, one a former Vatican envoy.

Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic have asked Interpol to arrest fugitive Polish priest Wojciech Gil, 36, who allegedly abused several young boys while serving on the Caribbean island.

A Vatican probe is already under way into allegations of child sex abuse against Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, a 65-year-old Pole who served as papal envoy in Santo Domingo for around five years.

Senior Polish church officials said they were unaware of the whereabouts of both men on Friday as prosecutors in Warsaw also launched criminal investigations against them.

"Trust in the church is waning. We are sorry. This is the least we can do," Bishop Wojciech Polak, a senior official with the Polish episcopate, told reporters on Friday.

The church would however not offer victims any material compensation, he said in Warsaw.

"The scale of pedophilia in the church in Poland is unknown," Jesuit priest Adam Zak, responsible for child and youth welfare in the Polish episcopate, said at the same press conference.

"The cases that end up in court are just the tip of the iceberg," he said, pointing to 27 priests convicted of child sex abuse in Poland over the last decade.

In the latest scandal to make headlines, a Warsaw priest who was convicted of committing so-called "other sexual acts" continued to work with children, with the full consent of his superiors.

Unlike the United States or Ireland, the string of crimes in heavily Catholic Poland has not provoked widespread public outcry.

Wesolowski was recalled by the Vatican on August 21 after the allegations of abuse surfaced.

He is suspected of engaging in sexual relations with underage prostitutes in the historic center of the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, according to press reports.

Reports also linked him with the fugitive Gil, accused of raping minors in the city of Santiago, about 155 kilometers (96 miles) north of the capital.

Gil went missing in May when the allegations surfaced and he was suspended from his duties as a priest.

"We have had no contact with him since May 28," Father Tadeusz Musz, spokesman for Gil's order of the Michaelite Fathers, said at the press conference.

Bishop Polak added that Wesolowski had served under the Vatican's jurisdiction and was not "an archbishop in Poland or a member of the Polish Episcopate".

Religious affairs experts in Poland say its powerful church is ill-prepared to deal with the pedophiles in its ranks.

"The Polish church isn't ready to confront this issue. It's a rigid institution, very bureaucratic, detached from reality and certain of its power," Warsaw-based sociologist Pawel Boryszewski told AFP Friday.

"These cases could fuel a wave of criticism against the church."

Wesolowski was ordained in 1972 by then-Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II.

The late pontiff named Wesolowski the Vatican's envoy to Bolivia. He was later posted to several Asian countries before being dispatched to the Dominican by former pope Bendict XVI in 2008.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis came under fire from victims groups following news he had quietly sacked Wesolowski.

Pope Francis has vowed to crack down on abuse in the Catholic Church, reiterating the zero-tolerance approach taken up by his predecessor Benedict XVI after a wave of revelations.

source: interaksyon