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Quarantine regime. The government has decided to extend the quarantine until the end of February. Its terms remain unchanged. Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė says the situation will be assessed every week.
Coronavirus situation. 1278 new cases of COVID-19 were identified per day, 24 people died. Hospitals are currently treating 1,633 COVID-19 patients, 176 of whom are in resuscitation. The number of confirmed COVID-19 coronavirus cases worldwide has exceeded 100 million.
Photo by Sigismund Gedvila / 15min / Winter in Vilnius
Effects of the blizzard. Due to heavy snowfall in Lithuania, some roads became impassable in the morning and special service cars also got stuck on them. The trees could not bear the weight of the snow, their branches broke: rescuers went to remove them from the streets and cars more than 300 times, and a man pressed by a broken branch in Vilnius Vingis Park was injured. The dome of the Vilnius Pilaitė Gymnasium stadium could not withstand the snow and collapsed. 55,000 had no electricity on Wednesday morning. population. Insurers say the snowfall has already caused hundreds of thousands of losses.
Disaster under construction. During the construction of the Kleboniškis Bridge in Kaunas, one person was killed and four more were injured when the scaffolding and metal structure collapsed.
Comments on the Holocaust. Valdas Rakutis, a member of the conservative Seimas faction, has come under fire for commenting on the Holocaust. V. Rakutis, president of the Commission for the Struggles for Freedom and the Historical Memory of the State, mentioned the role of Jews in the Holocaust and repressive Soviet structures in a public comment that called for the search for the causes of the Jewish genocide. His group said it was a personal opinion and party chairman Chancellor Gabriel Landsberg said he was outraged that the comment “lacked appropriateness and understanding.” The US ambassador to Lithuania called the MP’s comment a shameful distortion of history.
Salaries of the assistants of the Seimas. The decisions of the Seimas Board were made public, which allowed increasing the salaries of parliamentary assistants and other politically trusted servants. The salaries of some members of the Seimas will increase by several hundred euros a month.
Photo by the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania / Robertas Dačkus / Gitanas Nausėda, Jurgita Šiugždinienė
Contact education. Meeting with Education Minister Jurgita Šiugždinienė, President Gitanas Nausėda called on teachers to get vaccinated together with older people in February-March and raised the idea of vaccinating 12-year-olds preparing for state exams in maturity as a matter of priority.
Tension of the vaccine. The European Union is increasing pressure on the British company AstraZeneca to comply with its contractual obligations regarding vaccine doses. The company’s CEO, Pascal Soriot, has been heavily criticized when he said in an interview that the company was committed to “doing everything possible” to deliver the planned doses. “We have not committed to the EU … We have no such commitment to Europe,” he said.
France’s largest pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, has announced that it will produce 125 million. COVID-19 vaccines, jointly developed by its direct competitors BioNTech in Germany and Pfizer in the United States. Sanofi is also developing the COVID-19 vaccine, but it will not be completed in the near future.
Relations with the Palestinians. The administration of US President Joe Biden has announced that it will restore ties with the Palestinians and renew the program of assistance to Palestinian refugees, which has been cut by the administration of former President Donald Trump.
AFP / Photo by Scanpix / Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin
Biden and Putin conversation. US President Joe Biden had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House reported that Biden had expressed concern over the arrest of opposition figure Alexei Navaln and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. They also discussed the extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Shortly after, the Russian parliament ratified the extension of the treaty.
AFP / „Scanpix“ nuotr./Aleksejus Navalnas
Protests against Navalno. Ivan Zhdanov, director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, reported that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalnas and his wife Julia had been searched at the apartment and the fund and at the Navalnyj.Live studio. The case is revealed for violations of sanitary and epidemiological regulations during a protest on Saturday. Navaln’s team is calling anti-government protests near the headquarters of the Federal Security Service and President Vladimir Putin’s administration that will also take place next weekend. Russian authorities, for their part, have said they will penalize social media tens of thousands of dollars for failing to withdraw invitations to unauthorized protests in a timely manner.
The German economy. The German government has cut the country’s economic growth forecast for this year to 3 percent. In October, the Economy Ministry forecast 4.4 percent. economic growth in 2021
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