President Valdas Adamkus signed a law on Nov. 19 ratifying the EU Constitutional Treaty. After endorsing the constitution on Nov. 11, Lithuania became the first country in the 25-member bloc to do so. Heads of state from all 25 EU countries signed the document in Rome at the end of October, and more than half the countries plan to ratify the constitution in Parliament, while the rest will hold referendums.
Adamkus regained his status as the country's most popular politician, stealing the honor from Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas, according a Vilmorus poll published on Nov. 20. The survey, carried out on Nov. 11-14, showed that 20.3 percent of respondents regarded Adamkus as the best public figure representing their interests, as compared with October's result of 20.4 percent. Viktor Uspaskich, leader of the populist Labor Party, came in second, with 16.8 percent support. Brazauskas, leader of the Social Democratic Party, slid down from first to third place last month, with 16.2 percent of respondents supporting him.
Lithuania will take part in the EU's rapid-reaction battle group development, Defense Undersecretary Renatas Norkus told his EU counterparts in Brussels. Lithuania will negotiate the creation of a joint battle group with Poland, Germany, Slovakia and Latvia, which should be established after 2009, the ministry announced. A total of 13 battle groups will be founded, the first two by next year, two more in 2006 and the remaining nine after 2007.
Some 20,000 tons of sewage that reportedly spilled into a tributary of the Neris River in Belarus a week ago has not yet reached Lithuania, environmentalists said. After being informed about the accident, Lithuanian Greens took water samples from the Neris River near Vilnius on Nov. 19, though they detected no increase in pollution. Rolandas Masilevicius, director of Vilnius' environment protection department, said that if the sewage contaminated the Neris River, the pollutants have not reached Lithuanian territory, as "the river has cleaned up."
A 74-year-old resident of Kaunas was found dead in his home after taking his life in a homemade electric chair, local authorities said on Nov. 23. This is the first such case of suicide in Lithuanian history, according to Kaunas police. The man earlier worked as senior engineer of a company that later went bankrupt. Lithaunia has one of the highest rate of suicide in the world.
A plan for the development of Vilnius Old Town, drawn up by the city and criticized by many independent experts, is to be assessed by international experts this week. The International Council on Monuments and Sites under UNESCO will assess whether the construction boom both within the old part of the city and in its immediate vicinity is causing damage to the World Hertiage Site (status conferred in 1994). The Culture Ministry reported that the foreign experts would present their conclusions next week.