Warsaw, Jan 30 - Shah Rukh Khan posters are up and advance booking for tickets has begun. This Polish capital, home to a large number of 'King Khan' fans, is all set for the world premiere of "My Name is Khan" Feb 12.

To cash in on Shah Rukh's immense popularity in Poland, the distributors 20th Century Fox has selected Warsaw for the world premiere of his latest film, which sees him paired opposite Kajol after eight long years.

Warsaw, Jan 8 : Chinese pianist Lang Lang gave a concert Thursday in Warsaw that kicked off a year of nationwide Chopin celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of the Polish composer's birth.

"Chopin's music is so fresh. You think that you have the feeling and the thought ... but later you learn there's so many other elements," Lang Lang, famous for his facial contortions and dramatic gestures whilst playing, said.

President Lech Kaczynski and Parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski were in attendance at what the culture minister called "the most important artistic event" of the century.

Warsaw, Dec 28 : The remains of Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, excavated in 2005 by archaeologists in north-eastern Poland, are to be re-buried next year, a church spokesman said Monday.

Copernicus's skull and leg bones were discovered during excavations by Polish archaeologists four year ago at the Frombork Cathedral, in the town where Copernicus made key observations.

A DNA test confirmed the bones as belonging to the Renaissance polymath in 2008.

Warsaw (Poland), Dec. 21 : The infamous sign over the gates at Auschwitz, which reads ''''Arbeit Macht Frei'''' (Work Sets You Free) has been found in damaged condition.

Polish police found the sign that was stolen from the gate of the former Nazi death camp after an intensive three-day hunt.

Five suspects have been arrested. The sign was found cut into three pieces Sunday night in northern Poland, the other end of the country from the southern Polish town where the Auschwitz memorial museum is located and where it disappeared before dawn Friday.

Warsaw, Dec 21- An iron sign stolen from the entrance to the Nazi-era Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland has been found, a police spokesperson said Monday.

The infamous - Arbeit macht frei - sign was found in a small town in northern Poland. It was sawn in three parts, each containing one word. Police detained five suspects, all of them men aged from 20 to 39.

The sign, which is German for "Work Sets You Free", disappeared between 4 a. m. and 5 a. m. last Friday.

"The detained men are now being taken by a special convoy to a police department in Krakow, where they would be interrogated," the spokesperson said.

Warsaw - A 37 year-old man who died recently of pneumonia was carrying the H1N1 virus, doctors announced Saturday in what was the country's first swine flu fatality.

The man died after a week in the hospital, reported the Polish Press Agency PAP.

So far in Poland this year there have been 234 cases of swine flu.

The fatality in Gdansk came as a top Polish civil rights official threatened legal action Friday against Health Minister Ewa Kopacz, saying her delay in purchasing swine flu vaccines could endanger lives and health.

Warsaw  - Parts of downtown Wroclaw were evacuated Thursday after workers found a 500-kilogramme World War II-era explosive behind the city's opera house, local media reported.

The opera house, nearby homes and shopping centres of the southwestern Polish city were evacuated, as police advised drivers to avoid downtown until the explosive was removed, the Polish Press Agency PAP reported.

Construction of a new building behind the opera house was underway when when workers when workers found the explosive, security officials told PAP.

Warsaw  - Poland's government approved a draft law Tuesday that would ban slot machines outside casinos and raise taxes for the industry, the prime minister's chancellery said Tuesday.

According to the draft law, there will be no new permits issued to existing facilities with slot machines, while video lotteries will be banned.

The draft law needs approval from the parliament and the president, Lech Kaczynski. Both the parliament and Kaczynski are expected to approve it.

Warsaw  - Most East Europeans believe that life is better now than under Communism, but a large number of people, especially in Hungary, have a positive view of life under the old regime, according to a four-nation survey released Friday in Warsaw.

Czechs were the most optimistic of the survey's respondents, with 68 per cent saying the present is better, according to the poll by Warsaw's Institute of Public Affairs.

Warsaw  - Poland wants to reduce its deficit by reducing payments to private pension funds while keeping that money in the state's social insurance company ZUS, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

Under the proposal, private pension funds would receive some 3 per cent of worker salaries instead of the current 7.3 per cent, a change amounting to a difference of some
13 billion zloty annually (4.4 billion dollars).

Warsaw - Polish president Lech Kaczynski was to auction off on Monday the faulty pen he used during a signing ceremony of the Lisbon Treaty.

The fountain pen stopped working as Kaczynski was putting down his signature last month to ratify the controversial reform treaty. Kaczynski - a conservative known for his euroscepticism - borrowed a ballpoint pen to finish signing the document.

The pen was up for bids on allegro. pl, a Polish internet auction website, with proceeds set to go to a charity for children with brain damage.

Warsaw - Polish gas monopoly PGNiG finished up talks late Thursday with Russia's Gazprom on a gas delivery deal and was expected to announce details on Friday, the Polish Press Agency PAP reported.

PGNiG and Gazprom have been in a fresh round of negotiations since Monday on the supply of additional gas to Poland beginning in 2010.

The negotiations come after expiration of Warsaw's contract with the Russian-Ukrainian RosUkrEnergo, which delivered an annual 2.3 billion cubic metres of gas to Poland.

Warsaw - Franciszek Smuda was appointed Poland coach on Thursday by the governing body PZPN in succession of Leo Beenhakker, with the aim of getting the the team in shape for Euro 2012 which Poland co-hosts with Ukraine.

Smuda, 61, played in Poland, the US and Germany before becoming a coach in 1983. Smuda has coached Wisla Cracow and Legia Warsaw, among others, and last managed Zaglebie Lublin in Poland's professional league.

Smuda takes the reigns of the Polish team as scandals and corruption mar the association's image and create a backlash from Polish football fans.

Warsaw  - Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski will meet
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton next month to discuss
Afghanistan and a new US proposal for a missile shield, the Polish
Press Agency PAP reported on Wednesday.

Sikorski and Clinton are also set to discuss Polish-American
relations and their strategic partnership.

Warsaw  - The US will strike no deals with Russia at the expense of Central Europe, US Vice President Joe Biden told a Polish daily as he began a visit to discuss a new missile defence shield and to mend ailing relations after original plans for the system were scrapped.

"Nothing about you without you," Biden said in an interview with the daily Rzeczpospolita. He added that the new missile shield is more effective, versatile and includes more advanced technology than the previous Bush-era proposal.

Warsaw  - African immigrants may no longer draw stares in Poland's bigger cities, but problems remain for the tiny community as it strives to make its voice heard and combat stereotypes in the largely white former Soviet bloc.

While today many people of African descent say they are treated well in the deeply Catholic nation, they add that Poles still have negative ideas about the African continent and are too accepting of racist jokes.

Warsaw - They've been called hooligans and terrorists by officials from Poland's football association PZPN.

But the football fans say they are fed up with corrupt PZPN leadership they claim is holding back Polish football and has led to humiliating defeats during a failed qualifying campaign for the
2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Warsaw - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak praised new US plans for a missile shield as a more flexible and effective way to deal with a missile threat from Iran after a meeting Wednesday with his Polish counterpart, Bogdan Klich.

"We listened very carefully to the American argumentation for changing their policy, and I came out convinced that it's really a professional (system)," Barak told journalists in Warsaw.

Warsaw  - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday named three new ministers to replace those who resigned in a gambling lobby scandal that has cast a shadow over his Civic Platform party a year before the presidential election.

Krzysztof Kwiatkowski will now head the justice ministry, where he was formerly a deputy minister. He replaces Andrzej Czuma, who was accused of coming too quickly to the defence of the politicians accused in the lobbying scandal.

Adam Giersz is Tusk's pick to lead the sports ministry. A former deputy sports minister, he replaces Miroslaw Drzewiecki. The sports ministry is making plans for the Euro

Warsaw - A Catholic Church commission was investigating claims of a miracle at a church in Sokolka, eastern Poland, after a local priest said holy communion bread had turned into red liquid, Polish Radio reported Monday.

The commission from a nearby diocese in Bialystok was looking into the claims after medical tests showed the red liquid contained human heart tissue.