Lithuania in the News - In Brief
7th October 2007
President Adamkus Makes a Hard Hitting Speech at UN
President Valdas Adamkus addressing the
United Nations. Photo courtesy President
of Lithuania website.
Lithuania’s President Valdas Adamkus made a hard hitting speech during the recent session of the 62nd United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2007, in which he deplored recent actions against Lithuania and other countries. Not mentioning Russia by name, but clearly referring to it, he noted: "We may only guess why these countries perceive the integration of democracies at their border as a national threat... And clearly we should not tolerate the attempts to falsify historical facts about the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States..."
Following his UN visit he went to Poland on October 1 2007, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Torun and discussed the forthcoming Vilnius Energy Security Conference 2007 next October 10-11 with President Kaczynski. This will be a major international conference, with over 20 European and international leaders in attendance, which will address global energy security and guidelines for EU external energy policy.
For his role as a European statesman, President Adamkus has been nominated for the "Statesman of the Year 2007" award by the magazine "European Voice", together with Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Estonia’s Toomas
The new Plenary Sittings Hall of Lithuanian Parliament.
Photo courtesy Lithuanian Parliament website.
Ilves. The successful winner of the award will be announced at a gala dinner on November 27, 2007.

Further information:
President of Lithuanian website - www.president.lt/en/
EV50 Europeans of the Year - www.ev50.com
Lietuvos Rytas - www.lrytas.lt 26/09/07

Lithuanian Parliament Meets in New Plenary Sittings Hall
The new session of Lithuanian Parliament (the Seimas) was opened after the summer break by the speaker Viktoras Muntianas on September 10, 2007. It met in the new modern Plenary Sittings Hall, in the just completed extensions to the parliament buildings.

Further information: www.lrs.lt

The choir Brevis, an outstanding international
prize winning Lithuanian choir. Photo courtesy
www.musicperformers.lt
Choral Olympics Could be Held in Vilnius
The City of Vilnius has received from the Interkultur Foundation a proposal for Vilnius to host the 2010 international Choir Olympics (now known as the World Choir Games). The Interkultur Foundation, based in Pohlheim Germany, has been organising the Choir Olympics since 2000. Host cities have been Linz Austria (2000), Busan South Korea (2002), Bremen Germany (2004), Xiamen China (2006), with Graz in Austria to be the host city in 2008. Typically the choir olympics draws about 20,000 participants from near 100 countries over 5 - 10 days. Gunther Tisch, President of the Foundation, stated that Vilnius is an important cultural centre with the infrastructure and would be most suitable to hold the choral olympics. Such an event would be a suitable continuation of the Vilnius Cultural Capital of Europe events in 2009, especially as Linz was the first city to host the choir olympics and in 2009 is the other cultural capital of Europe.

Further information: www.worldchoirgames.info , www.delfi.lt 30/08/07