Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT), the national broadcaster, elected a new director general on April 1. Andrius Siaurusevicius, 40, beat the current LRT chief Kestutis Petrauskis and two more contestants for the post in a secret vote of the LRT council. The newly-elected LRT head plans to improve the performance of the news service 's this was one of the requirements for the new chief set by the LRT council. During the past decade, Siaurusevicius has been hosting a TV discussion show Spaudos Klubas since working at Radio Free Europe. Siaurusevicius received Lithuanian, Estonian, Georgian and Ukrainian state awards. Petrauskis' tenure will end on April 3. He is the first LRT director general to last an entire five-year term in office.
Latvian air carrier, airBaltic announced direct flights from Vilnius to Paris beginning March 31 as reported Lithuanian news agency Elta. There will be three weekly flights to connect these two capitals. AirBaltic also announced the first direct commercial flight from Vilnius to Odessa, Ukraine. It is planned to have four weekly flights between these cities. During the summer season three airBaltic flights per week will also connect Vilnius to Simferopol in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. The Southern coast of Crimea is a sub-tropical resort area on the Black sea which attracts many residents of Lithuania despite the temptations offered by Antalia in Turkey and Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt.
Social Democrat MP Cesiovas Jursenas was elected as the new parliamentary speaker on Tuesday. He was serving as the deputy speaker. Jursenas who turns 70 this year is replacing the Civil Democracy Party leader, Viktoras Muntianas in the parliamentary speaker's chair as the latter resigned following the scandal about payments to ahighest-ranking official of Kaunas County Governor's Administration. Jursenas has been in the Lithuanian parliament for five term and is widely regarded as an elder stateman of Lithuanian politics. Jursenas was speaker between 1993-1996 and for a few months in 2004 replacing Arturas Paulauskas, who served as acting president after Rolanda Paksas was impeached.
Six sailors, four Lithuanians and two Russians were rescued from the sea near the coast of France after their ship sunk on March 31. The ship the Advance freighter was carrying a cargo of 1600 tons of clay and 1000 tons of manganese when it sunk 140 km southwest of Pointe de Penmarch. The ship hit the bottom of the sea 1000-1500 meters deep. Water started seeping into the Adavance freighter on the Sunday morning April 30 the situation became critical soon after that. The ship is registered in the St Vincent and the Grenadines. French Naval Forces immediately rushed to assist the crew. The sailors were transferred by helicopter to the Tourville frigate and again transhipped to a vessel named Abeile Languedoc.
