Warsaw - Poland still expects a scheduled visit from a Russian diplomat after sealing a deal on a controversial US missile defence shield to be hosted in Eastern Europe, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Poland's PAP news agency reported earlier that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had cancelled a planned trip to Poland in September after Thursday's US-Polish agreement.

Poland's Foreign Ministry has no official word that Lavrov has called off the trip, local media quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

Warsaw - Poland's ambassador to Iraq has resigned after failing to recover from burns sustained in a roadside bombing last year, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

General Edward Pietrzyk's wounds have not healed and "demand a different climate" for treatment than Iraq can offer, a ministry spokesman said.

No successor has been named.

Pietrzyk's envoy was attacked last October in Baghdad near the Polish embassy, killing one of his bodyguards and an Iraqi civilian.

After five weeks of medical care, where he was for a time kept in an artificial coma to manage pain, Pietrzyk decided to return to Baghdad.

Warsaw - Some 50 trams in the Polish capital will soon hit the streets with large "sober" signs on the back as part of a national program to fight drunken driving, media reported Friday.

The trams will join a few dozen buses that recently donned the oversized signs, designed in the style of Polish licence plates.

The programme is the brainchild of a Polish priest who was appalled at the number of drunken drivers on Polish roads.

It is part of a broader nationwide programme that promotes a sober lifestyle through billboards, commercials and contests.

Prague - Polish and Czech leaders planned Friday to discuss the future of the European Union's reform treaty, which the Czech president declared dead after Irish voters rejected it.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski's visit to Prague has led to speculation that he will urge his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus to support the Lisbon Treaty, which neither country has ratified.

The two leaders were to discuss "developments in the European Union after rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland" over dinner Thursday, Klaus's office said.

Klaus is a longtime critic of the EU accord, designed to streamline decision-making in the expanded 27-nation bloc. He says it's too federalist and too much like a European constitution.

Warsaw - Smokers in the Polish capital Warsaw will soon risk a hefty fine for lighting up at playgrounds or at tram and bus stops, Polish media reported on Friday.

Belgrade- Five people were killed and many more, including children, were injured when a bus with Polish tourists overturned on a highway near Belgrade, the Tanjug news agency said.