A group of 19 miners have been rescued after a seven-hour search following an earthquake in Poland, according to a local TV station.

Inspectors have halted meat processing at a plant in northern Poland after a television programme claimed it was adding rotten meat to its products.

Thousands of Poles blew horns, prayed and waved flags in central Warsaw today to show their anger over a new law that raises the retirement age and a host of other issues.

Sixteen people were injured, four of them seriously, when a bus collided with a car in central Poland today.

Two trains running on the same track collided head-on in southern Poland, leaving 16 people dead and 58 injured in the country’s worst train disaster in more than 20 years.

Two trains collided head-on in southern Poland, killing at least 15 people and injuring 54, in one of the worst rail disasters in the country in recent years.

A MILITARY prosecutor said he tried to commit suicide during a news conference he had called because his own work has been used as a reason to support plans to close military prosecution offices in Poland.

A train packed with passengers derailed in central Poland today as it was travelling from Warsaw to Katowice, killing one passenger and injuring about 40 others.

Poles wept before their televisions, lowered flags to half-mast and taped black ribbons in their windows after hearing that President Lech Kaczynski and the upper echelons of the establishment lay dead in woods a short drive from the site of the Katyn forest massacre, where 22,000 Polish officers were killed by Soviet secret police in one of Poland’s greatest national traumas.

An express train driven by a drunk driver has derailed in south-western Poland, injuring two passengers, police said today.

A FAST-MOVING fire tore through a three-storey building housing homeless families in north-western Poland early yesterday, killing at least 21 people and injuring 20 more, including an infant, officials said.

Opponents accused President Hugo Chavez of trying to silence his critics today after associates of Lech Walesa said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate would not attend a pro-democracy forum in Venezuela.

Poland’s parliament voted to dissolve itself today, triggering an early election which the government has sought in a bid to end long-running political turbulence.

A Polish railway worker who woke up after 19 years in a coma is coming to terms with modern life, it was reported today.

Poles planned vigils and concerts today to mark the second anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II.

Belarus has blocked the transit of Russian oil through its territory to European countries including Germany and Poland, news reports said today, raising the stakes in a bitter energy dispute between Russia and the neighbouring former Soviet nation.

POLAND’S chief prosecutor yesterday ordered an investigation into allegations that Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper solicited sex from a woman in exchange for giving her a job with his political party, the government said.

Polish investigators have today started to question witnesses to try to determine the cause of a mine explosion that killed 23 men, as they waited for gas to be ventilated from the deep shaft so they could see the scene for themselves.

The EU today hailed the success of the British authorities in disrupting a “major terrorist plot” aimed at blowing up several civilian airliners.

Airlines across Europe cancelled flights bound for Heathrow Airport today, while some airports offered to take on diverted traffic after British authorities said they had thwarted a terror attack aimed at aircraft flying from Britain to the US

Polish authorities worked today to determine the cause of the roof collapse that killed 62 people in southern Poland, as the number of foreign victims rose to eight after a German was identified.

Rescuers were today searching for victims buried when the roof of an exhibition hall in southern Poland collapsed on a racing pigeon show, killing at least 65 people and injuring a further 160.

Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski today approved extending the country’s military mission in Iraq for another year, the prime minister said.

Solidarity founder and former President Lech Walesa examined dozens of files today that communist-era Polish secret police gathered against him while he was a dissident leader in the 1970s and 80s.

Poland’s prime minister has ordered an investigation into whether the CIA ran secret jails for terrorist suspects there, saying the issue must be cleared up before it becomes “dangerous” for his country.

TOUGH-TALKING Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski led Poland’s presidential run-off last night after a campaign in which he stressed traditional Catholic values and the need for a social safety net.

Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a former school principal turned economic adviser, is set to become Poland’s new prime minister as he embarks on talks to form a new government that will try to reduce taxes and increase prosperity for the country’s 38 million residents.

Polish troops have found two warheads in Iraq believed to contain a deadly nerve agent, though it is not clear what period the weapons come from, it was announced today.

Three Italians and a Polish contractor kidnapped in Iraq have been freed, Polish TV reported today.

Three American soldiers and at least eight Iraqis were killed in a midnight clash at a Shiite Muslim cleric’s headquarters in the southern Iraq city of Karbala.