Lituanica

As the Lithuanian media reported a Lithuanian man has started a procedure to contest the authorship of a physics law, which has been awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize and is ascribed to American scientists.

The BNS reportes that the efforts of Edmundas Gedvilas, a 71-year-old pensioner from Tauragė, have so far been fruitless. He has filed a suit with a Vilnius court, asking to determine the authorship of a physics law that he allegedly discovered and annul the Nobel Prize awarded to US scientists for the discovery in 2004, also demanding compensation of damages he estimated at 1 million US dollars, the Lithuanian Appeals Court said on 10 January.

In November 2007, the Vilnius Court refused to accept the claim, saying it was not its jurisdiction and was to be filed in the country of the respondent’s registration, i.e. in Sweden.

Gedvilas appealed against the court ruling at the Appeals Court, indicating that he had sent a suit to Sweden in mid-2007 but received no reply. Swedish courts have also failed to respond to an earlier suit dated in the end of 2006.

In an interview to BNS, deputy director of the Physics Institute Algimantas Jundzenas was ironical about the possibility that the Tauragė man could be the author of the asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.

Well, I would like to wish all good luck to Mr Gedvilas, it is just about a time for a Lithuanian to get a Nobel prize, better later than never!

It appears that the Time mag has lost a plot once again.  Stalin was chosen twice.. Hitler was chosen in 1938, a year before that bloodiest war erupted.  I am sure that the magazine had the same line by appointing the despot as appointing Mr Putin: ‘TIME’s Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. ’

However, who would disagree that the Time nomination did not add to Hitler’s popularity in media controlled Nazi Germany, and evening the wider world ‘if  the Yankees think that our Leader is great, why should I doubt his greatness?’ probably many Germans thought back in 1938.

I am not comparing Putin to Hitler, but a free world magazine should have more respect for democracy, and should not play a cheep ‘let’s be controversial this year’ game.  The Putin controlled media will take a full advantage of that.  The Time magazine should be clear, they will not mention that the nomination is ‘not a popularity contest’.

Putin has destroyed a democracy and finally buried hope of Russia ever becoming a normal country, when the neighbouring countries sees it not as a threat but as a partner.  He created a system which is much more dangerous to Russia then that of Yeltsin one.  We are all humans, even Mr Putin, hence, what would happen if let’s assume by an incident or accident the leader is gone…  What would happen to Russia then?

It is not Putin who should be nominated to a Person of the year.  He was just a product of the lucky circumstances.  If the Time Magazine run out of options they should not have chosen not a human but a real Tsar of the world – Mr. OIL, as one of the Lithuanian bloggers suggested.  Mr. OIL runs the world at the moment.Have a look what the Time main raival, the Economist thinks about the choise.

The Baltic States are situated next to Russia; hence this region feels the beating of the Russian bear pulse very well.  The Western Kremlinologists and the experts on Russia ridiculed those Balts who warned the West that Russia is irreversibly moving away from the liberal democracy and that Mr Putin is not a ‘democrat’.  Those warnings made only some months after Putin became the President were ignored and laughed at.  Now it is not funny any more.  Now Russia is on its route out from the Conventional Forces Europe treaty.   Hence, lets listen that some Lithuanian annalists have to say on the subject.

Five years after the final deadline that expired in 2002, Russia has not fulfilled one of the key conditions of the treaty - withdrawal of troops from Georgia and the Dnestr region in Moldova. Up until now, all NATO members held a position that they would not meet their obligation to ratify the treaty until Russia fulfils its commitments.

In August 1939, the Stalin-led Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany signed the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and its secret protocols on unlawful division of Europe. The deals enabled the Soviets to occupy the Baltic States for 50 years and appoint puppet governments.

Should the Balts be afraid again?

As the President’s press office announced the Vilnius Energy Security Conference 2007: Responsible Energy for Responsible Partners held on 10-11 October 2007 is broadcasted live by Internet via Windows Media and RealMedia. 

Lithuanian PM Kirkilas Russian told to the National Radio that President Vladimir Putin is aiming to downplay the international Vilnius energy forum by inviting his French counterpart to Moscow during the event, says.

“This is the second part of the event. The first took place in Krakow in spring, and Russia’s behaviour was similar then. It is doing the same thing this time - aims to downplay the event. I am convinced that our president will speak with the French president who is in support of our event. Russia’s attempts to destroy it can only be regretted. Especially since Russia was also invited to the energy meeting”.

President Putin ignored the invitation to participate in the event, delegating Ambassador Boris Tsepov.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice rejected the invitation to Vilnius due to plans to travel to Russia.

As the BNS informed seven presidents, 12 ministers, top-ranking officials of the United States and the European Union (EU), as well as experts and representatives of energy companies will gather in Vilnius later this week to discuss global energy security and search for the framework for EU external energy policy.

Presidents of Lithuania, Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia, Romania and Ukraine, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, US Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell, representatives of governments of Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey and Bayrammyrat Myradov, executive director of Turkmenistan’s presidential state agency for management and use of hydrocarbon resources, will participate in the conference - the Vilnius Energy Security Conference 2007: Responsible Energy for Responsible Partners - in the Lithuanian capital on Wednesday and Thursday.

French President Nicolas Sarcozy will not attend the event because he will be visiting Russia on these days. Russia delegated Ambassador Boris Tsepov despite the fact that the invitation was sent to President Vladimir Putin.

Agenda of the two-day conference organized by Lithuanian and Polish presidents, Valdas Adamkus and Lech Kaczynski, includes signing of two five-country agreements concerning cooperation among companies and ministries of Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia implementing the project of the pipeline Odessa-Brody-Plotsk-Gdansk.

It is expected to be the last step for launching the alternative project to Russia’s oil supply. Odessa-Brody-Plotsk-Gdansk is planned to be the first pipeline to link the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea regions with countries of the Baltic Sea region and become the new way of oil transit to Europe.

I would like to present you my letter to Mr Stephen Kotkin, an author of a great book ‘Armageddon Averted.’  I commented on some passages in the book with which I disagree.

Dear Mr. Kotkin,

I have reading your book Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000. No need to repeat the numerous positive reviews of the book. I enjoyed your analysis on the Soviet Union very much.

However, I dear to say that I entirely disagree with few of your statements presented in the book. Let me mention them.

In Your conclusion (same as in introduction) you written that ‘Only five countries, which were already better of [in comparing to Russia]  … - Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia - managed a first rush of liberal reform, and were poised for a second push…’ (193 p.)

First of all You missed Slovakia there.  Second of all I would like to remind you that You missed Lithuania and Latvia.  During most of history Latvia and Lithuania were better of than Russia.  Since You talk about the last decade of the 20C I am entitled to claim that because of my own personal experiences.  If You need any further assurances regarding this please, ask any Ex-Soviet ziticen to confirm that.   If You have had traveled to the occupied Latvia and Lithuania you would have seen a huge difference between Belarusian or Russian border areas just after crossing the ‘border’ line to Latvia or Lithuania.  Rest of Russia was in the similar situation.

During the occupation some Soviet citizens were calling the Baltic republics a ‘little America’.  Pribaltika for them was a single entity since they were developed almost identically.  There some curiously humorous miss-understandings when introducing yourself as being from Lithuania, sometimes one was getting a response ‘Oh yes, Riga, a beautiful city!’

understand that the book was published after the 1998 crisis, in 2001.  I agree that Lithuania had some negative economical implications due to the Russian crisis.  It is true that the Russian crisis knocked the country down a little bit, and we had some catching up to do with the Estonians in order to make it to the first EU candidates group.  And, as You perfectly aware, we made it!

Furthermore, Russia suffered a much greater deal from the 1998 crisis than the Baltic States and I don’t think that it is fair to claim that Lithuania and Latvia were worse off than Russia even before the 1998 crisis. ALL Baltic States in most of the time had a much better socio-economical and political composition than Russia.  This was the case also in 2001 when you published the book.
 
On the same page You state that ‘Even the touted cases of Latvia and Lithuania resembled the disasters of Ukraine and Belarus…’ Well, with all due respect, I do not think that there was anything to compare between Latvia and Lithuania with Lukoshenko’s Belarus and Kuchma’s Ukraine.
 
ALL Baltic States are regarded as a success story and I am sorry that You were not aware of that.
 
It seems to me that You had never had a chance to visit Lithuania and Latvia and compare life there to that in Russia (Moscow is not Russia, it never was). Please, do that and You will see a difference even though at the moment Russia is swimming in the petrol dollars.Thank you for taking time to read this letter and I am looking forwards to read more of Your books.

The President of Lithuania made a speech at a 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday.  President Adamkus himself with a very strong environmental background called establishment of a UN Organization for the Environment with a revised and strengthened mandate since the world needs a more coherent and inclusive system of international environmental governance.

“The last several years constituted a breakthrough in understanding the dangerous consequences of environmental neglect when even the most ardent opponents of global warming have started acknowledging the disastrous effects of unrestrained human activity. This reality requires urgent, ambitious, concerted, and focused efforts by the whole global community. But the starting point must be a strong political will by all countries, international organizations, and political leaders for real and concrete actions,” noted the Lithuanian president.

The President also met with the Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus met United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Sunday.  Two leaders discussed Lithuania’s contribution to stability and safety in Afghanistan, relations with Russia and the importance of the solutions to “frozen conflicts” in Georgia and Moldova.

As the presidential Press office informed later in the day, the Presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia visited the New York Stock Exchange. In honour of the occasion, the presidents of the three Baltic States rang the closing bell.

President Adamkus said that the Baltic States represented a most dynamically growing part of Europe, emphasizing that the region had the highest GDP growth in the European Union over this decade.

Adamkus underlined that Lithuania had ambitious plans to create an effective and environment friendly energy sector and infrastructure by building a modern reactor unit at the Ignalina nuclear power plant.  “To this end, we expect to attract foreign businesses,” said Mr. Adamkus.

The largest Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas on the 13 of September published its editorial on the Lithuanian Foreign Policy, which according the daily is loosing direction.  Have a look at one side of the debate taking in the Lithuanian media at the moment. Hence, what is the goal of Lithuanian foreign policy?

This unexpected question has arisen again this week during the annual congress of the Lithuanian diplomats in Vilnius.

The Lithuanian diplomats, President Valdas Adamkus, and other influential politicians were discussing the best possible ways to implement the foreign policy goals.

However, after paying attention to what was going on during the behind-the-scenes meetings, as well as to the official declarations by the state leaders, a blasphemous question arose: Does Lithuania indeed know what these goals are.

Last week, the president in a way outlined certain benchmarks for the changes in the country’s foreign policy.

He declared that it was necessary to continue the so-called Eastern policy. However, he stressed that it was important to pay more attention to the more active relations with the Western European countries.
A single declaration by the president perhaps would not be seen as a shift in the direction of the country’s foreign policy, if not for the fact that it sounded like an echo of the criticism the Lithuanian diplomats have been receiving so far.

There have been talks that Vilnius pays too much attention to such countries as Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova, that it does not communicate enough, and that perhaps it is too cold in its friendship with the most powerful EU countries, such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
Lithuania’s European Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite has even said that all Lithuania has managed is to have relations only with the “poor.”

This is why we could consider Adamkus’s strategic diplomatic goal as a certain new foreign policy vision: “The selected benchmarks are clear: as much Europe as possible in Lithuania and as much Lithuania as possible in Europe.”

It looks like this formulation will transform the previous idea proposed by the then acting President Arturas Paulauskas. The idea was that Lithuania would seek to become some kind of regional centre.
However, despite the fact that some of Lithuania’s achievements have been impressive, this idea has been seen, at least in the public domain, as a silly misunderstanding, rather than a thought-out foreign policy goal.

Perhaps this is why the Lithuanian foreign policy goals that have been mentioned this time are much more mundane.

“As much as possible of the strong, open, and democratic Europe beyond our eastern border and in the entire world, which should be built on the stable transatlantic foundation. Our goals are democracy, security, stability, and wellbeing,” the president said.

In other words, one of the main foreign policy goals of Lithuania, even if it is an EU and NATO member, remains the need to ensure a secure environment. And one would find it difficult to argue against that.
However, even when we seek this goal, it looks like the newly formulated Lithuanian foreign policy goals will be more pragmatic.

The goal is that, besides security, the Eastern policy would give Lithuania more tangible benefits.

“Lithuania’s Eastern policy has to give concrete dividends to our businessmen and our people. Looking back at our own road to the EU, whose widest segment was going through the Scandinavian countries, we can see that the Scandinavian investments in Lithuania won the businessmen from these countries considerable tangible benefits that grew several times. Such a model could and should be actively applied in our relations with Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia,” Adamkus explained.

Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas has also confirmed that the attitude of the country’s “wheelmen” with respect to foreign policy, at least on the level of ideas, has indeed changed.

I have stressed that our foreign policy should be more oriented toward solving domestic goals. There is a chance to focus foreign policy on solving domestic problems,” he said after meeting with the president last week.
By saying this, the minister has in a way outlined the main foreign policy goal of any country, obvious to anybody. This goal is the wellbeing of the country’s citizens. And all the rest are certain measures to achieve the goal.

However, in Lithuania, it seems that many persons still find it difficult to understand such a goal.

Our country’s diplomacy has indeed had many achievements, and these have been prominent achievements. Moreover, we have to admit that our foreign policy is far from being that sphere in Lithuania where we could find the most problems.

However, despite all that, it is still difficult to get rid of the thought that the aim of one policy or another is certainly far from seeking the wellbeing of the citizens.

I doubt anybody would challenge the fact that sometimes there are certain attempts to search for a certain niche for the country’s diplomacy. This happened with Lithuania’s aspiration to become a regional centre.

Sometimes our diplomacy is influenced by the wish to make a spectacle of ourselves. This was what happened when our country’s parliamentarians ratified the EU Constitution, even though the majority of them had not even read it.

Sometimes the strategy is decided perhaps by a too narrow view by some officials. This was what happened in Japan, the giantess of the East, in which, not so long ago, Lithuania had the same number of diplomats as it has, for example, in Georgia.

It could be that the same will happen with the idea that has been declared more and more clearly, that Vilnius has to become a stronger supporter of European integration. And the supporters of these ideas in Lithuania do not even try to reply to the simplest questions asked by experts.

For example, will the Lithuanian people indeed have better lives, if Brussels regulates not only the areas that have been assigned to it so far, but also migration, taxes, or many other spheres?

Will it indeed help to increase, for example, Lithuania’s competitiveness and its wellbeing?

They should be obliged to answer these and similar questions each and every time. Then the foreign policy goals will become much clearer.

The article is translated by the BBC Monitoring

An interesting interview with MP Audronis Azubalis deputy chairman of the Seimas (parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee, was published in weekly Veidas magazine on 9 August.

The US Congress made a decision to soften US travel procedures for East Europeans. This decision renewed Lithuania‘s hopes of travelling to the EU without visas. However, the number of refused visas and visa overstays will have to be less than 10 percent. Of the East European countries, only Estonia and the Czech Republic meet this requirement.Audronis Azubalis, deputy chairman of the Seimas [parliament] Foreign Affairs Committee, told Veidas that “the fact that Lithuania still cannot join the ‘exclusive club’ is a problem for Lithuania, not the United States.”(Laucius) The US is happy when the new East Europe actively supports US foreign policy. Yet, when they talk about a visa-free regime, they forget about the partnership.

(Laucius) Perhaps the EU is incapable of conducting active foreign policy?(Azubalis) This is partially true. Certain EU members are afraid of the EU foreign minister’s post, which would help consolidate a common foreign policy. By the way, our neighbours — the Poles — and our partners (in many aspects) — the British — were against the post, too.(Laucius) Consolidated foreign policy may mean that big EU countries will simply force their will on other members. Even if it is pro-Russian will, which would be against Polish or Lithuanian interests.

I can say that our membership in the EU is useful to Russia. To have trained K-9s in strategically-important Western organizations is in Russia’s interests.(Laucius) And is Russia successfully working toward this goal?(Azubalis) Yes, it is. Russia also uses a lot of money for this purpose. If the Lithuanian political parties do not agree to prohibit political advertisements on radio and television by the next Seimas elections, I think it will be easier for Russia, because such advertisements hurt the parties the most. They hurt the parties’ independence and open the door for corruption. It is up to us, not the US or Russia. If we have enough political will to prohibit the advertisements and to have civilized, state-financed TV debates, we will have more order.