Current events in Poland

Washington should stop using the Pentagon as a global welfare agency. The U.S. government at least should charge for its defense services, as Donald Trump has suggested. This is a second best option. But America shouldn't be defending its rich friends for free.

Growing up in Chicago in the 1970s, I was aware that my parents were Polish immigrants. My father, William Krzos, was an engineer at GTE - I was intrigued by his vague remarks about being in a German labor camp.

From Syria to Ukraine, a pesky and newly reinvigorated Vladimir Putin is testing the west. In this new geopolitical face-off, Poland has assumed key strategic importance and will no doubt play a hugely significant diplomatic and even military role.

Finally, a film will be released in the new year that portrays Stalin's monstrous policies and how they brought about The Great Famine of 1933, known in Ukrainian as the Holodomor (death by starvation).

All 10 of these tiny homes prove that space is relative. Your home is only as tiny as you let it feel. So, apply these space-saving tips and storage tricks when you can. Because you deserve to have a bigger home without actually paying for one.

Recent developments confirm a major shift in the balance of power in the Middle East. It appears to me that Russia is dictating the pace of events, raising the question of whether Syria is becoming a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

I hold both extremes - the Holocaust deniers and the Holocaust revisionists - as offensive to the good people who were all taken from us far too soon. Let them rest in peace. Let the truth prevail.

There are times in life when, if you listen closely enough, you really can hear the whispers of your soul. You know ... in between news reports, paying your bills, working for a living, finding meaning in life and trying not to go out of your mind.

hanks to a technicality in counting refugees, hundreds of outlets from Amnesty International to the Brookings Institution have claimed that Saudi Arabia has taken zero refugees - a ludicrous, but rarely fact-checked statement given the comical lack of a "Great Arabian Wall."

The refugees I have known didn't feel entitled to anything. They hated living off of food stamps, welfare, government cheese, and in an internment-like and/or poverty stricken communities. But they appreciated the assistance, making the best of what came their way.

When I met with Mariusz Ambroziak in 1993, he was secretary for the Solidarity trade union in the Mazowsze area around Warsaw. He'd been a Solidarity activist for most of his life, starting out as a young worker involved in the famous Solidarity chapter at the Ursus tractor factory in Warsaw.

How extreme will politics have to get before the Ukrainian establishment stands up to the far right? If the political mainstream doesn't act soon, Kiev's relationships with key diplomatic partners and even Poland could be severely tarnished.

In 1990, I interviewed Leszek Konarski and Zygmunt Fura who were involved with environmental issues and the creation of Poland's first Green Party. Twenty-three years later, I met up with them again in Krakow.