Lietuva in brief - 2004-10-06

  • 2004-10-06
President Valdas Adamkus on Oct. 4 urged politicians seeking MP mandates not to make empty promises. "We know well that by giving many promises - even if the promises are unrealistic - it is possible to win elections once. But usually it is just an illusion of victory. A day of reckoning for those giving such promises comes inevitably. If the electorate does not get what it has been promised, it punishes politicians and their parties," the president said during the Citizens' Choice 2004 conference.

MEP Laima Andrikiene (photo) has urged the European Commission to formulate a clearer and stricter policy in regards to Russia. She presented her proposal during the hearings of commissioner-designate Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who will be in charge of EU external relations and European neighborhood policy. According to a press release from the EP European People's Party-European Democrats group that Andrikiene belongs to, the Commissioner-designate assured that the EC would not evade tough and difficult issues in the dialogue with Russia. The Lithuanian MEP noted that prior to the EU-Russian summit meeting scheduled for Nov. 11 Moscow has started playing "a dirty game" by putting forth financial claims to the Baltic states and pressing for the establishment of a transit corridor across Lithuanian territory to the Kaliningrad region.

In preparation for their first general elections, representatives of the Iraqi interim government will visit Lithuania to observe the country's parliamentary elections scheduled for early October, central electoral committee chairman Zenonas Vaigauskas said. "Lithuania's experience will be useful for them. Although a fierce political fight is raging in Lithuania, parties ultimately place the destiny of authority in the hands of the electorate," Vaigauskas said. In his opinion, it is of utmost importance that the electorate decides the destiny of Iraqi political authorities. "This means that Lithuania is a democracy worth learning from," Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis said.

National poet Algimantas Baltakis received the Ukrainian Poet Taras Shevchenko Foundation's most prestigious prize at the President's Office in Vilnius on Oct. 4 for his Lithuanian translations of Ukrainian poet Dmitr Pavlichko's works. Speaking at the ceremony, Baltakis said that the monetary prize, which he received for the first time in Lithuania's 14 years of independence, came as a pleasant surprise.

The search for Lithuanian mountaineer Viktoras Povelauskas, who went missing in the Tian Shan mountains at the end of summer, ended in failure. Algimantas Jucevicius, head of the Lithuanian Travelers' Union, returned from Kirghizia this week with news that the rescue team had failed to find Povelauskas. Povelauskas, 52, went mission while climbing Peak Khan Tengri (7,050 meters) with two other Lithuanian mountaineers at the end of August. Jucevicius said he intends to launch another search for his colleague's body next summer.