Vaclav Stankevic, chairman of Parliament's NATO affairs commission, said that instead of criticizing the Russian-German pipeline project under the Baltic Sea, Lithuania should look for ways to get benefits from the project and win a more favorable gas price. "Criticizing the said gas pipeline project, we set no good precondition for negotiating over favorable gas prices for Lithuania in the future," the Social Liberal MP said. "The international community knows very well, has seen and understood that we are constantly criticizing Russia. But now we have also started criticizing Germany, our ally in the European Union and NATO," he added.
Bailiffs have listed the property of the Kaliningrad region's representative office in Vilnius as part of a German bank's claim against the exclave's government, which failed to return a $10 million loan issued for modernizing a chicken factory. Dresdner Bank AG turned the credit over to a debt recovery company in Cyprus, which has taken over the creditor's rights from the bank. Now the company is seeking to recover $20.2 million, including $9.6 million in interest. The decision to seize the property of the Kaliningrad regional administration in Vilnius was made by a London arbitration court last year, which was approved by the Vilnius district court and the Court of Appeals.
Lithuanian Radio and Television director Kestutis Petrauskis may have to explain why a striptease was aired live on national television. Social Democratic faction leader Juozas Olekas said that Petrauskis should "come to Parliament and explain how they can tolerate such phenomena, because many of the viewers who were at the studio were under 16 years of age, or even under 14. During a musical broadcast, Top 10 Lithuanian Songs, aired live on Nov. 19, a member of the popular band Isjunk Sviesa (Turn off the Light) took off her bra on stage. Commenting on the incident, the LRT director general said, "Nobody is protected against crazies." The band later admitted they had come up with the idea during the broadcast.
The Kaunas Medical University Clinic performed the first operation to replant both severed legs of an injured worker, who lost his legs in a sawmill accident last week. Two surgery teams were assembled for the operation, including four angio surgeons, a plastic surgeon, four orthopaedic traumatologists, four anaesthetists, a total of some 20 people. The medics succeeded in restoring the blood circulation in the extremities some five hours after the trauma.
