Foreign News

Poland: Government under pressure over escalating cash for visas scandal

Published

2 years ago

2023/09/16

Priyan

Tomasz Grodzki has said the scandal is threatening Poland's international reputation (BBC file photo)

The speaker of Poland’s upper house of parliament has called on the government to reveal what it knew about an escalating cash for visas scandal.

Tomasz Grodzki said the issue was ruining the country’s international reputation as a responsible democracy.

The government has released few details but media reports say migrants paid up to $5,000 (£4,000) each to speed up their work visa applications. Seven people have been charged so far but none are public officials.

The country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk was sacked last week following the allegations. His dismissal came the same day that Poland’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) carried out a search of the foreign ministry. The director of its legal service has also been fired.

The ministry, which is facing an audit in relation to the scandal, said it would terminate all contracts for outsourcing companies handling visa applications since 2011. Opposition MPs said up to 250,000 visas for people from Asia and Africa were issued irregularly by outsourcing companies.

The government disagreed with this figure, saying only several hundred were issued.

“Anyone who wants to get from Africa to Poland goes to our embassy, buys a stamped visa at a special stand, fills in their details and off they go! PiS [governing party] migration policy,” wrote Donald Tusk, the leader of the opposition Civic Platform party, on X (formerly Twitter).

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has accused Mr Tusk of trying to stir up problems for his governing Law and Justice party (PiS) and denied that there is a widespread issue.

“This case is ruining our country’s reputation as a responsible member of the democratic community of the free world and jeopardizes our security, therefore it must be explained in detail,” said Mr Grodzki, speaker of Poland’s upper house, in a televised address on Friday. “This is the biggest scandal we have faced in the 21st century. Corruption at the highest levels of government, bringing a direct threat to all of us.”

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro later said in an interview with state-run news channel TVP Info that Mr Grodzki was exaggerating the scale of the problem.

The CBA said it first became aware of the matter in July 2022 and has been working to verify it since. The scandal threatens to tarnish the PiS’s anti-immigration stance ahead of parliamentary elections that are due in a month’s time.

PiS is seeking an unprecedented third term in office and while they are currently leading in polls, it is unclear if they can win the outright majority they need to govern.

(BBC)

All News Advertisement

Foreign News

Bride and groom killed by gas explosion day after Pakistan wedding

Published

18 hours ago

2026/01/12

Priyan

(Pic BBC)

A newly married couple were killed when a gas cylinder exploded at a house in Islamabad where they were sleeping after their wedding party, police have said.

A further six people – including wedding guests and family members – who were staying there also died in the blast. More than a dozen people were injured.

The explosion took place at 07:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Sunday, causing the roof to collapse.

Parts of the walls were blown away, leaving piles of bricks, large concrete slabs and furniture strewn across the floor. Injured people were trapped under the rubble and had to be carried out on stretchers by rescue workers.

(BBC)

Foreign News

Rescuers race to find dozens missing in deadly Philippines landfill collapse

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/11

Priyan

More than 30 people are thought to be missing following the landslide in Cebu [BBC]

Rescue workers are racing to find dozens of people still missing following a landslide at a landfill site in the central Philippines that occurred earlier this week, an official has said.

Mayor Nestor Archival said on Saturday that signs of life had been detected at the site in Cebu City, two days after the incident.

Four people have been confirmed dead so far, Archival said, while 12 others have been taken to hospital.

Conditions for emergency services working at the site were challenging, the mayor added, with unstable debris posing a hazard and crew waiting for better equipment to arrive.

The privately-owned Binaliw landfill collapsed on Thursday while 110 workers were on site, officials said.

Archival said in a Facebook post on Saturday morning: “Authorities confirmed the presence of detected signs of life in specific areas, requiring continued careful excavation and the deployment of a more advanced 50-ton crane.”

Relatives of those missing have been waiting anxiously for any news of their whereabouts. More than 30 people, all workers at the landfill, are thought to be missing.

“We are just hoping that we can get someone alive… We are racing against time, that’s why our deployment is 24/7,” Cebu City councillor Dave Tumulak, chairman of the city’s disaster council, told news agency AFP.

AFP via Getty Images A close up shot of a woman wiping a tear away from her eye at the scene of the landfill site, while a small boy looks across at her. — *Relatives of the missing are waiting anxiously for any news of their loved ones [BBC]*

Jerahmey Espinoza, whose husband is missing, told news agency Reuters at the site on Saturday: “They haven’t seen him or located him ever since the disaster happened. We’re still hopeful that he’s alive.”

The cause of the collapse remains unclear, but Cebu City councillor Joel Garganera previously said it was likely the result of poor waste management practices.

Operators had been cutting into the mountain, digging the soil out and then piling garbage to form another mountain of waste, Garganera told local newspaper The Freeman on Friday.

The Binaliw landfill covers an area of about 15 hectares (37 acres).

Landfills are common in major Philippine cities like Cebu, which is the trading centre and transportation gateway of the Visayas, the archipelago nation’s central islands.

A map showing the Philippines and the location of Cebu City

[BBC]

Foreign News

Trump seeks $100bn for Venezuela oil, but Exxon boss says country ‘uninvestable’

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/11

Priyan

[File pic]

US President Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently “uninvestable”.

Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.

But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.

Trump has said he will unleash the South American nation’s oil after US forces seized its leader Nicolas Maduro in a 3 January raid on its capital.

“One of the things the United States gets out of this will be even lower energy prices,” Trump said in Friday’s meeting at the White House.

But the oil bosses present expressed caution.

Exxon’s chief executive Darren Woods said: “We have had our assets seized there twice and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen and what is currently the state.”

“Today it’s uninvestable.”

Venezuela has had a complicated relationship with international oil firms since oil was discovered in its territory more than 100 years ago.

Chevron is the last remaining major American oil firm still operating in the country.

A handful of companies from other countries, including Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni, both of which were represented at the White House meeting, are also active.

Trump said his administration would decide which firms would be allowed to operate.

“You’re dealing with us directly. You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to deal with Venezuela,” he said.

The White House has said it is working to “selectively” roll back US sanctions that have restricted sales of Venezuelan oil.

Officials say they have been coordinating with interim authorities in the country, which is currently led by Maduro’s former second-in-command, Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez.

But they have also made clear they intend to exert control over the sales, as a way to maintain leverage over Rodríguez’s government.

The US this week has seized several oil tankers carrying sanctioned crude. American officials have said they are working to set up a sales process, which would deposit money raised into US-controlled accounts.

“We are open for business,” Trump said.

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to prohibit US courts from seizing revenue that the US collects from Venezuelan oil and holds in American Treasury accounts.

Any court attempt to access those funds would interfere with US foreign relations and international goodwill, the executive order states.

“President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet about the order.

Venezuela’s oil production has been hit in recent decades by disinvestment and mismanagement – as well as US sanctions. At roughly one million barrels per day, the country accounts for less than 1% of global supply.

Chevron, which accounts for about a fifth of the country’s output, said it expected to bolster its production, building on its current presence, while Exxon said it was working to send in a technical team to assess the situation in the coming weeks.

Repsol, which currently boasts output of about 45,000 barrels per day, said it saw a path to triple its production in Venezuela over the next few years under the right conditions.

Executives at other firms also said Trump’s promises of change would encourage investment and they were hoping to seize the moment.

“We are ready to go to Venezuela,” said Bill Armstrong, who leads an independent oil and gas driller. “In real estate terms, it is prime real estate.”

But analysts say meaningfully increasing production would take significant effort.

“They are being as polite as humanly possible, and being as supportive as they can, without committing actual dollars,” said David Goldwyn, president of the energy consultancy Goldwyn Global Strategies and former US state department special envoy for international energy affairs.

Exxon and Shell are “not going to invest single-digit billions of dollars, much less tens of billions of dollars”, without physical security, legal certainty and a competitive fiscal framework, Goldwyn said.

“It’s not really welcome from an industry point of view,” he said. “The conditions are just not right.”

While smaller companies might be more eager to jump in and help boost Venezuela’s oil production over the next year, he said those investments would likely hover in the $50m range – far from the “fantastical” $100bn figure that Trump has floated.

Rystad Energy estimates it would take $8bn to $9bn in new investments per year for production to triple by 2040.

Trump’s suggested $100bn of investment into Venezuela could have a major impact on production – if it were to materialise, said the firm’s chief economist, Claudio Galimberti.

He said companies would only be likely to invest on that scale with subsidies – and political stability. Americans should not expect the situation in Venezuela to lower oil prices anytime soon, he added.

“It’s going to be difficult to see big commitments before we have a fully stabilised political situation and that is anybody’s guess when that happens,” he said.

[BBC]