Today’s news round up in Poland
Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.
TVPInfo.pl – The public broadcaster carried a story on a propaganda video featuring Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president, who is also a fervent Putin supporter. The video features the president chopping wood so that, according to him, "Poland, Morawiecki and Duda" do not freeze this winter. TVP reported that now the "propaganda media in Belarus and Russia are trying to outdo each other in inventing absurd stories about the war in Ukraine." Recently, the Belarusian press ran a story on how there are apparently long queues of Poles waiting to get into Belarus to buy food.
TVN24.pl – A number of Poles will appear before a European Parliament committee investigating the use of Pegasus surveillance software and other spyware. The Israeli-made Pegasus technology can infiltrate smartphones and harvest information such as files and photographs, and can eavesdrop on phone calls. Roman Giertych, a lawyer who represented Donald Tusk, the leader of Poland's main opposition party, and Ewa Wrzosek, a prosecutor, are two of the Poles appearing in Strasbourg. Their phones were hacked by someone, or some agency, using Pegasus. The spyware is only sold to governments and government agencies.
Wyborcza.pl - The website of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza led with a story on speculation over the future of Jacek Kurski, who was dismissed from his post of president of state-run broadcaster TVP earlier this month. Kurski, according to the paper, may have been removed because of apparent criticism of Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister. The paper says that having "humiliated" Kurski, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Law and Justice, the dominant party in Poland's ruling coalition, may give him a role in a state-owned company or possibly even a seat in parliament.
Rp.pl – The newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported on government plans to fend off possible coal shortages this winter by recovering coal from waste heaps. According to the paper, 10 recovery installations could be built, which would have the combined potential to find up to 1 million tonnes of coal per year. The fuel from the waste dumps would be mixed with higher-quality coal. Experts cited by the paper said that while it was good to make use of discarded coal, it may not be enough to stave off possible energy shortages over the winter.
