Faith, hope, Smuda. That was the headline in a Polish tabloid newspaper ahead of last night’s passionate clash between Poland and Russia, the words featuring atop a picture of national coach Franciszek Smuda charging on horseback, sabre in hand and wearing a 1920s Polish army uniform.

Frantisek Smuda, the Poland coach, stares out from the front cover of the current Polish version of Newsweek, a look of impressive resolution on his face.

Frantisek Smuda, the Poland coach, stares out from the front cover of the current Polish version of Newsweek, a look of impressive resolution on his face.

Euro 2012 was supposed to bring east and west together, but boycotts and claims of racism threaten to overshadow the football.

We hadn’t even lifted our feet off Hungarian soil yesterday and it already felt like we’d finally arrived at Euro 2012.

IT WAS the greatest fairy-story in Polish football history. Lechia Gdansk were a third-division club but they beat Widzew Lodz, Slask Wroclaw and Ruch Chorzow on their way to the 1983 Polish Cup final.

WORLD leaders yesterday bade farewell to former Czech president Vaclav Havel, the anti-communist dissident who led the peaceful Velvet Revolution and inspired human rights activists around the world.

An FAI Fan Sales Portal will be set up on www.uefa.com from December 12 until February 29, 2012 for fans wishing to purchase Euro 2012 tickets.

US president Barack Obama is to ask Polish leaders to use the lessons they learned during the fall of communism to aid fledgling democratic movements in the Middle East and North Africa.

POPE Benedict XVI beatified Pope John Paul II before 1.5 million people in St Peter’s Square and surrounding streets yesterday, moving the former pontiff one step closer to sainthood in one of the largest turnouts ever for a Vatican Mass.

More than a million people have crowded St Peter’s Square and surrounding streets for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, a celebration to honour one of the most adored popes as he moves a step closer to possible sainthood.

TRAVELLING on a fleet of planes, trains and cars, more than 50,000 Poles are expected to flock to the Vatican for the beatification of “their” saint-to-be, Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

* January 6: Three members of UDR killed by an IRA landmine near Castlewellan, Co Down.

Clapping solemnly, dignitaries in Norway paid tribute to Nobel Peace Prize winner, imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo – with an empty chair.

Chinese security agents launched a wide-ranging clampdown on dissidents today, hours before the award Nobel Peace Prize award to imprisoned democracy activist Liu Xiaobo.

IMPRISONED Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday for using non-violence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland.

THOUSANDS of Poles filled a vast sunbathed square in Warsaw yesterday for the beatification of Jerzy Popieluszko, a charismatic priest tortured and killed in 1984 by communist Poland’s secret police for supporting Lech Walesa’s Solidarity freedom movement.

Some 100,000 Poles filled Warsaw’s biggest public square today, joining together for a memorial and funeral Mass for the 96 people killed in a plane crash a week ago.

The death of Poland’s president and many elite figures in Saturday’s plane crash in Russia rekindled memories of the wartime Katyn massacre.

THE body of President Lech Kaczynski was returned to Poland yesterday where it was greeted by grieving dignitaries and thousands of Poles lining the route from Warsaw’s airport to the presidential palace.

Thousands of people stood silent in the streets of Poland’s cities today in a silent memorial to President Lech Kaczynski and the other 95 people killed in a devastating plane crash.

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.

THE dominoes fell, one by one, all 1,000 of them, covering 1.5km along the path of the 43km fence that kept Berliners imprisoned for 28 years.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev today crossed a former fortified border to cheers as Germans recalled the night 20 years ago that the Berlin Wall gave way to their desire for freedom and unity.

Massive colourful dominoes were today placed along the former path of the Berlin Wall to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the barrier that divided the city for nearly three decades.

THIS weekend we celebrate the 20th anniversary of a great victory for human instinct and visceral ambition over an evil and degenerate system.

A “HUMBLED” US President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and co-operation rather than unilateralism.

PASSING the Lisbon Treaty is crucial to continued peace, security, and progress in the EU, former Polish president and solidarity trade union leader Lech Walesa has said.

Labour TD Joan Burton has expressed her anger at being quoted in anti-Lisbon material from the UK Independence Party.

Czechs and Poles were mixed in their reaction to the US decision to cancel a missile defence shield based in their countries today.

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.

Former Polish leader Lech Walesa today finished giving evidence in the trial of the country’s ex-military ruler General Wojciech Jaruzelski for his part in the murder of 44 protesters in 1970.

Dignitaries from around the world will attend the funeral of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow today.

POLAND and Ukraine will host the European soccer championship in 2012 after UEFA awarded them the tournament ahead of Italy and another joint bid from Hungary and Croatia yesterday.

Lech Walesa, founder of Poland’s Solidarity movement and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has undergone heart surgery in a Milan hospital, the Polish embassy to Italy said today.

Nobel Prize-winning German author Gunter Grass insists the backlash following his belated Waffen-SS admission is a concerted attempt to nullify all of his achievements.

NOBEL Prize-winning German novelist Guenter Grass is facing a growing storm of criticism following his admission that he served in the Waffen SS during World War II.

The US has its political power families: the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bushes. But nothing quite like what is developing in Poland.

Pope Benedict XVI today celebrated Mass for an estimated 270,000 people in a rain-soaked Warsaw square where his predecessor, John Paul II, inspired Poland’s Solidarity movement against communist rule in a historic 1979 visit.

Pope Benedict XVI today celebrated Mass for an estimated 270,000 people in a rain-drenched Warsaw square where his predecessor, John Paul II, inspired Poland’s Solidarity movement against communist rule in a historic 1979 visit.

Thousands pressed into a Warsaw square today for a Mass by Pope Benedict XVI at the spot where his predecessor, John Paul II, inspired Poland’s Solidarity movement against communist rule in 1979.

PROSECUTORS filed charges yesterday against Poland’s last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, in connection with his imposition of martial law in 1981 as the Soviet -backed regime tried to crush the Solidarity pro-democracy movement.

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 centre-right parties, celebrating a crushing victory yesterday over the ruling left, faced tough talks on forming a coalition amid divisions over the scope of market reforms.