President Valdas Adamkus was named European of the Year at an awards ceremony in Brussels on Nov. 27. The competition, organized by The Economist group's European Voice weekly, each year nominates 50 Europeans for their merits in nine fields, and one of the nominees becomes the European of the Year. It was the first time an official of a new EU member state has won the main prize, the presidential press service said. The awards ceremony was held in the Egmont Palace with over 200 top-ranking EU officials from members of the European Parliament, commissioners and state leaders in attendance.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will make his first official visit to Vilnius Nov. 30. Lithuania is the first foreign country Tusk will visit since his election to the post last month. Tusk, the leader of the pro-business Civic Platform party, defeated former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland's early parliamentary elections on Oct. 22. After Vilnius Tusk's next stop will be Brussels, then he will travel to the Vatican to meet with Pope Benedict XVI.
A Lithuanian farmer who got lost in the city of Leipzig, Germany, ended up making a nine-day trek back to Lithuania. Saulius Marcinkevicius of the Kupiskis district was with a group of farmers who were heading out to an agricultural fair in Hanover. After not being able to find the bus to return back home, he decided to walk. Marcinkevicius hiked along the autobahn and managed to reach the German-Polish border from where he hitched a ride with a truck driver to his home. To survive the journey, he ate field apples and drank pond water.
A Lithuanian immigrant who sank his teeth into a local resident during a pub brawl in Burnley, Lancashire has been jailed for 13 months. According to local media, 26-year-old Regimantas Simanauskas, who had drunk between 30 and 40 shots of whisky, left Andrew Dugdale with flap of skin hanging from his cheek during the brawl in August. Simanauskas also tried to gouge out Dugdale's eye during the dispute, in which Dugdale was assisting staff in ejecting Regimantas from the bar. It later came out in court that the convict also bit a police officer after being arrested.
