Poland’s govt readies new self-defense law
WARSAW, Poland, March 23, (AP): Poland’s government has prepared new legislation to boost the nation’s capacity for self-defense, including more funding for first aid courses, better public warning systems, and more emergency shelters, officials said Friday.
Ministers of defense and of the interior said the bill was prompted by the war that neighboring Ukraine is fighting against Russia’s aggression. Russia has recently captured territory in the east, while Ukraine is running critically low on ammunition.
The legislation will be put before Parliament probably in May, after consultations with the public and with local authorities, ministers said.
“Because of the developments that we can see across our eastern border, we are talking here about extreme situations ..., about an armed conflict,” said Marcin
Kierwiski, minister of the interior and administration. Poland is one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters on the military and the humanitarian levels and has taken in almost 1.5 million refugees.
Defense minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said they were presenting the bill “in order to deter, not to frighten anyone, but we must be ready for every potential situation.”
Slovaks head to polls: Slovaks headed to the ballots Saturday to elect a successor to Zuzana Čaputová, the country’s first female president and a staunch backer of Slovakia’s neighbor Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s two-year invasion. She is not seeking a second term.
Peter Pellegrini, a close ally of Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, is considered a favorite in the race for the largely ceremonial post of president. He leads a field of nine candidates in the first round of the presidential election to become the country’s sixth head of state since Slovakia gained independence in 1993 after Czechoslovakia split in two.
Polls will close at 2100 GMT and results are expected Sunday.
If no candidate gets a majority, which is expected, the top two finishers will go through to a runoff on April 6.
Hungary’s Orbán congratulates Putin: Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his victory in an election whose outcome was never in doubt after systematic crackdowns on dissent.
Orbán, widely seen as Putin’s closest ally in the European Union, sent the letter of congratulations on Thursday after the release of official election results in Russia, according to his press chief. The Hungarian leader was the only head of a EU country to congratulate Putin on his reelection, which will extend his nearly quarter-century rule of Russia by another six years.
Putin’s landslide victory was widely criticized by Western leaders, who characterized the result as preordained in Russia’s repressive political system. The EU criticized the election as taking place in a “highly restricted environment exacerbated also by Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Russia court rejects Navalny’s mom suit: A Russian court has rejected a lawsuit filed by the mother of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition stalwart who died in prison in February, that claimed he received inadequate medical care, a close Navalny colleague said Thursday.
Ivan Zhdanov, head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation that was started by Navalny, said the court in the town of Labytnangi, near the Arctic prison where he died, turned down the suit because it said only Navalny himself could be the plaintiff.
“Alexei filed claims against the colonies many times for failure to provide medical care. The claims were denied. Now that he was killed, his family’s claim is being denied with mocking wording,” Zhdanov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Spanish regional leader under pressure: A Spanish judge has opened an investigation into alleged fraud and false documentation against the partner of Madrid’s powerful rightwing regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has recently faced a wave of calls to resign over several controversies.
The move Friday is certain to put more pressure on her party, Spain’s main conservative opposition Popular Party, to take action against her.
Ayuso, who is seen as a possible future party leader and prime ministerial candidate, has come under fire in recent months on several fronts. Last week, news reports said the Spanish tax office was investigating accusations of tax fraud against her partner, Alberto González Amador.
British man sentenced to life: A British IT worker who befriended and worked for an older couple, poisoned them with fentanyl and monitored their death with his cellphone was sentenced Friday to a minimum 37 years in prison.
The sentencing of Luke D’Wit, 34, came two days after he was found guilty of murder in the deaths of of Stephen and Carol Baxter, 61 and 64, last April at their home in West Mersea, 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of London.
During the six-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, jurors also heard that D’Wit had created a fake will on his phone to make him a director of their shower mat company, a day after he killed them. He even monitored them remotely as they died from his deadly concoction.
❑ ❑ ❑ 2 held over Irish gas station explosion:
Two men were arrested Friday in connection with a gas station explosion in 2022 that killed 10 people and tore apart the heart of a village in northwestern Ireland, police said.
The blast shattered Creeslough, County Donegal, a village of 400 near Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast. The Applegreen gas station and a building that housed the town’s main shop and post office were destroyed and an adjacent apartment building was damaged. Flying debris shattered windows in nearby cottages.
Four men, three women, two teenagers and a 5-year-old girl were killed. Eight people were injured.
Ireland’s police force, An Garda Siochana, said two men in their 50s were in custody but released no details about their alleged connection to the deadly eruption.