Today’s news round up in Poland

Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.

Rp.pl – The newspaper Rzeczpospolita wrote about the financial plight of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau. The agency, according to the paper, has a budget shortfall of around PLN 7.6 million (EUR 1.5 million) this year, leaving it short of basic supplies such as photocopy paper, office cleaning products and bullet-proof vests. It could also struggle to pay its electricity bills. Rzeczpospolita added that the bureau has received additional funding but this has proved to be insufficient so far in what has been described as an "exceptional year".

TVN24.pl - Changes to environmental laws could lead to a "massacre of trees" the private news channel TVN24 warned on Tuesday. Law and Justice, the governing party, plans to allow the felling of larger trees on privately owned plots of land without the owner getting official permission from the local authorities. Although the changes to the law are considered quite minor, environmentalists have warned that it could encourage people to chop down trees. This could also lead to increased smog levels this winter as people burn wet and unseasoned wood.

TVPInfo – Law and Justice (PiS) politicians and supporters have responded to attacks on Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister, by opposition leader Donald Tusk, the state-owned broadcaster TVP reported. They have taken to social media to post pictures of Tusk, who is also a former prime minister, with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. "There are no photos of Morawiecki with Putin, or Kaczynski with Putin or Duda with Putin but there are photos of Tusk with Putin," PiS politicians wrote on the web, according to TVP. Tusk alleged that PiS leaders were close to the Kremlin.

Wyborcza.pl – The newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza looked into the mysterious case of Andrzej Izdebski, a former arms-dealer linked with a scandal involving millions of zloty for the purchase of ventilators that never appeared. The Health Ministry signed a contract during the pandemic for the supply ventilators with Izdebski, and paid EUR 35 million up front, the paper wrote. But only a small number of ventilators were supplied and the ex-arms dealer fled to Albania before charges could be filed against him. However, Wyborcza has found that contrary to stories that Izdebski was hiding he was in fact living in plain sight in Tirana. Also, following his death in June, it took Polish prosecutors over a month to get in contact with the Albanian authorities. There is also speculation that he may have faked his own death.