Warsaw - Warsaw's only mosque lies in a quiet suburb and hardly stands out from the surrounding homes with its arched brick entrance.

But inside, the mosque serves as the spiritual center for Warsaw's tiny Muslim community: many slowly made their homes in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation, and a few can trace their Polish roots back for centuries.

Prayer services in Warsaw on Friday can draw up to 300 people. There are Arabic lessons on Saturdays, a halal food store next door and an Islamic Cultural Center that offers booklets on Islam translated to Polish.

Warsaw - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government would approve a strategy for entry into the eurozone after meeting with an opposition party leader on Monday.

Tusk said the government had prepared a plan to enter the eurozone that would be accepted on Tuesday and later be presented to President Lech Kaczynski.

Tusk met with Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and said there was a "clear difference of opinion" on when to switch currencies, with Kaczynski advocating an unspecified later date.

Warsaw - Michal Sikorski senses the fear in his dwindling community of Polish workers in Iceland as the global financial crisis spreads.

Once drawn in by Iceland's construction and service industries, Poles left by the hundreds in recent weeks as work dried up. Then, the country's financial collapse threatened to wipe out the money they had made in search of a better life.

"People are afraid they'll lose their savings," said Sikorski, a diplomat at the Polish consulate in Reykjavik. "In Poland, maybe they'll earn a bit less but at least they will be with family, in their country."

Brussels  - Former Polish president Lech Walesa and Mario Monti, a former European commissioner from Italy, are to join a European Union "reflection group" tasked with discussing the bloc's long-term future, diplomats in Brussels said Tuesday.

The creation of such a group was first proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and later endorsed by EU leaders at their last December summit.

Headed by former Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez, it is to look at the major challenges facing the EU over the next two decades.

Warsaw - The Polish National Bank has prepared a "package of trust" to preserve the stability of Poland's banking system, president of the bank Slawomir Skrzypek said on Monday.

"We want to propose certain structures," Skrzypek said, "thanks to which the Polish National Bank will influence a growth in trust for transactions between banks."

Skrzypek said more details will be given during a meeting with banks on Tuesday.

The conservative Law and Justice party recently called for an agreement by political parties and the government to work with the national bank, financial regulators and labour unions to ward off damage to Poland.

Warsaw- A third of Poles think the world financial crisis has already hit Poland, but some 40 per cent don't think the government is doing enough to protect their bank savings, said a survey in the daily Polska on Saturday.

The conservative Law and Justice party recently called for an agreement by political parties and the government to work with the national bank, financial regulators and labour unions to ward off damage to Poland.