The commission charged with investigating officials once part of the KGB reserve has begun searching for data on KGB activities in foreign countries, said commission chairman Skirmantas Pabedinskas. What's more, the commission has received important information from abroad. "With the assistance of historians and other officials, we have received an important document from an ex-Soviet republic," he said, adding that it was not Russia. The information "speaks explicitly of KGB personnel and the entire structure, and has a section dealing with reservists," Pabedinskas said.
Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas was elected chairman of the Liberal and Centrist Union at the party's convention over the weekend. Support from 651 delegates allowed him to beat out Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Gintaras Steponavicius, who gained 442 votes. "As mayor of the flourishing city of Vilnius, Zuokas is most suited to lead the party in the municipal elections of 2007," MP Rimantas Sukys commented.
The right-wing opposition continued to sound the alarm over an imminent government crisis following disagreements among Cabinet members. "We have an actual minority government, even two minority governments at the same time," Conservative Andrius Kubilius said. The opposition made its assessment following disagreements between PM Algirdas Brazauskas and Economy Minister Viktor Uspaskich over amendments to the natural gas law enabling the state to regulate the gas-supply price margin. Uspaskich has threatened to turn to the EU if Parliament opposes the amendments, while Brazauskas has warned that their adoption could lead to problems with Russia's Gazprom.
A large number of organizations and private individuals are encouraging President Valdas Adamkus not to visit Moscow during its 60th anniversary celebration of the victory over Nazi Germany. Among them is the Lithuanian World Community, which wrote in a letter to the president, "The board is urging you not to attend the May 9 festivities, but rather to initiate a festive celebration of the 60th anniversary in each of the three Baltic states, paying respect to the participants of the anti-Nazi resistance movement and the victims of the Nazi occupation, while representing your homeland in European Union events."
Eight Lithuanian police officers will serve in a U.N.-led civil police mission in Kosovo for another half-year. The mission was supposed to have ended in May, but U.N. officials in Kosovo asked the police to stay for another half-year tour. According to one Lithuanian official, all the officers serving in Kosovo have earned high positions, with one employed as a personal bodyguard to the chief justice in Kosovo, while another heads an especially challenging crime investigation team.
