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Warsaw  – Some 28 per cent of Poles would back German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the European Union presidency, said a survey Friday in the daily Rzeczpospolita.

Warsaw  – Marek Edelman, the last leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis, died Friday in Warsaw at age 87, local media reported.

Warsaw  – Industrial orders in Poland fell by 32.3 per cent in August compared to the same period last year, while unemployment held steady, the Central Statistical Office said Wednesday.

Warsaw  – Two seriously injured Polish miners died in hospital Wednesday, bringing the death toll from last week’s methane explosion in a coal mine in the south of the country to 17.

Washington/Prague  – US President Barack Obama is to scrap plans by his predecessor, George W Bush, to install a missile defence system in Eastern Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing officials familiar with the matter.

Warsaw  – The head of the Polish Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) was charged with taking bribes, including building materials, vacations, prosecutors said Monday in Szczecin, northwest Poland.

Belgrade  – Serbia took another step towards direct qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa with a draw against France Wednesday night, but it should have closed the issue with a win, Belgrade newspapers said on Thursday.

Westerplatte, Poland  – Polish leaders, veterans and the archbishop of Gdansk gathered before sunrise Tuesday on the Baltic coast to commemorate the moment a Nazi battleship fired its first shots at a military garrison on September 1, 1939, to spark World War II.

Warsaw  – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – a treaty that remains a sore point in Polish-Russian relations 70 years after it was signed – in an open letter in a Polish daily on Monday.

Berlin  – With a “commitment to peace, to understanding and mutual respect,” the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Germany and Poland issued a joint declaration Tuesday in commemoration of the start of the Second World War 70 years ago.