Poland will wait until after Sunday’s state funeral for President Lech Kaczynski to decide when to hold an early election to replace him.

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.

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday shelved a Bush-era plan for an Eastern European missile defence system that has been a major irritant in relations with Russia. He said a redesigned defensive system would be cheaper and more effective against the threat from Iranian missiles.

US President-elect Barack Obama spoke with seven world leaders by phone yesterday, as he continues to prepare for taking office January 20.

The investigation in Poland of a man whose daughter claims that he imprisoned and raped her – and fathered her two children – might take months, a Polish prosecutors’ office spokesman said today.

Russian ballistic rockets could be aimed at US missile defences in Europe if the system is ever built, the commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces said today

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today begins a three-day visit to Slovenia, Austria and Poland offering some relief from the controversy around his financial affairs.

Poland has agreed in principle to allow the US to install a missile defence system on its soil.