Title changed due to no other media article mentioning “almost 600 people” being targetted with the Pegasus spyware in Poland.

Before you comment, this is the full announcement:

Announcement of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage

Due to the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland to suspend financing of public media, I decided to put into liquidation the companies Telewizja Polska S.A. and Polskie Radio S.A. and Polish Press Agency S.A.

In the current situation, such action will ensure the continued operation of these companies, carry out the necessary restructuring and prevent layoffs of employees in the above-mentioned companies. companies employees due to lack of financing.

The state of liquidation may be withdrawn at any time by the owner.

Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz Minister of Culture and National Heritage

And now some context from the article:

Today, Duda proposed his own alternative bill that would have maintained other government spending in the budget – such as the public sector pay rises – but did not include the funds for public media.

However, this morning, the speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, who is one of the leaders of the new ruling coalition, said that he would not convene an early sitting of the house to discuss the president’s proposal, as Duda had requested.

This afternoon, before Sienkiewicz’s decision was published, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the cabinet had decided that the 3 billion zloty previously earmarked for public media would instead be spent on cancer treatment and mental healthcare for children.

Tusk added that Duda’s veto had forced the culture minister to make certain decisions, which would be done “calmly and rationally”.

However, Sienkiewicz’s decision was condemned by figures linked to PiS and to the former management of public media. Samuel Pereira, a senior editor at TVP under PiS, said that the “usurpers are trying to bypass the National Court Register” – the body responsible for validating Sinkiewicz’s previous decision.

Shortly afterwards, President Duda’s chief of staff, Marcin Mastalerek, published a statement declaring the decision to put public media into liquidation as “an admission of defeat by the government”.

Before you comment, this is the full announcement:

Announcement of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage

Due to the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland to suspend financing of public media, I decided to put into liquidation the companies Telewizja Polska S.A. and Polskie Radio S.A. and Polish Press Agency S.A.

In the current situation, such action will ensure the continued operation of these companies, carry out the necessary restructuring and prevent layoffs of employees in the above-mentioned companies. companies employees due to lack of financing.

The state of liquidation may be withdrawn at any time by the owner.

Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz Minister of Culture and National Heritage

And now some context from the article:

Today, Duda proposed his own alternative bill that would have maintained other government spending in the budget – such as the public sector pay rises – but did not include the funds for public media.

However, this morning, the speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, who is one of the leaders of the new ruling coalition, said that he would not convene an early sitting of the house to discuss the president’s proposal, as Duda had requested.

This afternoon, before Sienkiewicz’s decision was published, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the cabinet had decided that the 3 billion zloty previously earmarked for public media would instead be spent on cancer treatment and mental healthcare for children.

Tusk added that Duda’s veto had forced the culture minister to make certain decisions, which would be done “calmly and rationally”.

However, Sienkiewicz’s decision was condemned by figures linked to PiS and to the former management of public media. Samuel Pereira, a senior editor at TVP under PiS, said that the “usurpers are trying to bypass the National Court Register” – the body responsible for validating Sinkiewicz’s previous decision.

Shortly afterwards, President Duda’s chief of staff, Marcin Mastalerek, published a statement declaring the decision to put public media into liquidation as “an admission of defeat by the government”.

Figures from each of the three main groups that make up Poland’s new ruling coalition have outlined plans to introduce legal recognition of same-sex unions. However, one of them has ruled out the idea of also allowing same-sex couples to marry.

The new government was sworn into office last week, ending eight years of rule by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which had led a vocal campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology”.

The new administration – made up of the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) and The Left (Lewica) – is expected to expand LGBT rights, though it is not clear to what extent. Their coalition agreement only mentioned making anti-LGBT hate speech a crime.

Poland’s main two parties, the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) and centrist Civic Platform (PO), have declared that they will oppose proposed changes to the EU treaties when they come before the European Parliament (EP) this week.

PO’s leader, former European Council president Donald Tusk, today warned that the ideas epitomise the kind of “naive euro-enthusiasm” that pushed the UK to leave the EU.

Correct.

It shouldn’t also surprise you that she was appointed by another homophobe and reactionary - education minister Czarnek.

Me personally, I won’t miss him, her or that party in the next government.

The remarks were made by Barbara Nowak, the education superintendent for Małopolska, a province of 3.4 million people in southern Poland centred around the city of Kraków. The national government appoints one such official in each of Poland’s 16 provinces, where they are tasked with overseeing schools.

Nowak, a controversial and outspoken figure, was asked in an interview with news website Wirtualna Polska about claims commonly made by her and other Polish conservatives that the World Health Organisation (WHO) is seeking to “sexualise” children.

“The WHO outlines the aims to quickly interest young people in their bodies and in the pleasure of artificially aroused sexuality,” she answered. “These groups claim that the easiest way to relieve a small child’s emotions is through masturbation.”

“In Swedish preschools there are special rooms where the teacher goes with a child and masturbates them,” Nowak continued. “They then know that they can also masturbate on their own.”

…and thus begins PiS’s no-hope bid for a third term.

Oh believe me, they’ve had quite the career in Poland too - breaking the rule of law, being reactionaries; basically anything your right-wingers would do and more. Even though our democrats (Lewica, KO, TD) overall won the Polish parliament with the upper house being effectively up for grabs, the lower house is still over 50% conservative. Some postulates may be passed via a referendum, but don’t expect any miracles, especially while PiS puppets still hold the presidency (until 2025) and the courts (often illegally).

President Andrzej Duda has announced that he will give current Prime Minister Mateusz Morawicki and his national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has ruled Poland since 2015, the first opportunity to form a new government.

In a speech to the nation this evening, the president noted that no single group had won a parliamentary majority at the 15 October elections. He then declared that, in keeping with tradition, he would nominate as prime minister the candidate of the largest party, which in this case is Morawiecki of PiS.

Funnily enough, by west-european stardards, PSL would actually be moderate conservatives akin to CDU/CSU and the lighter factions of the Tories.

Nonetheless, even they understand democracy is worth preserving and that a coalition with PiS would mean PiS asimilating PSL further down the line. It should come as no surprise then that the general council of the Polish Peasents’/People’s Party yesterday unanimously rejected PiS’s advances.

I mean, it took our prime minister here to admit this after 4 years, a permanent decline in polls and a practically lost parliamentary election (his party may have won 1st place, but they’ve burnt so many bridges and lost so many seats that a 3rd ZP/PiS government term is impossible to form now), but better late than later, I suppose.

And this is right next to his desperate plea for agrarian PSL to betray the opposition and let PiS get a third term. Nobody who has a shred of an attention span believes Morawiecki on this.

You’re certainly not the first to tell me this

I wish I could say the same about our government who appears to now be stomping on the abroad Poles’ right to vote (by shortening the legally permitted time of count of potentially 30 million votes to just 24 hours).

In general our government is the most notorious of breaking laws and also making lives miserable. But alas, our genius main opposition party believes this is the right move at a time when the government notoriously does not respect the rule of law and are usually the ones looking for cheap shots.

Sony is investing $2.1B in gaming R&D

Yes!

focusing on live service.

No!