A hostel blaze, will the presidential race be a Kaczyński-Tusk confrontation and British visitors descend on Krakow again.
Press reviewed by Michał Kubicki
The homeless hostel fire in northern Poland, which claimed 22 lives is the frontpage story in all the papers. The reports paint horrific scenes of the tragedy which struck in the middle of the night, with parents tossing their children from windows and people with their clothes on fire jumping from the windows to save their lives. DZIENNIK writes about entertainment events, concerts and sports competitions being cancelled during a three-day period of national mourning declared by the president.
Looking at Poland’s political scene, RZECZPOSPOLITA turns the spotlight on next year’s presidential elections. According to a poll commissioned by the daily from the Homo Homini Institute. Poles will be choosing between the incumbent president, Lech Kaczynski, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Right now, the former has the support of 16 and the latter of 26 percent of Poles. The daily quotes a political analyst as saying that a difference of only ten percentage points is rather surprising considering a far wider gap between the two men in popularity ratings. According to another analyst, there can be a dark horse in the race. Two names are mentioned here – the Mayor of Wroclaw Dutkiewicz and former Prime Minister Buzek.
The Brits are back – writes GAZETA WYBORCZA in a report from the southern city of Krakow. 2007 was a bumper year as far as the number of British visitors coming to the city. The stag parties lured by cheap alcohol were not necessarily welcomed but on the whole it was good business for hotel and restaurant owners. Last year, the value of the pound nosedived to just over four zlotys, resulting in a considerable drop in tourist traffic. Now that British visitors get more than 5 zlotys for one pound, Krakow has again become a popular tourist destination, writes GAZETA WYBORCZA.
On the arts pages, RZECZPOSPOLITA has an interview with the famous tenor and conductor Placido Domingo who is going to give a recital in the city of Lodz on June 9. It is to include some songs from the best-selling album ‘Amore infinito’ featuring settings of poems by Pope John Paul II. Domingo told the daily that the project was given the pope’s blessing during a meeting a year before his death. Placido Domingo also had some warm words to say about Polish opera director Mariusz Trelinski, whose ‘modern and visionary’ production of Don Giovanni was a great success in Los Angeles. Domingo also told RZECZPOSPOLITA that he may come to Warsaw to conduct one of Trelinski’s productions at the National Opera: Don Giovanni or Madame Butterfly. The interview with sixty eight year-old Placido Domingo is entitled ‘New challenges make me younger’.