Warsaw - Some 50 people blocked a pedestrian crossing at the Polish-Ukrainian border Monday in protest over new European Union regulations that limit how many cigarettes can be brought across the border.

The new regulations took effect at midnight, and allow a maximum of two packs of cigarettes allowed through the crossing.

The protesters are mainly people who have made a living bringing over cheap cigarettes from Ukraine to sell them in Poland, reported the Polish Press Agency PAP.

The protesters say they are demanding changes in regulations and will continue their action for at least a week, PAP reported.

Poznan, Poland  - Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are seeking a new push to combat global warming at a UN climate change conference due to start Monday, overshadowed by the world's economic downturn and rising greenhouse-gas emissions in rich and emerging nations.

The two-week UN climate conference in Poznan, Poland, is meant to put governments on track for a new global deal to save the climate that leaders can approve in Denmark in a year's time.

"The need for real progress on tackling climate change has never been more urgent," said Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate official. "The effects of climate change that science has identified are already weighing upon those most vulnerable."

Warsaw - The head of security for Polish President Lech Kaczynski was fired after shooting rang out on Sunday near the Polish and Georgian presidential motorcade near the South Ossetian border, local media reported on Thursday.

Colonel Krzysztof Olszowiec was fired amid allegations he had failed to provide adequate security during the incident, Polish media reported.

The government issued a report on Thursday saying the incident was not an attack on the Georgian and Polish presidents, and Poland's Government Protection Bureau (BOR) was not given adequate time to arrange security for the visit, reported the Polish Press Agency.

Warsaw  - As the European Union seeks to slash greenhouse gas emissions, Polish coal miners are worried - and defiant.

Coal provides 94 per cent of Poland's energy and some 117,000 jobs, a fact that's come into focus as the country prepares to host global talks on a new climate-saving pact.

"Everyone wants to live in healthy air. But you have to find some kind of balance, and you can't do that at the expense of the economy, industry and jobs," said Waclaw Czerkawski, deputy head of Poland's Trade Union of Miners.

Poland's government agrees. Together with other ex-communist EU nations and Italy, it has threatened to block plans to cut the bloc's carbon dioxide pollution to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Warsaw - Polish researchers launched a probe on Tuesday into the 1943 death of World War II General Wladyslaw Sikorski, hoping to determine if it was an accident or possible Soviet-planned assassination.

Sikorski's coffin was taken out of its sarcophagus from a crypt in a Krakow cathedral, and was later to be transported for DNA and medical tests. Results are expected in about a month.

Sikorski died on July 1943 while returning from a troop inspection in the Middle East. The Royal Air Force plane crashed into the sea minutes after take-off from Gibraltar.

Moscow - Shots fired at the Polish and Georgian presidential motorcade near the South Ossetian border were staged and "yet another provocation" by Georgia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

Georgia said Russian forces had opened fire on the motorcade carrying Polish and Georgian Presidents Lech Kaczynski and Mikheil Saakashvili on Sunday from the airport in Tbilisi to a settlement near the Ossetian border.