The main purpose of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's trip to Poland was to try to urge Warsaw to drop threats to veto a new European Union treaty meant to replace the stalled draft constitution.

A report released Friday by the Council of Europe confirms that the CIA has used interrogation centers in Europe, including in Romania and Poland, to secretly hold and torture prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the globe.

U.S. President George Bush is in Poland for talks with that country's president, Lech Kaczynski, and other officials, expecting to focus on U.S. plans for deploying a missile defense shield in Europe.

Romania and Poland allowed the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, to operate secret prisons within their borders where agents interrogated suspected terrorists, according to a report released today by Dick Marty, an investigator for the Council of Europe.

Some 100 Polish antiglobalists are demonstrating against a visit by the U.S. president, who is scheduled to meet with the Polish president in Jurata, the presidential residence on the Baltic Sea coast. George Bush and Lech Kaczynski are expected to discuss issues related to the deployment of elements of a U.S. missile shield in Poland.

As tensions between Russia and the West over U.S. plans to deploy anti-missile interceptors in Poland are growing, Polish President Kaczynski visits NATO headquarters Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country will aim its rockets at European targets if the United States goes ahead with plans to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In the past, the union had been notorious for its inability to "sing from the same songbook" -- to use a phrase coined by a frustrated Chris Patten a few years ago when he was serving as the EU commissioner for external relations. Now, however, the bloc is showing signs it is determined to present a united front.

Poland and the United States have opened talks about a plan to station some U.S. anti-missile defenses in Poland. The talks Thursday in the Polish capital, Warsaw, involve a U.S. assistant secretary of state and follow lower-level discussions earlier in May.

The United States and Poland are expected to open formal negotiations in Warsaw on May 24 on a U.S. proposal to place part of a missile-defense system in the country.

Poland's education minister called for a ban on the "propagation of homosexuality" in the country's schools. Amendments to the education law would require school directors to scrap or ban any activities that promote "homosexuality, pornography or other phenomena violating moral norms," said Education Minister Roman Giertych.

Poland and the United States have opened formal talks on a controversial U.S. plan to place part of a U.S. missile defense system on Polish soil. A U.S. State Department senior advisor, Robert Loftis, met Monday in Warsaw with Polish defense officials.