General Information
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Lithuania covers an area of 65,300 km2 (25,200 sq mi), and has a population of 2.9 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities include Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys. Lithuanians are the titular nation, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of Balts, and speak Lithuanian.
- Population: 2,800,000+
- Area: 65,300 km²
- Coordinates: Latitude: 54.683334350586, Longitude: 25.316667556763
- Timezone: Timezone info not available
- Current Local Time: ailab
Latest Lithuania News
15min.lt RSS - suprasti akimirksniu | RSS
Donaldas Trumpas pasmerkė Irano dronų ataką, pavadino ją kvailu paliaubų pažeidimu
JAV prezidentas Donaldas Trumpas (Donaldas Trampas) penktadienį pasmerkė Iraną už Hormuzo sąsiauryje surengtą dronų ataką, kurią pavadino kvailu paliaubų Artimųjų Rytų kare pažeidimu.
15min.lt RSS - suprasti akimirksniu | RSS
Ar tikrai JAV buvo nukeltas 5G bokštas dėl onkologinių ligų pavojaus?
Nepaisant sparčios 5G ryšio plėtros Lietuvoje ir visame pasaulyje, socialiniame tinkle „Facebook“ ir toliau plinta sąmokslo teorijos apie šio ryšio antenų keliamą pavojų. Šįkart kaip naujiena pristatoma sena istorija – teigiama, kad JAV buvo išmontuotas šalia mokyklos stovėjęs 5G ryšio bokštas, esą pastebėjus įtartiną onkologinių ligų protrūkį. Tačiau ši istorija perteikiama netiksliai: nutylima, kad vėliau atlikti tyrimai nenustatė jokio ryšio tarp antenos ir užfiksuotų susirgimų.
BBC News
Christmas market attacker jailed for life for murdering six in Germany
A nine-year-old and five women were killed when Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen drove into the market in 2024.
BBC News
Paris restricts alcohol consumption and sales as Europe's heatwave shifts east
Temperatures in Germany could hit 40C in some areas while French officials bring in alcohol restrictions to ease pressure on hospitals.
BBC News
I'm back at home again after uni - here's how I'm making it work
Rising costs are forcing more young adults to live with their parents, here's how not to come to blows.
BBC News
Power banks and vapes now biggest fire risk on planes
Lithium battery fires are the number one safety risk to aircraft, yet the number of devices found in hold bags has nearly doubled in a year.
POLITICO
Britain’s next leader faces a big call on North Sea drilling. Donald Trump is watching.
LONDON — Labour MPs and climate campaigners are abandoning resistance to a controversial new North Sea gas field ahead of Andy Burnham’s expected entry into Downing Street next month — but they say they’ll carry on fighting over a second, even more contentious, oil field. Burnham, who is on a path to becoming Labour leader and U.K. prime minister within weeks, is under pressure from the party’s union backers to approve Jackdaw, a major new gas development 150 miles east of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland, as well as Rosebank, an oil and gas field 80 miles off the Shetland coast. The twin projects are bêtes noires for British climate campaigners and have been held up for years by legal challenges. A final decision from regulators is expected soon and then the last sign-off must come from the U.K. government. Bill Esterson, a Labour MP and chair of the House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, said: “My assumption is that both Jackdaw and Rosebank will go ahead.” There is now a widespread expectation that Jackdaw at least will be approved, with even ardent climate campaigners in Labour ranks resigned to it. “It’s important to show that we understand that people’s jobs are on the line and that’s not a secondary concern,” said one Labour MP, a leading backbench climate advocate, granted anonymity to discuss their lobbying strategy. “I think there needs to be a pragmatic approach — so I’m picking the battle of Rosebank.” If one or both projects do get the greenlight, it could represent an early sweetener for Burnham’s relationship with Donald Trump. The U.S president has taken an intense interest in North Sea oil and gas and repeatedly told incumbent Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take a more liberal approach to drilling. In his first public comments on Burnham earlier this week, Trump immediately pivoted to similar criticisms, saying Burnham is “extremely liberal” so “probably won’t open up the North Sea.” If Burnham does oversee approval of either or both totemic fossil fuel projects early in his tenure, Trump is unlikely to miss the point of comparison with his predecessor. Big call The final legal approval on the two projects — which are already far-progressed and could start production as soon as this year — sits with current U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has been approached for comment. Burnham’s team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Labour’s most prominent climate champion, Miliband described the Rosebank project as “climate vandalism” when the party was in opposition. A key ally of Burnham, Miliband is now seen as a leading contender to become his chancellor, the second-most powerful role in government. However, the Unite union, which represents oil and gas workers, has warned Burnham not to promote Miliband, citing their deep-seated opposition to his policies on the North Sea, which they claim have not done enough to support the workforce. Under Miliband, the Labour government has banned new exploration for oil and gas (Rosebank and Jackdaw are already progressed far beyond this phase) and has increased a windfall tax on drillers. Burnham, when pressed on the issue, has said only that he has “no fixed position.” While the decisions on Rosebank and Jackdaw are “quasi-judicial” ones for the energy secretary on the advice of regulators, Miliband has faced public pressure from Cabinet colleagues — and from potential rivals for the role of chancellor in the new administration. Incumbent Chancellor Rachel Reeves reminded business leaders on Thursday that the Labour 2024 election manifesto had pledged to “honor existing licenses” such as Rosebank and Jackdaw. “I hope that we do,” she added. Meanwhile Wes Streeting, the former health secretary, who had been expected to challenge for the Labour leadership but now backs Burnham, has also called for Rosebank and Jackdaw to be approved. Some green campaigners are starting to move their focus, too. The anti-fossil fuel group Uplift was campaigning jointly against Jackdaw and Rosebank as recently as March. But asked on Friday whether the group would challenge approval of Jackdaw, Uplift’s Executive Director Tessa Khan made no reference to that gas field — focusing on the oil field instead. “Rosebank is the test of this government’s credibility on climate,” she said. On your right Political pressure is also coming from the right-wing Reform and Conservative parties, who both back maximum exploitation of the North Sea’s remaining oil and gas reserves. The basin is in decline, with production peaking in 1999. Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives won a by-election in Aberdeen last week — Britain’s oil and gas capital — with a campaign tightly focused on promoting more North Sea production and protecting jobs. Andrew Bowie, the party’s shadow energy minister, said that while it was a pertinent issue for a local election, it could hold the seeds of a national strategy. “Everyone cares about security. If you take oil and gas and make it a model for energy, security and jobs, and if we can communicate that in every election, we can win again,” he said. But overseeing approval of Rosebank or Jackdaw could bring political costs to Burnham. On his left flank, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has already said that any “backsliding on climate action would be a moral and political failure for Burnham” — one the Greens hope would help them make inroads with environmentally-minded would-be Labour voters.
POLITICO
Why Europe’s heat waves are still so deadly
BRUSSELS — Once the heat dissipates, Europe will start counting its dead. The extraordinary temperatures sweeping the western part of the continent this week will have killed hundreds, likely thousands, more than two decades after the deadly summer of 2003 alerted governments to the dangers of extreme heat. While a first estimate of the death toll will take weeks, Spanish researchers are already attributing more than 210 fatalities between Sunday and Wednesday to the heat. In France, individual tragedies are starting to make headlines: An elderly man working outdoors died on Sunday; two toddlers died of cardiac arrest in an overheating car on Monday; and a three-year-old boy was found dead on Wednesday in a hot car, where he was reportedly hiding from his parents instead of taking a nap as he was told. That extreme temperatures kill shouldn’t be news to European authorities. In 2003, heat killed some 70,000 people, startling governments into preparing action plans. Yet two decades later, heat deaths are still reaching into the tens of thousands every year. Although solid global data is hard to come by, estimates suggest that the number of Europeans dying of heat is disproportionately high compared to other parts of the world. An ageing population and a rapidly warming climate on a continent where air-conditioning is the exception are major factors contributing to Europe’s high death toll. But fundamentally, efforts to protect Europeans during ever hotter summers are lagging far behind what they need to be. “Most of Europe is still not systematically prepared for what is already a recurring crisis,” Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, told POLITICO. “We are still treating heat as a weather event rather than a chronic public health threat.” With global warming making heat waves more frequent and severe, experts say Europe must take urgent measures to protect its people. “Heat has emerged as the worst and most urgent health risk for Europe,” said Fleur Monasso, Europe lead at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. “It is a matter of life and death.” Ageing Europe Heat is a health threat worldwide. The WHO estimates that in the first two decades of this century, the globe saw around 489,000 heat-related deaths each year. But the toll in Europe appears extreme. The continent is home to less than 10 percent of the world’s population but accounted for more than one-third of the WHO’s estimated heat deaths between 2000 and 2019. And data shows that in most of Europe, heat-related mortality has risen since 2000. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r
Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera
New York City freezes rents for one million regulated apartments
New York City's rent freeze fulfillls a key campaign promise from Mayor Zohran Mamdani
Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera
DR Congo files case against Rwanda at ICJ over decades of alleged ‘abuses’
Kinshasa takes Kigali to UN's top court over 30 years of alleged massacres, sexual violence, and forced displacement.
Europe
Trump warns of 100% tariff on countries implementing digital services tax
US president says levy would supersede any trade deals Washington has with other capitals
Europe
Volkswagen’s mass lay-offs are a call to action for a sleepy EU
Carmaker’s move will ratchet up the pressure on European policymakers to slap restrictions and trade barriers on China
France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines
More than a month into DR Congo Ebola outbreak, doctors warn 'this epidemic will last'
While France confirmed its first case of Ebola, reports of people successfully treated for the condition are also emerging from Mongbwalu, the epicentre of the epidemic in the eastern part of the DRC. Although successful treatments are sparking hope among teams on the ground, health professionals remain fearful about the continued progression of cases.
France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines
'Living in a warming world requires practical solutions that save lives, don't harm our environment'
As Europe confronts increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves, the conversation around climate adaptation is shifting from environmental policy to public health, education, and social infrastructure. Haxie Meyers-Belkin is pleased to welcome Caradee Wright, Chief Specialist Scientist at the South African Medical Research Council leading the Climate and Health Research Programme. She argues that schools have become one of the clearest frontlines of climate change. Her analysis moves beyond the immediate debate over air conditioning to present a more systemic vision of heat resilience, combining architecture, behavioural adaptation, public awareness, and educational policy.Rather than framing extreme heat as a temporary disruption, Wright treats it as a defining condition of the coming decades that demands structural change. She highlights children's unique physiological vulnerability, questions whether historic school buildings remain fit for a warming climate, and argues that protecting education requires redesigning both physical spaces and institutional routines.
Africanews RSS
Two former Moroccan politicians jailed in 'Escobar of the Sahara' drug case
Throughout the proceedings, the defence argued there was no material evidence linking the former officials to the alleged crimes, saying the prosecution relied largely on the testimony of the convicted trafficker.
Africanews RSS
Europe heatwave made possible by climate change, scientists say
Scientists say the latest findings underscore the urgency of both reducing emissions and adapting infrastructure to withstand more frequent and intense heatwaves in the years ahead.