Lithuania, top 10 events in 1999

ƒ On Oct. 18, Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas announced he would not
sign a deal to allow U.S. energy company Williams International to
buy into the state-owned Mazeikiu Nafta oil complex. He said he
objected to part of the deal that would require Lithuania to cough up
$344 million in a long-term financing for Mazeikiu Nafta.

On Oct. 27, Paksas handed his resignation to President Valdas
Adamkus. Economics Minister Eugenijus Maldeikis and Finance Minister
Jonas Lionginas also stepped down. This oily deal was signed anyway.
The new prime minister, Conservative Andrius Kubilius, was approved
by Parliament on Nov. 3.

ƒ On Jan. 14, Lithuania took a giant step toward eventual NATO
membership when the Parliament pledged to earmark 2 percent of GDP
for defense spending by 2001. The law sets defense spending for 2000
at 1.7 percent to 1.75 percent of GDP.

President Valdas Adamkus said he expects that Lithuania will be
invited to join NATO in 2002.

ƒ On April 22, Kaunas Zalgiris basketball team won the European Cup
during the Euroleague finals in Munich. Zalgiris became the strongest
club of the continent. Zalgiris won against the previous league
champs, Bologna Kinder of Italy, 82:74. The Euroleague final was on
the tube in virtually every Lithuanian home and pub.

After the victory, thousands of people were shouting, singing and
dancing in the streets of Kaunas, Vilnius, Klaipeda, Siauliai and
other cities.

Thousands of cars with Lithuanian tri-color flags and Zalgiris green
and white flags sticking out from windows circled in the streets and
honked their horns during the night.

ƒ On April 14 a nearly 50 square meter 19th century painting "The
Battle of Zalgiris," by Jan Matejko, was transported from the
National Museum in Warsaw. It has never been exhibited in Lithuania,
but every Lithuanian has seen copies of it. No other painting
provokes such interest in Lithuania. More than 200,000 persons
visited the exhibition in the Vilnius Applied Art Museum until fall.

The monumental painting portrays Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas in
the climax of the battle of Zalgiris on July 15, 1410 , more commonly
known elsewhere by its German name, Grunwald. The Lithuanian and
Polish armies, led by Vytautas and his cousin, Polish King Jogaila,
defeated the Teutonic Order.

Many Lithuanians have copy of Matejko's painting on the walls of their flats.

ƒ On May 18, Conservative Rolandas Paksas, former Vilnius mayor, was
approved by the Lithuanian Parliament as the country's new prime
minister.

Previous Conservative Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius resigned
after an on-going feud with Adamkus. On May 21, aerobatic pilot
Paksas performed death-defying feats with his airplane for 70,000
spectators in Vingis Park in Vilnius.

ƒ On Aug. 22 for the second year in a row, the world's most
prestigious bicycle competition, the Tour de France, was won by a
Lithuanian woman. Diana Ziliute, 23, pedalled to a first place
finish. Last year's winner, Lithuanian Edita Pucinskaite, came in
third. Two more Lithuanians finished in the top 10 in the Tour de
France 1999. Jolanta Polikeviciute finished sixth, and her twin
sister Rasa seventh.

ƒ On Oct. 9, Lithuanian cyclist Edita Pucinskaite, 23, captured the
gold medal while her compatriot, Diana Ziliute, secured the bronze at
the Women's World Cycling Championships in Italy. A Lithuanian sweep
was prevented only by Australian Anna Wilson who took home the
silver.

ƒ On Aug. 26, a Vilnius court ended a three-year trial and sentenced
six pro-Soviet Communists to prison terms of from three to 12 years
for their roles in the attempted coup of January 1991. Only six of
the alleged 51 organizers of the coup were tried, because the others
are hiding in Russia.

Mykolas Burokevicius, former first secretary of the pro-Soviet
Communist Party and Juozas Jermalavicius, ideologist of the same
party, were sentenced to 12 and eight years in prison. One of those
sentenced, Stanislav Mitskevich, managed to escape to Russia after
the court announced the decision.

Jan. 13, 1991 was the night of the coup when the Soviet Army tanks
and paratroopers turned their arms on an unarmed, peaceful crowd of
people gathered around the television tower and the radio and
television building to prevent Soviet attack. Losses numbered 14 dead
and more than 700 injured. Soviets occupied these buildings until
August 1991.

ƒ In October the Lithuanian Parliament surrendered to pressure of
the European Commission and agreed to close the first of two reactors
at the Ignalina nuclear power plant by 2005 if the EU and other
Western countries would finance this closure. Lithuanian scientists
estimate the cost of closing both reactors at 40 billion litas ($10
billion). Parliament promised to make a decision on the second
reactor no later than 2004.

The bill on Ignalina passed by votes of Conservatives and Christian
Democrats. All other parties criticize this decision, saying that the
West gave no concrete promises about financing the closure.

The EC approved this bill's passage, and in December EU heads invited
Lithuania to join EU entry talks. Parliament Chairman Vytautas
Landsbergis said that Lithuania will become an EU member in 2004.

ƒ On Sept. 18, Jurgis Kairys, one of the leading aerobatic pilots on
the planet, flew his plane under 10 bridges that span Vilnius' Neris
River in a half hour's time. His plane is three meters high. The
smallest gaps between the bridge and the water were at the Zaliasis
and Zveryno bridges where it was just six meters.

No pilot in the world had ever done it before. This event was shown
on CNN and other world TV channels.

Knights

Business Software Alliance and Microsoft - The two companies teamed
up to eradicate the Baltic states from pirated software. Their
campaign, launched in September, has already resulted in some users
of pirated software being fined upwards of 200,000 kroons ($13,333)
in Estonia. BSA estimates that nearly 80 percent of businesses in the
Baltics use illegal software.

Linnar Viik - Before his selection as adviser to the prime minister
on computer related affairs, Viik helped to launch Tele2's free
Internet campaign in September. Before that he was involved in the
Tiger Leap project that got students around the country on the
information super highway.

Anthony Bowie - After a decade in the American basketball association
NBA playing for the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic
and New York Knicks, Bowie in 1999 played for Kaunas Zalgiris. He won
the Euroleague championship with his team. Lithuanians called him
An-tanas.

After this victorious season, Bowie left for Athens AEK which is not
even a Euroleague club but manages to pay more than Zalgiris.

"I feel the lack of a player like Bowie in Zalgiris now. He was
keeping the team's spirit high," said Jonas Kazlauskas, Zalgiris
coach elected 1999's top coach on the Continent by European
journalists.

Rumors say that Kaunas' girls still remember with nostalgia the good
old days with Antanas.

Scoundrels

Lithuanian law required Sigitas Kaktys, minister of administrative
reforms and municipal affairs, to declare the purchase of a plot of
land, but Kaktys did not, the state tax inspection staff said. The
news media reported mysterious entries in Kaktys' property
declarations as well.

In November, President Valdas Adamkus, the opposition MP and the
media asked him to resign, but Kaktys refused. Only after a couple of
weeks of widely distributed scandal did Kaktys surrender and hand his
resignation papers to Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius.

The courts found Estonia's Siim Kallas innocent of abuse of power and
submission of false information in connection with the disappearance
of $10 million from the North Estonian Bank under Kallas' watch as
president of the Bank of Estonia, but the scandal still damaged his
reputation. The finance minister survived a November no confidence
vote in Parliament, but the court case was reopened this fall, and a
new decision should be made by the spring.

A slew of incidents brought politicians' drinking habits into the
limelight this spring. Among some of the more infamous offenders were
deputy chairman of the Center Party, Kalev Kallo, former prime
minister Andres Tarand and former finance minister Mart Opmann.

The West flinched when Russia held military exercises titled "West
2000" in June. The Baltics, however, had more reason than most: The
exercises included a simulated invasion of Estonia and Latvia from
the east and Lithuania from the south.