Lisa Ray

Polish-Indian Lisa Ray, born in Toronto, has been featured in the Canadian edition of Hello magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People' of the country.

She spoke Polish to her maternal grandmother and watched movies of Federico Fellini and Satyajit Ray with her cinephile dad. She was spotted by an agent in a crowd during a family vacation in India when she was 16, when she began modelling.

She was voted Star of the Future at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, Top Ten most Beautiful Indian Woman of the Millenium by the Times of India and won the Best Actress in a Canadian film for Water by the Vancouver Critics Circle.

Plenty Polish

Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Governor often mentioned as a possible candidate for President of the U.S. is a Polish-American. Because he's a Republican, I didn't actually believe it at first. It was also difficult to find a picture of him wearing a red tie. - A kielbasa in every pot and an American made Buick in every garage!

Perhaps he's the type that might follow in Lech Wałęsa's footsteeps. Jump a shipyard gate... and all.

Helpful Husbands

"Super-husbands" wearing t-shirts with the motto "I examine my wife's breasts," went on a parade in the city of Białystok, north east Poland, lately.

Not necessarily a unique idea as American photo to left illustrates.

The demo was part of an unusual campaign reminding women of the necessity of routine breast cancer tests.

Among those wearing the "Super-husband" shirt was deputy chief of the Podlasie province, Bogusław Dębski and Białystok president, Tadeusz Truskolaski, who said that he viewed the t-shirt mostly as a way of gaining publicity for the cause, but, he added, modestly, he didn't want anyone to "think he was bragging".

Germans Sham-WOW

Der Spiegel's article accusing Poles and other nations of collaborating with Nazis during Word War II, has caused a storm of protest in Poland.

The influential German weekly wrote that Polish farmers, together with Ukrainian gendarmes, French mayors and others were accomplices of the Nazis and were partly responsible for the Holocaust.

The article has caused outrage in Poland. Yesterday, former prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the Law and Justice party (PiS), strongly criticized Der Spiegel, accusing Germans of trying to free themselves from responsibility for the Holocaust. "If we allow Germans go in for this sort of practice, in the future we will have to pay damages to German soldiers who died during the Warsaw Uprising," said Kaczynski.

Marian Pilka, deputy head of the Polish Right (Prawica Rzeczpospolitej) party condemned the article by Der Spiegel on Polish Radio this morning as an attempt to put the blame for the Holocaust on others. He reminded that the mass murder of Jews during World War II was masterminded by the Third Reich. In Pilka's opinion, the article tries to change Germans' consciousness about the past and relieve their guilt.

Government ministers are also concerned. "Soon it will turn out that Poles were responsible for the outbreak of World War II and Germans were the main victims of the war, because they were expelled [from Poland and elsewhere] after it had finished," said Aleksander Szczyglo, Poland's Defence Minister, commenting on the Der Spiegel's article.

It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

Poland produces 340 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Such an amount can be converted to 280 million tonnes of methanol, and then between 80-120 million tonnes of petrol or diesel oil. That is five times more than Poland currently uses yearly, Professor Dobieslaw Nazimek from the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, southeast Poland, told the daily Nasz Dziennik.

That is still only theory, but, scientists in Lublin have invented a way to make it a success. Currently, the artificial photosynthesis of methanol is being assessed from an economic point of view. If everything will work out, massive production of petrol from carbon dioxide will be possible in about three years, Prof. Nazimek claims.

According to preliminary calculations, an apparatus producing 100 million litres of petrol should cost about 100 million zloty (24.2 million euro), which gives about 1 zloty (0.24 euro) per litre of petrol. The business should pay for itself during the first year of functioning, claims Nazimek.

Source: Polskie Radio

To Axe, or Not to Axe

There's an oak tree in the town squar of Jaslo in rural southeastern Poland. The origins of the tree was discovered when plans were made to chop it down to make way for a traffic circle.

"We obtained information that this is no ordinary tree but was put here to mark Adolf Hitler's birthday," said Jaslo's mayor, Maria Kurowska. "So should I try to improve our town's communications or should I allow a memorial to that criminal to remain standing? The choice is simple for me."

Not everybody in this town of 38,000 shared Kurowska's view that the tree must go.

"It was 1942 when the Germans brought a seedling of an oak here and planted it in the centre of the town with all honours, an army orchestra and salutes," said Kazimierz Polak, who was present at the planting ceremony as a child 67 years ago.

"My father told me then that it was Hitler's birthday and we found out later the seedling had come from Braunau am Inn (in Austria) where Hitler was born.

"It's a historic curiosity. What is the oak really guilty of? It's not the tree's fault that it was planted here to honour the biggest criminal and enemy of Poland."

Source of story: U.K. Telegraph