Topic: Radek Sikorski

Radosław (Radek) Tomasz Sikorski ( listen) (born 23 February 1963 in Bydgoszcz), is a Polish politician and journalist. He served as Deputy Minister of National Defense (1992) in Jan Olszewski's Cabinet and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1998–2001) in Jerzy Buzek's Cabinet. He was also Minister of National Defense (2005–2007) in Jarosław Kaczyński's Cabinet. He is presently Minister of Foreign Affairs in Donald Tusk's Cabinet since 2007.

Sikorski chaired the student strike committee in Bydgoszcz in March 1981 while studying at the I Liceum Ogólnokształcące. In June, he travelled to the United Kingdom to study English. After martial law was declared in December 1981, he was granted political asylum in Britain in 1982. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. During his time at Oxford, Sikorski was head of the Standing Committee of the debating society The Oxford Union where he organised debates on martial law, president of the University of Oxford Polish Society, member of the Canning Club, and was elected to the dining club The Bullingdon Club, which counted among its members current British Prime Minister David Cameron and current Mayor of London Boris Johnson. In 1987, Sikorski was awarded British citizenship, which he renounced in 2006 as Minister of Defence of Poland.

In the mid-1980s, Sikorski worked as a freelance journalist for publications such as The Spectator and The Observer. In 1986, he travelled to Afghanistan as a war correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph. He won the World Press Photo award in 1987 for a photograph of a family killed in a Soviet air raid in Afghanistan. In 1989, he became the chief foreign correspondent for the American magazine National Review, writing from Afghanistan and Angola. In 1990-91 he was the Sunday Telegraph's Warsaw correspondent.