POLAND: Duda Visits South Korea & more – 31st Oct 2024

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 31st of October twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Kicking off this edition, on Thursday, the 24th, President Andrzej Duda visited South Korea and talked with its President, Yoon Suk Yeol, about bilateral and global issues. Previously, in twenty twenty-three, Poland received 180 K2 South Korean tanks to boost its military sector. During the meeting, the two leaders announced that South Korea would give Poland 180 more tanks in the future. Duda also said that Poland would produce some of these tanks since they would contribute to the Polish economy and the development of its military sector.

On the other hand, Duda expressed his concerns about trade imbalances between the two countries and said he hoped for increased Polish exports to South Korea, particularly in the defense and agriculture sectors. The two presidents also talked about North Korea sending soldiers to Russia to fight in Ukraine saying that it could worsen the war and destabilize Ukraine.

The next day, Andrzej Duda responded to rumors circulating on social media. Some internet users said that Poland would give away some of its newly purchased military equipment, such as K2 tanks, to Ukraine. However, during a press conference, Duda said that Poland wouldn’t give away the weapons purchased in recent years because they are meant to strengthen the country's national security. He also confirmed that Ukrainian officials approached him regarding this but he rejected the request.

Still, this doesn’t mean that Poland would stop helping Ukraine. On the same day, the European Investment Bank said that Poland contributed thirty million dollars to a European fund aimed at supporting the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine.

While Duda was in South Korea, Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited Serbia. He met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. The Serbian President supported the Polish government’s plan to limit immigration. Tusk asked the EU to accept Serbia as a new member and said in Serbian that the EU was not complete without the country. Tusk also asked the Serbian President to consider imposing sanctions on Russia.

In internal political affairs, on Friday, the 25th, the Razem party withdrew from the ruling coalition, and twenty-seven of its members also left the party. The Razem party used to operate under the Left party, a member of the ruling coalition, to empower the progressive block in Polish politics.

However, the top members of the Razem party became disappointed with the Left party and other coalition members because they did not care about Razem’s proposals, such as more funding for healthcare, social housing, and scientific research in the forthcoming budget. The party now has chosen to stay independent, focusing on a more critical opposition stance to the government.

On Tuesday, the 29th, the Tusk government decided to increase the state budget for this year. Tusk said that due to unpredictable incidents, such as the flood disaster that happened this year, the executive needed more money to spend. With the latest revision, the government will now have an extra fifteen billion dollars more to spend, which will increase the public deficit ratio to nine percent of the country’s GDP. Normally, the EU allows member countries to have only three percent of the public deficit of the country’s GDP. This increase may lead to further investigation by the EU over Poland in the upcoming months.

This year, the European Commission has already started an excessive deficit procedure regarding Poland’s overspending of its budget. The opposition criticized the budget increase, accusing the government of wasting money.

In other news, on the 5th of November, the US will hold its presidential election. In previous shows, we said that nearly ten million people from the Polish diaspora live in the US, and they may be key in the elections. On Wednesday, the 30th, a poll by CBOS Info revealed that most of the Poles in the US support Democrat Kamala Harris. Fifty percent of participants favored Harris, while only twenty-five percent expressed their support for Donald Trump. Other participants said they did not favor anyone, or they were indecisive.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the 29th, the government announced it would ban the sale of fly agaric mushrooms within three months. Fly agaric mushrooms have distinct red caps with white spots and are infamous for their psychoactive and toxic properties. People use these mushrooms to make drugs because they have hallucinogenic effects when consumed.

In sports news, on Monday, the 28th, Sławomir Nitras, the Sports and Tourism Minister will be a candidate to organize and manage the twenty forty Olympics games in Warsaw and other major cities. Nitras announced the country’s sports plans for the next two decades and said that the government will invest twenty-four billion dollars by twenty forty to boost every sports branch. Nitras said the country will be working on a plan until twenty twenty-six to officially announce its candidacy for the Olympic Games.

Let’s shift gears. On Monday, the 28th, the Global Market Research and Public Opinion Company, or IPSOS, and the Empowering Children Foundation showed that thirty-six percent of adults in the country support physical punishment to discipline children, a decrease of ten percent compared to two thousand five. Moreover, eighty percent of parents think yelling is another effective way to control children.

The study also showed that women, young adults, residents of large cities, individuals with higher education, and parents of young children are more likely to oppose physical punishment than men, older adults, people with less education, and parents of adult children.

On Thursday, the 24th, another study from the statistical office of the European Union showed that Poles have to wait at least five years in public hospitals to receive proper obesity treatment. According to EU statistics, fifty-three percent of Poles are overweight, and only one percent of them receive medical treatments in public hospitals. The hospitals only treat very few people with obesity because the facilities use their limited capacity to treat people with more serious illnesses like cancer and heart diseases. Also, some people think that being obese is a person’s own fault, and that they should resolve the issue themselves. Medical experts requested the government address the issue.

On another concerning statistic, there were a lot of cyber fraud incidents in the country. On Tuesday, the 29th, a study of the Santander Consumer Bank showed that twenty percent of people in the country fell victim to cyber scammers. Cybercriminals mostly targeted old people and young individuals, aged eighteen to twenty-nine. In the meantime, overall, fifty-five percent of Poles experienced cyber fraud attempts, like receiving fraudulent messages asking them to pay for the delivery of their package or about relatives in trouble. Also, the data showed that cybercriminals targeted low-income people way more than rich individuals.

And to wrap up this edition, on Monday, the 28th, Poles on social media expressed their concern that Google replaced Google Maps voice in Polish with an AI voice. The thing is, Poles embraced Jaroslaw Juszkiewicz, the long-time Polish radio journalist with a unique style and sense of humor who has been voicing Google Maps for over fifteen years. In twenty twenty, Google tried to replace him with AI, but after a wave of protests on social media, it decided to keep him. However, this week, Google replaced him again with AI, and Juszkiewicz announced that Google said that the decision was irreversible. In his farewell message, Juszkiewicz thanked Polish drivers and encouraged them to use their intuition and hearts, qualities he remarked AI could not yet replace.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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