Warsaw - Despite an economic slow-down that has hit much of Europe, Poles are spending some 12 per cent more on groceries, the daily Rzeczpospolita said on Thursday.

Polish spending on groceries and toiletries shot up by 11.7 per cent from December 2007 to November 2008, the daily said, citing market research company GfK.

Consumers in Germany, Britain and France have been pessimistic, with many opting for cheaper or domestic grocery goods, the daily said, but the slowdown has not yet been felt in Poland.

Warsaw - A Polish court on Friday sentenced three brothers in connection with a lyn

Warsaw - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with his Lithuanian counterpart on Wednesday for talks on energy cooperation amid a gas dispute that saw Russia cut off gas through Ukraine.

Tusk and Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius discussed an energy bridge that would link Lithuania with Poland, and therefore the West. Lithuania is currently reliant on Moscow for its electricity.

The agenda included building a new nuclear plant at Ignalina to replace a Soviet-era facility that Lithuania agreed to shut down when it joined the European Union.

Warsaw  - Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he aims to give priority to projects such as nuclear power stations and gas contracts in the wake of Moscow's recent cut-off of gas shipments.

"From my government's point of view, in times of energy instability, like the Russian-Ukraine crisis, our priority will be our citizens' energy security," Tusk said on Tuesday.

Tusk said Poland had fared well since the Kremlin cut off gas shipments to Ukraine last week, but said the future might be "less rosy."

Warsaw - With a rise in the standard of living and European Union membership, fewer Poles now feel nostalgia for the days of communism, the daily Rzeczpospolita reported on Monday.

Twenty-seven per cent say communism was the best period for Poland, according to a survey in the daily of 1,004 people. The number is down from seven years ago, when 42 per cent reported they remembered that period fondly.

Warsaw - The Polish government of Premier Donald Tusk pushed through a controversial pension reform law in parliament Friday over the opposition of President Lech Kaczynski.

Using the votes of the governing parites of the PO and PSL and with the support of the leftist opposition SLD, Tusk passed the law with 285 votes, 8 more than the three-fifths supported needed to overcame a presidential veto.

The bill was opposed by 160 deputies, chiefly from the nationalist- conservative PiS led by the president's twin brother, Jaroslav Kacyznski.

With the Sejm's approval, the new pension system law can take effect on January 1.