Journalists name papal visit key 2018 event in Lithuania, and Skripals' poisoning globally

VILNIUS – Pope Francis' visit to Lithuania, the centenary of Lithuania's independence and teachers' strike were the most important events of 2018, journalists surveyed by BNS Lithuania say.

The other five important events include the parliamentary probe into the MG Baltic business groups' activity, the state funeral of partisan commander Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, the disclosure of President Dalia Grybauskaite' email exchange and Lithuania's accession to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Lithuanian journalists also believe major global events of the passing year included the poisoning of Russian double agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter, the US-China trade war and the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"The papal visit and the honoring of the partisan commander pulled Lithuanians together, but in their daily lives, a lot of people have that bad feeling that politicians are wrongly spreading the fruits of growing economy. And teachers' strike became the symbol of such dissatisfaction," BNS Lithuania's editor-in-chief Vaidotas Beniusis says.

The survey involved 33 journalists from the Lithuanian Radio and Television, the delfi.lt, 15min.lt, lrytas.lt, tv3.lt, alfa.lt and lrt.lt news websites, the Ziniu Radijas news radio, the TV3 television channel, the Lietuvos Rytas, Verslo Zinios and Lietuvos Zinios dailies and the BNS Lithuania news agency.

22 journalists named the papal visit as the key event of the year, followed by the independence centenary (19), the teachers' strike (15), the parliamentary probe and Ramanauskas-Vanagas' funeral (11 each), the president's email exchange (7) and Lithuania's OECD accession (5).

The TOP-5 of global events also includes the historic meeting of US and North Korean leader Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, the Kerch Strait incident when Ukrainian military ships came under fire from Russia.

They are followed by the United States' decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and move its embassy in Israel, the Facebook data protection scandal and the "yellow vest" protests in France.