Warsaw  - A rural district in southern Poland on Friday became the first in the country to display German signs, in what some said was an attempt to reconcile the area's troubled history.

The first of 67 signs was unveiled in the small district of Radlow, which boasts some 28 per cent Germans, the daily Wyborcza reported.

"You can see similar bilingual signs in many places in Europe," said Christoph Berger, a German government attorney dealing with minority issues.

Prague- Poland will submit restructuring plans to save its ailing shipyards to Brussels on Friday before a European Commission deadline, said Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad.

The Baltic shipyards - famous as the birthplace of the Solidarity labour union that fought and toppled Poland's communist regime - have sentimental and historic value to many Poles.

The European Commission had given Poland until September 12 to come up with plans to restructure and privatize the yards, extending a previous deadline that Poland failed to meet.

Warsaw - Former Polish leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski went on trial Friday charged with communist-era crimes in the 1981 martial-law crackdown aimed at breaking the Solidarity trade union.

Prosecutors allege that by imposing martial law, Jaruzelski, 84, led a "criminal armed organization" with the aim of depriving Poles of their freedom, the PAP news agency reported.

Seven other former communist party and military officials are also in the dock at the Warsaw trial, launched after much legal wrangling.

Warsaw - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov - visiting Warsaw Thursday - was quoted by a Polish newspaper as saying Russia is ready to improve relations and to discuss the US anti-missile shield to be placed in Poland.

The daily Wyborcza quoted him further as saying the European Union and Russia's security were interconnected, and Russia was ready to talk about the missile shield as long as the guarantees were not "empty political gestures."

"If the US and Poland are really interested in guaranteeing that the European anti-missile base won't be aimed against Russia then we, like up until now, are ready to consider their concrete proposals," he was quoted as saying.

Warsaw - A former priest in the Polish city of Czestochowa was sentenced to three ye

Warsaw - A Polish television crew detained in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia was released on Tuesday morning, the Polish Foreign Ministry said.

A reporter and cameraman from TVP, along with their Georgian driver, were stopped Monday by Ossetian police and later handed over to Russian soldiers. Their equipment - including their mobile phones - was also confiscated.