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      Rightwing populists have many countries in their grip. Come to Poland: see how they can be pushed back | Anne McElvoy

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 07:00

    Donald Tusk is working hard and fast on a great transformation, but travel the country and it’s clear what a difficult task that is

    My formative journalistic years were spent reporting on the final freeze of the cold war – days of hard times and soft currencies. When I return to those countries now, I test myself on how well I guessed what would follow in the three decades since. On Poland in particular, I would have been hard pressed to predict the giddy zigzag of power still featuring a generation who marched to topple communism, but whose protagonists feud bitterly about how to govern the country in the 21st century.

    We talk a lot about places that have recently bought a one-way ticket towards authoritarian politics – Russia and Turkey for the full-fat versions, and Hungary’s democratic backsliding and stifling of independent institutions.

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      Cardiff turns into a theatre of pain and leaves Wales facing an empty summer | Barney Ronay

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 00:07

    This was an exercise in slow-burn dread right from the start – two and a half hours of relentlessly draining Euro 2024 qualifying playoff football

    Well, that’s something new at least. And don’t worry. It only takes about 30 years, a little bit of scar tissue, and perhaps a mournful novelty song to get over it. Poland had five shots on target all night at the Cardiff City Stadium. Unfortunately for Wales all five came in the penalty shoot out at the end of two and a half hours of relentlessly draining Euro 2024 qualifying playoff football.

    In the process a first ever competitive shootout for Wales became also a first ever defeat by that most knuckle-biting of margins. It fell to Dan James to contribute the decisive miss at 5-4 down, always the worst way to lose in this self-contained theatre of pain. The kick felt wrong from the moment James lined it up. The run was too short. There is that feeling, in these moments, of a footballer suddenly cramped in their own space, the radar starting to bleep, the dials whirring, the day starting to slide the wrong way.

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      Wales suffer Euro 2024 heartbreak after Poland win dramatic penalty shootout

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 22:46


    The Wales supporters sang with increased vigour and a, by now hoarse, stadium announcer pleaded with added desperation but after a penalty shootout, the dream of reaching a fourth major tournament in five was over in the most agonising of circumstances.

    A set of flawless penalties from Poland and a Daniel James spot-kick, saved by Wojciech Szczesny, instead earned Poland a passage to the Euro 2024 finals in Germany this summer.

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      Wales v Poland: Euro 2024 playoff final – live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 18:48

    The other playoffs

    Ukraine v Iceland also kicks off in just over an hour. Georgia v Greece is 83 minutes old: it’s goalless but Georgia are down to 11 substitutes. Giorgi Loria, one of their sub keepers, was sent off at half-time after a rumble involving both benches.

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      Rob Page confident Wales can subdue ‘fantastic’ Lewandowski in playoff clash

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 4 days ago - 19:15

    • Wales manager a ‘proud man’ if Poland beaten in Euros playoff
    • Page: ‘It’s about us imposing ourselves on them’

    Rob Page is confident the power of collectivism can not only subdue the individual brilliance of Poland’s Robert Lewandowski and transport Wales to Euro 2024 but prove there really is life after Gareth Bale.

    Tuesday night’s playoff in Cardiff will dictate whether Wales qualify for a third successive European Championship and a fourth major tournament in five attempts and quite possibly determine Page’s chances of remaining in the role. Leading his country to Germany this summer without the now retired Bale around to destabilise opponents would certainly be a feather in the head coach’s cap.

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      Poland activates air force as western Ukraine and Kyiv come under ‘massive’ Russian attack

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 5 days ago - 07:10

    Poland says Russian missile targeting Ukraine’s Lviv region violated its airspace while Kyiv suffers third pre-dawn attack in four days

    Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv and the western region of Lviv have come under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials have said, and Polish forces have also been placed on heightened readiness.

    Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with Sunday’s early morning strikes also coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske west of Bakhmut.

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      Battle over Polish TV station just the start in Tusk’s bid to remake Poland

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 7 days ago - 12:19

    Public broadcaster TVP is first major battlefield in new government’s attempt to create a more tolerant country after eight years’ rule by PiS

    On his first day as the new head of TVP, the sprawling Polish public television broadcaster, Tomasz Sygut spent four hours locked in his office while a crowd outside banged on the door trying to gain access. Eventually, said Sygut, he had to call the police to help him escape.

    The same day, two of the main TVP channels were abruptly taken off the air by the new managers, the feed replaced with holding music and the TVP logo. “The priority was to turn off the factory of hate,” Sygut said in an interview in his 10th-floor office atop TVP headquarters, with a panoramic view over Warsaw.

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      Euro 2024 roundup: Poland, Iceland and Greece qualify for playoff finals

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 21 March - 22:34

    • Frankowski sparks Poland’s 5-1 win against Estonia
    • Iceland beat Israel 4-1; Greece thrash Kazakhstan 5-0

    Poland hammered lacklustre Estonia 5-1 in their Euro 2024 playoff semi-final on Thursday after the visitors were left with 10 men before the half-hour mark.

    Poland will travel to Cardiff on Tuesday to face Wales in the Path A final after Rob Page’s side beat Finland 4-1 in the other semi-final clash.

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      Populist parties’ divisions jeopardise chances of setting European agenda

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 21 March - 05:00

    Survey shows supporters of nationalist parties hold widely differing views on EU membership, migration and support for Ukraine

    Populist and nationalist parties fighting the European elections in June are deeply divided on almost all key issues, according to a survey, in a finding that questions their chances of defining the bloc’s agenda even in the event of a predicted far-right surge.

    However, the report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) , also said pro-EU parties risked mobilising the Eurosceptic vote if they continued to ape hard-right policies rather than coming up with persuasive alternatives.

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