Lietuva in brief

Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte won the women’s 100m breaststroke gold medal on July 30, a day after setting the new world record, as teenagers led the way at the swimming world championships, reports AFP. The 16-year-old Lithuanian set the world record of 1min 04.35 in the 100m breaststroke semi-finals one day earlier before fellow 16-year-old Katie Ledecky of the USA smashed the 1,500m freestyle record in Barcelona. In the women’s 100m breaststroke final, Meilutyte won gold after clocking 1min 04.42secs, just seven hundredths of a second outside her own day-old record. Russia’s Yuliya Efimova claimed silver at 0.60sec back with Jessica Hardy of the USA 1.10sec adrift for bronze. With 18-year-old Missy Franklin having claimed two of the eight gold medals she is bidding for, teenagers are setting the pace in Barcelona, said Meilutyte. Bronze medallist Hardy, whose four-year-old mark Meilutyte broke, expressed no regrets at watching her world record fall. “To watch her break my record last night was really fun,” said the 26-year-old Hardy, who set the previous world record of 1min 04.45 in August 2009. “She is an awesome competitor and to race someone who is so good and so kind is great.”

Minister of Health Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis calls for a closer monitoring of the financial situation of public health institutions, and in reviewing their administrative and management expenditures, reports ELTA. On July 29, the minister of health met with representatives of the National Health Insurance Fund to discuss the financial results of the public health institutions during the first half of 2013. During the meeting, the minister of health stressed the necessity to analyze all the money flows around the health sector and to optimize the usage of these flows. “We see chaos in some cases, money wasted for equipment in other cases, and we hear about the necessity to build a new extension of a hospital when buildings in the vicinity stand half empty. We have to optimize and model the health system taking into account the real infrastructure, and demographic situation,” said Andriukaitis.

According to initial data submitted by Estonian universities, universities will offer free studies to 14,404 new enrolling students this autumn, which is 4,700 more than last year, when 9,700 state-financed places for new students were offered, reports Public Broadcasting. Some universities continue enrolling students into the so-called ‘open university,’ where people can, starting this year, study for free if they follow the full study plan. It is also possible to study part-time, which is meant for working people. Altogether, over 5,000 students more this year than last year can study in a university for free. The interest towards studies conducted in foreign languages has also increased and the number of foreign students has increased, said the Education and Science Ministry.