Press reviewed by Michal Kubicki.

‘India in blood’ in POLSKA, ‘Terrorists strike’ in RZECZPOSPOLITA, and ‘Massacre in Bombay’ in GAZETA WYBORCZA; most of the dailies give extensive frontpage coverage to the events in India. POLSKA writes in an editorial that the attacks are more proof that there is no place on earth that is free of a terrorist threat. Security has become a global problem. NASZ DZIENNIK focuses on yet another aspect of the situation in India: the persecution of Christians there  and a warning from the Hindu extremists that they will step up their campaign of hatred, including the possibility of disrupting Christmas celebrations.

Poland’s war-time leader General Sikorski has been laid to rest in Wawel Cathedral after being exhumed for an autopsy. Even though the results are expected in a month, all press reports stress that, according to a National Remembrance Institute prosecutor, the findings differ considerably from what a British Royal Air Force officer wrote in his report following the plane crash in which general Sikorski supposedly died. The headline in the FAKT tabloid is ‘The British lied’. It asks why the British failed to reveal all the information concerning the extent of the injuries sustained by the General. Jan Rokita, prominent politician-turned-commentator, writes in DZIENNIK: ‘I do not believe that the aim of the exhumation – to establish the true cause of the general’s death - will be achieved. However, if there is even the slightest probability that the Polish prime minister was the victim of a conspiracy murder, it is our duty not to give up the search for truth. Prime Minister Tusk did the right thing trying to persuade his British counterpart Gordon Brown to offer help in unraveling the mystery surrounding Sikorski’s death’. In NASZ DZIENNIK, historian Pawel Wieczorkiewicz says that there have been many cases of mysterious events being explained after a very long time. He trusts that the mystery of Sikorski’s death will eventually be clarified, in the wake of the exhumation and the study of archives which are presently located outside Poland. GAZETA WYBORCZA  is the only daily which claims that the tests on the General’s body make no sense at all. Its commentator ridicules the various theories of Sikorski’s death presented by historians and experts, asking mockingly in the title: ‘Perhaps it was the Czechs who killed Sikorski’.

On Poland’s current political scene, former deputy prime minister and militant farm leader Andrzej Lepper told POLSKA that he will one day return to politics. In a year or, when the economic crisis becomes acute, Lepper and his Self-Defense will be needed, he said. In RZECZPOSPOLITA, political analyst Jaroslaw Flis writes that the next parliamentary, presidential and local government elections should be held in one go – in the autumn of 2010. As things stand now, Poland will face all of these elections spread over a period of six months. This would be detrimental for internal stability and the day-to-day running of state affairs, the paper claims.