Lietuva in brief - 2005-01-12

  • 2005-01-12
The first two out of four F-16 fighter Falcons belonging to the Norwegian Royal Air Force landed at the first air base in Zokniai on Jan. 10 to carry out their Baltic air-policing mission over the next three months. In the framework of a decision by the North Atlantic Council on NATO's air-policing mission in the Baltic states, skies have been patrolled by four F-3 Tornado fighters of the British Air Force since mid-October.

A captain of the Norwegian Royal Air Force was robbed of his Sony walkman and microphone radio one night after arriving in Siauliai for a NATO mission. The items were stolen from the 32-year-old's Volvo V70 parked on a street in the early hours of Jan. 9. The yet unidentified thieves smashed the Volvo's window. The victim said he incurred a loss of 14,000 litas (4,060 euros).

The government is considering whether to relaunch the railway passenger route Vilnius-Warsaw later this year. Authorities want to earmark some 28 million litas (8.11 million euros) for the purpose while reviewing the 2005 budget. Currently the route is operated by a Polish railway company.

The Foreign Ministry plans to open a consular division in Valencia, the Spanish region with the highest number of Lithuanians. Department director Vaidotas Verba hopes to meet with his Spanish colleagues in Madrid later this week to discuss the formalities.

After requirements on Russian transit documents were tightened in the beginning of this year, no border incidents or misunderstandings have been reported. During the first week of 2005, the State Border Guard Service registered no attempts by Russian citizens to travel to or from the Kaliningrad region with domestic passports, which are no longer recognized as valid travel documents.

A majority of students cheat to get higher education diplomas, a Spinter poll for the Lithuanian Union of Student Representations has shown. According to the survey, as many as 75 percent of university students have "borrowed answers" from their classmates during exams. Students in first-year courses are more inclined to cheat, and 67.2 percent of those who copy said it helped them get a better grade.