Lietuva in brief - 2004-09-15

  • 2004-09-15
Almost one-third of the electorate would like to see current Prime Minister and Social Democrat leader Algirdas Brazauskas retain his post after the upcoming parliamentary elections. An August RAIT poll revealed that 29.5 percent of respondents would like to see Brazauskas keep his job, while some 13 percent wanted Labor Party leader Viktor Uspaskich.

Parliament passed a resolution categorically rejecting any efforts to establish a free transit corridor between the neighboring Kaliningrad region and Russia via sovereign territory, as Russia had requested of the EU last year. The resolution passed 58 for and 0 against. "This resolution is not for in-country use, it is designed to strengthen our positions abroad," said Parliamentary Speaker Arturas Paulauskas.

Border guards ordered 39 Russian citizens out of 360 total passengers off a Russian train on Sept. 11 since they did not possess the required facilitated travel documents. Giedrius Misutis of the State Border Guard Service's information analysis group said that the Anapa-Kaliningrad train arrived at the Kena station on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border at 10:40 a.m. local time. Border guards had acted on a tip that many passengers lacked the FTDs, and extra forces were sent to deal with the situation.

NATO has no intention of opening military bases in new member-state territories, NATO Military Committee Chairman General Harald Kujat said in Vilnius. According to Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Chief General James Jones, the number of NATO bases needs to be reduced for economical and strategic reasons.