Kabul  - Polish President Lech Kaczynski Wednesday announced plans to send hundreds of extra troops to war-torn Afghanistan in the coming months, following a meeting with his Afghan counterpart President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

Kaczynski arrived in Afghanistan on a one-day trip to talk with Afghan government officials and visit his Polish troops stationed in volatile southern province of Ghazni. About 1,600 Polish soldiers are stationed in Afghanistan.

Warsaw- Polish President Lech Kaczynski hosted a summit Wednesday on the economic crisis with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and a slew of labour and economy officials.

It was a rare meeting on the issue between Kaczynski and Tusk, who are at odds on how Poland should deal with the crisis and whether adopting the euro would help.

Tusk has said Poland would work to adopt the euro by 2012 and the financial crisis gave the country more reasons to join the
15-member area.

Vilnius - Polish President Lech Kaczynski made the short trip across the border to neighbouring Lithuania on Monday to join celebrations of the Baltic state's independence day.

Kaczynski was the guest of his Lithuanian counterpart, Valdas Adamkus, as the two leaders marked their countries' close cultural and historical ties.

The presidents took part in a flag-raising ceremony in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, before celebrating mass together in Vilnius Cathedral, followed by a working lunch.

Earlier, Adamkus handed out a variety of state decorations to individuals who had been of service to the state.

Warsaw - Polish President Lech Kaczynski and visiting Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas condemned on Monday the Pakistani Taliban's recent killing of a kidnapped Polish geologist.

"We don't accept terrorism. We didn't accept it and we won't," Kaczynski told reporters in Warsaw, adding that the killing was proof that no country is free from the threat of terrorism.

Pakistani militants released on Sunday what appeared to be video footage of the Polish engineer's beheading. They had offered to exchange him for 61 of their colleagues held by Pakistan.

Warsaw - Polish President Lech Kaczynski has signed an act that cuts pensions to former communist security services and military council members, according to an announcement on his website Friday.

The law, passed by parliament last month, will take effect in 2010. It will strip former security service members and members of the Military Council of National Salvation
(WRON) who imposed martial law in 1981 of their pensions.

Warsaw - Polish President Lech Kaczynski vetoed a bill on Monday that would cut early retirement for 750,000 people amid pressure from trade unions.

The lower house of parliament approved the bill last month, which would reduce the number of people eligible for early pensions from more than 1 million to some 250,000.

"On the basis of arbitrary criteria ... for some it gives early pensions while not for others," Kaczynski said, calling the bill "unjust."