Friday
2013.05.24
Panevėžys City District Court suspended Mindaugas Balčiūnas, secretary general of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation who is suspected of jobbery and bribery, for three months and put him under house arrest for six months.
Diana Armonienė, spokeswoman for the court, told BNS that Balčiūnas must stay at home from 8 PM until 6 AM.
On Thursday, Panevėžys Regional Court released Balčiūnas, whose 20-day arrest was ordered by a court of lower instance. Balčiūnas spend 10 days in detention.
Balčiūnas is suspected of fraud, jobbery, document forgery, possessing a forged document, and bribery.
Panevėžys prosecutors, in cooperation with officers from the Special Investigations Service, are carrying out a pre-trial investigation into alleged jobbery, fraud, and document forgery and are looking into alleged illegal use of municipal funds for the reconstruction of hotel Romantic.
Prosecutors suspect there may have been a plan before the 2011 European Basketball Championship to unlawfully reconstruct the hotel owned by Via Unica company for the municipality's money.
Naujienų agentūros BNS informaciją atgaminti visuomenės informavimo priemonėse bei interneto tinklalapiuose be raštiško UAB „BNS“ sutikimo draudžiama.
Two Russian-speaking men, who were caught on camera by 15min offering money for votes in the Eurovision Song Contest, came from Ukraine. According to sources, the two men arrived to Saturday's meeting in a car rented in Lithuania.
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Several bills currently under discussion at the Lithuanian parliament that, if passed, would restrict LGBT rights harms the country's image on the international arena, Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius says.
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The Platform of European Social NGOs (Social Platform) has called on the upcoming Lithuanian EU presidency to raise the issue of poverty and social exclusion.
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Nongovernmental organization Amnesty International has published its annual report on the situation of human rights in the world and criticized Lithuania for a lack of in-depth investigation into alleged CIA prisons in the country and the adoption of laws discriminating against sexual minorities or creating conditions for such discrimination.
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The opposition Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats' political group in the Lithuanian Seimas is initiating an interpellation against Social Democratic Minister of Economy Birutė Vėsaitė.
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Lithuania's ruling Social Democratic Party has suggested to wait for the conclusions of the Chief Official Ethics Commission in connection to the possible conflict of interests in Economy Minister Birutė Vėsaitė's conduct before passing judgement.
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On Thursday, the Seimas of Lithuania voted to legalize growing, processing, as well as importing and exporting industrial hemp.
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Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius, who paid a visit to Israel earlier this week, warned in an interview to the Jerusalem Post that some European countries may boycott all Israeli goods, if those produced in the West Bank are not properly labeled.
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Arūnas Gelūnas – former minister of culture and now Lithuania's ambassador to UNESCO – has fixed his attention on his native town, Kaunas. He has mentioned he will be seeking to have Kaunas and its modernist architecture – particularly on Donelaičio Street – made a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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One and a half months of acclimatization, training, uneventful waiting at the Base Camp, and freezing weather – all for a fleering moment on the world's highest peak. In the early morning of Wednesday, May 22, Edita Uksaitė Nichols finally did it – she reached the top of Mount Everest.
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Lithuanian Economy Minister Birute Vesaitė's flight to Kazakhstan on a plane booked by a private company casts a shadow on the entire cabinet, the country's President Dalia Grybauskaitė says.
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Lithuania's bankrupt bank Snoras says that it has secured the redemption of its investment in the Cayman Islands' funds and continues negotiations with Cypriot companies over the recovery of loans they own.
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Last Tuesday, the Lithuanian parliament held hearings on two bills related to LGBT rights in the country. As many as 50 MPs (out of 141) supported an initiative by notoriously homophobic politician Petras Gražulis to introduce fines for promoting LGBT rights. Learning about that, Lithuanian showbiz celebrities came out with unprecedented support for the LGBT community.
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Laurynas Juozas Liutkus, a second-year student at Klaipėda University, says he did not waver when two Russian-speaking men approached him near the White Bridge in Vilnius last Friday and offered to pay for voting in the Eurovision Song Contest. The student, who is doing a degree in journalism, realized at once it was some dirty business and resolved to look into it. On Saturday, he shared his the story with 15min.
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Sietse Bakker of the Eurovision Song Contest has informed 15min that organizers of the event will investigate a possible case of vote rigging in Lithuania.
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A Lithuanian delegation led by Economy Minister Birutė Vėsaitė flew to a business forum in Kazakhstan on a charter eight-seat business-class airplane paid for by Arvi company.
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Access to university education in Lithuania is low, say analysts of the Research and Higher Education Monitoring and Analysis Center in their first education and study reviews.
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Cyprus' gross domestic product can contract by 10 percent this year, the island nation's finance minister Haris Georgiades says.
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On Tuesday, the parliament of Lithuania opened discussions into Civil Code amendment bill which, according to its authors, should bar LGBT people from being foster or adopted parents.
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Eighty volunteers will assist during events held in the framework of Lithuania's presidency over the European Union (EU) Council in the second half of 2013.
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Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius expects a European-gauge railway line from Lithuania's border with Poland up to Kaunas to be completed next year, while the Rail Baltica Project Directorate plans to finish work by the end of 2015.
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