REACTOR BLOCK BACK: Lithuania restarted the first nuclear reactor at its Soviet-style Ignalina power plant in the early hours of Jan. 29 after electricity exports to the neighboring Belarus were renewed. The second turbine of the first power block was put back in operation at 1:18 a.m. local time. The first reactor now operates at 550 megawatt capacity and the second power unit works at 990 megawatts. The first power unit was stopped and put into reserve on Dec. 31 following the termination of electricity exports to Belarus. Ignalina generates about 70 percent of Lithuanian electricity. Its first reactor is due to be decommissioned by 2005.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS: Between 42,000 and 65,000 tonnes of chemical weapons from World War II lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea are posing a serious threat to the environment, a Russian official from the Russian Emergencies Ministry said Jan. 28. "Corrosion is slowly eating away at both the containers and the weapons and has already allowed chemical substances to leak into the water," he said. German-made chemical weapons have so far been discovered in five different locations in the Baltic Sea, with the largest pile in the Skagerrak strait near the coast of Denmark, where more than 15 German warships sank. In December, the hull of a Nazi vessel believed to have been carrying chemical weapons was found in the sea near Kaliningrad.
TAX-FREE SHIPPING: Discussion resumed Jan. 30 on the shipping policy framework paper "Shipping Policy 2000-2004," which no longer contains an application for a tax-free transition period from the EU. The Estonian government discussed the shipping policy paper for the first time on Jan. 9, but the Cabinet returned it to the Transport and Communications Ministry for improvements. According to the version presented at the beginning of January, Estonia should apply to the EU for a period of transition of at least 10 years in tax-free, on-board trade, but the government had decided to apply for no transition period.
FRESH MILK FLOWS: The biggest supermarkets in Latvia will resume selling Tukuma Piens' dairy products, which was suspended in the wake of suspicions that the company's products could have been the source of a dysentery outbreak early in January. Nelda shopping chain's President Iluta Kalnina said it is unclear if Tukums dairy was responsible for the dysentery, but that the products are competitive in terms of quality, taste and price and are in demand. Sky Baltija and Rimi Baltija will also resume cooperation with Tukums dairy. A Sky representative said that despite the uproar, numerous customers had been asking when the company's products would be on sale again.
ANTI-SEMITE DISOWNED: The Lithuanian Freedom Union faction at Kaunas City Council has announced its intention to disassociate itself from anti-Semitic statements made by the faction's leader, MP Vytautas Sustauskas, on Swedish television. Sustauskas, who enjoys the reputation of a rough and ready street politician, expressed indignation at Lithuania's failure to call to account Jews who worked for Soviet KGB structures, adding that they assisted in the genocide of Lithuanian people. The interview was broadcast this week. The party member, Kaunas Mayor Gediminas Budnikas, gave his promise at a meeting with the leader of the Kaunas Jewish Community, Gercas Zakas, and the chairman of the Hasidic religious community, Jankelis Lopianskis, on Jan. 24.
UNLIMITED SPYING: Estonia is unable to check and obstruct the meetings of foreign intelligence agents on its territory, Mart Nutt from the parliamentary constitutional committee said, commenting on a spy affair that recently became public. Britain's The Independent published an article on Jan. 26 about how a British intelligence agent repeatedly met with a young Russian diplomat, Platon Obukhov, in Tallinn during the 1990s. An MI 6 intelligence officer with the codename Spencer was dispatched on a mission to Tallinn in the guise of a reporter from The Spectator. Spencer regularly met with Obukhov in Tallinn and later in Moscow until the diplomat was arrested by the Russian counter-intelligence service in Moscow in 1996. Nutt said there is nothing unusual about other countries' agents meeting in a third country. "It is generally known, for example, that Helsinki and Vienna are the world's biggest meeting places for agents," Nutt added.
EAT MY HAGGIS: The British Chamber of Commerce's Lithuanian-British Association held a charity benefit in Vilnius Jan. 25 to mark the birthday of renowned Scottish poet Robert Burns. Scots the world over celebrate Burns' birthday with special toasts and traditions, food and drink. The poet's work is usually recited during the supper. The highlight of events being held at the Shakespeare Hotel in Vilnius was music by pipers from Edinburgh and the holiday's traditional dish, haggis. Burn's "Ode to Haggis" was read before sampling haggis, made from a plentitude of spices, oats and ground sheep liver and lungs, among other things, cooked in a sheep's stomach. Afterward people danced Scottish jigs.
EAT YOUR SOCK: Social Democracy 2000 party's Deputy ChairmanArvydas Akstinavicius is urging a former colleague, Lithuanian Social Democratic Party member Audrius Rudys, to keep his promise and "eat his sock." In 1997, Rudys promised to eat his sock if the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party and his own party should ever merge. They did (see story on page 6). Commenting on the statement by his former colleague, Rudys told the Baltic News Service that he has to find out whether he really said it. "It's a too drastic a statement for me," doubted Rudys. But he is intending to keep his promise. "If I make sure I really said so, I will have to do it," Rudys said. Rudys is currently deputy presidential adviser for the economy.
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