Wielkopolskie

20th November 2009

Two schools in Wielkopolska, in Donaborow and Laka Opatowska, near Kepno, were closed this week due to fears about swine flu, or the A/H1N1 variant virus. The decision to close the schools was taken as up to 70% of staff and students were already absent due to illness and the children in Donaborow had come into contact with a doctor suffering with the new form of flu virus. Meanwhile, Poznan’s Sanepid (Environmental Health) Unit is reacting to information received from worried parents regarding conditions in Poznan schools. “We’re making sure that toilets have water, soap, handtowels, toilet paper. It’s unacceptable for these things to be absent from educational establishments,” Cyryla Staszewska, spokesperson for Poznan Sanepid, told Radio Tok FM.

Autumn Parade

The fifth Equality Parade took place in Poznan last Saturday, the most peaceful to date, with police making no arrests and no incidents taking place along the route. The march appropriated Poznan’s official advertising slogan, ‘know how’, adopting the theme ‘Poznan knows how to be tolerant’. The march, while focussing on the equality of traditional groups like gays, women or ethnic minorities, is peculiar in also including a group of Poznan cyclists who feel discriminated against by Poznan’s mayor.

There was only one small controversial note, as police removed flags and a banner proclaiming ‘I trust Jesus’ placed at the starting point of the march by a group calling itself the Committee for the Defence of the Rights of Believers (KOPLWiP). The Committee have complained that the police actions were illegal. “We wanted to pray by the plaque commemorating the Sacred Heart memorial destroyed by the Mazis. It’s a sacred place to us. Of course it was connected with the march. We’re concerned at the degeneration of behaviour, the fall of humanity. We wanted to ask God to protect us from it,” Jerzy Piotrowicz of KOPLWiP told reporters from Gazeta Wielkopolska.

A2 go ahead

A crucial planning permission necessary in the construction of the A2 motorway from Nowy Tomysl to Swiecko on the German border has been granted this week. The missing approval covered a 14.5km section of the motorway from Rzepin to Torzym and work can now go ahead on 70km of the entire 106km route. Two further approvals are still required to secure the route in its entirety, but these are expected to be given early in 2010, ...