Category Archives: Lithuania

One in five people in parts of EU pay bribes for healthcare, survey finds

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Corruption report says third of EU residents used personal connections to access care during Covid crisis

Almost a third of residents in the EU relied on personal connections to access healthcare during the Covid crisis, and around one in five in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania paid a bribe for such services, a report on corruption has found.

Across the EU’s 27 member states, nearly two-thirds (62%) of the 40,000 respondents in a survey conducted by Transparency International said corruption in their government was a major problem and three-quarters (76%) said it had been stagnating or getting worse.

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Belarus hit with sanctions as world leaders react to ‘hijacked’ flight – video report

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European Union leaders have agreed to impose economic sanctions on Belarus. They have also called on their airlines to avoid the former Soviet republic's airspace, while authorising work to ban Belarusian airlines from European skies and airports. 'Belarus used its control over its airspace in order to perpetrate a state hijacking, therefore the safety and security of flights through Belarus airspace can no longer be trusted,' said the head of the bloc's executive, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

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Belarus: Lukashenko vows to stay in first interview since protests

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President tells Russian journalists that if he resigned the opposition would destroy Belarus

The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has used his first interview since mass protests erupted against his rule to say he does not plan to step down soon.

Lukashenko spoke to a group of pro-Kremlin Russian journalists including the editor-in-chief of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, and made it clear he plans to fight to cling on to power.

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Coronavirus in Europe: states take small steps towards normality

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Restaurants reopen in parts of Germany, while Italy relaxes travel restrictions

Europe took a step towards post-virus normality on Friday when restaurants in Germany and Austria reopened for the first time in two months, and other countries loosened travel restrictions and threw open borders.

Berlin’s restaurants, cafes and snack kiosks were allowed to serve customers again, so long as they obeyed social distancing. People from two separate households could share a table, but had to keep a distance of 1.5m from each other.

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Global report: Trump threat to cut trade ties over Covid-19 branded ‘lunacy’ by Chinese media

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President says he doesn’t want to speak to counterpart Xi; Brazil passes 200,000 infections; Baltic travel ‘bubble’ begins

An escalation of rhetoric between Donald Trump and China over the coronavirus pandemic has sparked concerns that a trade deal between the nations is in peril, as Chinese state media dismissed as “lunacy” a suggestion by the US president that he could “cut off relations” with Beijing.

The US president said he was very disappointed with China’s failure to contain Covid-19 in an interview with Fox Business news. Trump said the pandemic had cast a pall over his January trade deal with Beijing and that he had no interest in speaking to President Xi Jinping at the moment.

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My father, the quiet hero: how Japan’s Schindler saved 6,000 Jews

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Chiune Sugihara’s son tells how he learned of his father’s rescue mission in Lithuania, which commemorates his achievements this year

As a child in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, Nobuki Sugihara never knew his father had saved thousands of lives. Few did. His father, Chiune Sugihara, was a trader who lived in a small coastal town about 34 miles south of Tokyo. When not on business trips to Moscow, he coached his young son in mathematics and English. He made breakfast, spreading butter on the toast so thinly “nobody could compete”.

His son had no idea his father saved 6,000 Jews during the second world war. Over six weeks in the summer of 1940, while serving as a diplomat in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara defied orders from his bosses in Tokyo, and issued several thousand visas for Jewish refugees to travel to Japan.

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Men in west London have highest male life expectancy in EU

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Expert warns of ‘huge inequality’ in capital, while Lithuanian males live shortest lives

Men from west London, one of the wealthiest areas of the UK, have the longest life expectancy of males in Europe with a newborn baby expected to live to the age of 82, according to statistics published to mark International Men’s Day.

The data from the EU department Eurostat suggests that only men from the city centre of the Spanish capital, Madrid, tend to live as long as the fortunate subset of Londoners.

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Russia frees Norwegian and two Lithuanians in swap for pair of its spies

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Cold war style-agreement brings several high-profile espionage cases to a close

Russia has freed two Lithuanians and a Norwegian in return for two Russian spies held in Lithuania, in a cold war-style spy swap that brought several high-profile espionage cases to a close.

The Norwegian, Frode Berg, a retired border guard, was arrested in Moscow in 2017 and convicted of gathering intelligence on behalf of Norway. He pleaded not guilty.

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30 years after communism, eastern Europe divided on democracy’s impact

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Pew research reveals very different views on whether countries are better off today

Thirty years on, few people in Europe’s former eastern bloc regret the monumental political, social and economic change unleashed by the fall of communism – but at the same time few are satisfied with the way things are now, and many worry for the future.

A Pew Research Center survey of 17 countries, including 14 EU member states, found that while most people in central and eastern Europe generally embraced democracy and the market economy, support was far from uniformly strong.

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Lithuanian workers win exploitation case against Kent gangmasters

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Firm that supplied major UK supermarkets ordered to compensate trafficking victims forced to live and work in inhumane conditions

Eleven Lithuanian trafficking victims who suffered severe exploitation while working as chicken catchers on British farms have won a high court case against “the worst gangmaster ever”.

Three of the Lithuanian workers told the court about the brutal conditions experienced by workers between 2009 and 2012 while under the control of DJ Houghton Chicken Catching Services, a Kent-based gangmaster firm.

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Baltic states no longer a bridge between east and west, says Latvia

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Russian interference in elections and corruption scandals prompt rethink

The Baltic states can no longer cast themselves in the role of a bridge between Russia and the west, the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has said in an interview with the Guardian.

Successive crises have shown Russian determination to interfere in western democracy or use Baltic banks to launder corrupt money, Rinkēvičs said after a visit to London during which he met Dominic Grieve, the chairman of the UK intelligence and security committee.

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Superyachts and private schools: Britain’s dirty money problem

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Russian money – some legitimate, some the proceeds of fraud – was channeled through a Lithuanian bank into the UK, according to a major leak of banking documents. The Guardian’s Juliette Garside has been investigating for months and describes how Prince Charles and some of England’s most exclusive schools have benefited. Plus: Ben Beaumont-Thomas on the legacy of the Prodigy’s Keith Flint

The leak of more than 1m bank transactions has shown how an estimated $4.6bn (£3.5bn) was sent to Europe and the US from a Russian-operated network of 70 offshore companies with accounts in Lithuania.

The Guardian’s Juliette Garside has been investigating the network and where the money ended up. She tells India Rakusen that money linked to major Russian fraud cases was laundered with funds from legitimate enterprise, making it impossible to trace the original source. It could then be spent on luxury goods, private school fees and property.

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Banking leak exposes Russian network with link to Prince Charles

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Exclusive: investigation reveals how Troika Dialog channelled $4.6bn to Europe and US

A charity run by Prince Charles received donations from an offshore company that was used to funnel vast amounts of cash from Russia in a scheme that is under investigation by prosecutors, the Guardian can reveal.

Money flowing through the network included cash that can be linked to some of the most notorious frauds committed during Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

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US Air Force F-15 Eagles from RAF Lakenheath intercept Russian jets above the Baltic region

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US Air Force F-15 Eagles from RAF Lakenheath intercept Russian jets over the Baltic region. Picture: 48th Fighter Wing/Tech Sgt Roidan Carlson/ DVIDS These are moments fighter jets from RAF Lakenheath intercepted Russian jets on two separate occasions while deployed to help protect the sovereign skies above the Baltic region.