The weeklies have been reviewed by Krysia Kołosowska.

The lay Catholics weekly Tygodnik Powszechny marks the 30th anniversary of the election of cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope with a special issue devoted to the late pontiff. Its chief editor Father Adam Boniecki says in the editorial note that he will remember that evening of 30 years ago till the end of his life. We were enraptured, says the priest. We knew something was coming to an end, something new was beginning. We did not have the Church in mind but Poland and the socialist bloc. In my view it was like a passage from non-existence to existence; the opening of the door of the dungeon, in which we lived. We, Poles, who were treated by the world with friendly compassion at best but also with condescension, were cut from others by tightly sealed borders, a passport system and censorship, guarded by the security police - now stood in the door which was ajar letting light in.

Newsweek focuses on the reflections of the late Pope on suffering and labor, saying that while these thoughts are seldom recalled today, they will inspire future generations. The weekly recalls that young Karol Wojtyla used to work very hard physically during Nazi occupation of Poland. First – in a quarry, then in a factory. It was said later in the Vatican that no pope before him knew exactly what a night shift of a manual worker was. He carried pails on a yoke, wore clogs on bare feet. This experience inspired his encyclical “Laborem excersens”, one of the most important theological works, which said that labor must not degrade man, it must enrich him.

Wprost is not calmed down by assurances voiced by the Polish government and analysts as to the good condition of the Polish economy at the time of the global financial crisis. Many Poles are already counting the losses in investment funds and asking about bonds, gold and financial condition of individual banks. Finance minister Jan Rostowski claims that Poland’s economic growth in 2009 will be at 4.8 percent. Wprost points out, however, that Poland should not count on exports too much as successive western economies, which are chief markets for Polish exporters, are sliding into recession. Domestic consumption, which has driven the economy up, is at risk. The dramatic drop in the number of cars bought by Poles signals that consumers are uncertain and are beginning to postpone big purchases. There is no cause for panic, says Wprost, but Poles have to prepare for hard times – in the investment sector, business and the labor market.

Polityka, on its part, believes that the global crisis may be a chance for Poland. There has never been a better occasion in the past twenty years to buy cheaply  attractive foreign firms which fell in trouble. Bank PKO BP may become a big player, especially if the treasury minister decides to strengthen its financial potential. It may buy both banks and insurance companies in Europe. An opportunity arises to create a big Polish financial group, says Polityka. 

Wprost writes about suspicions that three Polish intelligence officers were killed by Saddam Hussein’s special services in an act of revenge for taking out six CIA agents out of Iraq on October 25, 1990. Polish intelligence also helped Americans to take with them detailed plans of military facilities in Iraq, crucial for the Desert Storm operation, which began in 1991. Six years later on October 25 a truck rammed into a car driven by Jacek Bartosiak on the Beirut-Damascus road. Exactly two years later Andrzej Puszkarski was killed in a road accident and in 2002 on October 25 the third participant in the operation drowned in the sea off the coast of Egypt. A participant in the action says he heard Saddam Hussein had allocated big finds to find and eliminate the people involved in the Polish intelligence operation, which was a slap in his face. Former Polish defense minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz has no doubts that these deaths  are a revenge of Saddam Hussein’s special services for taking out American intelligence officers out of Iraq. This scenario is not ruled out by former Polish military counterintelligence chief Antoni Macierewicz. That was Wprost.

Przekroj reports that a woman, said to be in her fifties, has become a scare of shop assistants in the southern city of Czestochowa. She targets small outlets employing young shop assistants, enters and all of a sudden tears a hair from their head. Then she threatens to put a spell on them if they don’t give her money. Terrorized shop assistants tend to succumb to this demand. The thief avoided detention so far. She acts on her own and makes sure there are no witnesses around.