The pair, who are suspected of siphoning off 3.4 billion litai (close to a billion euros) from the bank and 100 million lats (close to 144 million euros) from its subsidiary Latvijas Krajbanka, Latvia’s sixth largest bank, could face ten years in prison. Snoras, which was nationalised – a first in the history of post-Soviet Lithuania, points out Vieidas – on 16 November following the discovery of huge discrepancies in its books, has now filed for bankruptcy.

The magazine reports that the procedure is contested by representatives of customers of the bank, who claim that it is “neither transparent, or fair, or rational.” Latvia has also opened an inquiry into Krajbanka and suspended its license to operate in the run-up to a probable liquidation. Both announcements prompted panic among Snoras and Krajbanka customers who have rushed to branches to withdraw their savings.

In northern Europe, Eesti Pävaleht insists that the project is a “clear green light” for the new “Rail Balitca” axis that will link Estonia to the Polish-Lithuanian border via Latvia. Plans for the route, which have been put forward by Estonia and Lithuania “appear tailor-made for the conditions required by Brussels,” writes the Estonian daily, which notes that this is the first time that “the EU has agreed to spend such significant sums on transport projects which are not designed to solely serve the needs of individual member states.” For the newspaper, the implementation of the Rail Baltica project will also put an end to the proposal for a high speed link between Riga and Moscow, which was put forward by former Latvian president Valdis Zatlers but later contested by Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis – in a move which highlights Latvia’s desire to stand back from its relationship with Russia.

Gazeta Wyborcza's editorial points out however, that the new law, although it does reduce the number of subjects taught in Polish and will undoubtedly cause some Polish schools to close down, does not discriminate against Poles in Lithuania, but only brings them closer to “the standards of education enjoyed by national minorities in other EU countries”. According to the Warsaw daily, the setting up of the bilateral education committee may be “the first step to resolving other crucial issues for the Polish minority”, which include compensation for the Polish property seized by the Soviet Union after WWII and the right to public signs in two languages. “Lithuania must understand that (...) fundamental minority rights in the EU are not just a Polish folly”, but “a call to comply with EU standards”, concludes Gazeta Wyborcza.

As Vanity Fair explains, delocalization has enabled drug companies to take advantage of conditions that are less strict and less expensive when conducting clinical trials which will “help persuade the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to declare the drugs safe and effective for Americans.” In 2008, 80 percent of products submitted for approval to the FDA were tested outside the United States: in all 58,788 trials, of which 876 were conducted in Romania, 589 in Ukraine and 716 in Turkey. Estonia, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Croatia are also considered to be good locations for off-shore trials.

The lack of proper regulatory framework has meant that many of these trials have proved to be deadly. The magazine sites the example of a flu-vaccine trial  conducted in a hostel for the homeless in Grudziadz, Poland. The subjects, who were paid two dollars for participating in the programme, “thought they were getting a regular flu shot. They were not. At least 20 of them died.”

The Grunwald victory later become the founding myth not only for the independent Poland, but also for Lithuania, and an “apotheosis of the Polish statehood.” But for a long time it cast a shadow on Polish-German relations (the Teutonic Knights were mainly German) and was used for propaganda purposes. The Polish communist authorities depicted West German politicians, including chancellor Konrad Adenauer, as the successors of imperial policies of Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order. But today Grunwald is supposed to unite rather than divide. Presidents of Lithuania, Rumania, and Moldova will participate in the celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the battle, joined by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, the Italian Bruno Platter. On Saturday, the battle will be staged on the fields of Grunwald, watched by some 200,000 visitors.

“Poles in Lithuania expected that once Lithuania joined the EU, the rights of ethnic minorities would be respected and extended there. This, however, has not been the case,” write the signatories of the letter, which, according to Wyborcza, was initiated by Waldemar Tomaszewski, a Lithuanian Pole and former presidential candidate. It has been condemned by Audronius Ažubalis, head of the Lithuania parliament’s foreign affairs committee, who claims it incites ethnic conflict and hinders the integration of the Polish minority in Lithuania (7 percent of the country’s population).

The contentious issues include the right to bilingual town and street names in districts with a Polish majority, the right to a Polish spelling for names on ID cards and passports, funding for Polish schools, and the return of real estate expropriated from Lithuanian Poles. “We have a complex history, we have only recently regained our independence. If we agree to Polish town names, how do we reject claims for town names in Cyrillic?” wonders Vytautas Landsbergis, the first leader of post-Soviet Lithuania. The mighty Russian neighbour, he pursues, is interested in setting the Poles and Lithuanians at one another’s throats. Another issue that remains a thorn in the side of bilateral relations is the 1920 Polish seizure of Vilnius.

The economy weekly quotes a report by the Deloitte consulting firm, who claim that European investors are ready to reinvest in emerging countries but are going to put Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia first: the three first countries have boosted investor confidence, the latter has benefited from converting to the euro. It is a "surprising conclusion" since Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic states had long since been the favourites amongst investors. That is the reason why "Romania shall not see the return of investment in the east before 2010" concludes Capital.

Warsaw, meanwhile, is busy preparing a contingency plan that would make it independent from Gazprom, the Russian gas monopolist. ‘The Russians are not the only ones who sell gas in Europe, we can consider offers from several Western European suppliers,’ Maciej Woźniak, the prime minister’s senior energy policy adviser, told the daily. Western middlemen, such as Germany’s Ruhrgas or France’s GDFSuez, would supply gas to the Polish border, assuming responsibility for the negotiations, which would help Poland avoid entering into long-term contracts with the Russians.

The left and the country’s gay rights organisations are shocked by the passing of these anti-gay regulations. “This is an absurdity and a shame,” said Marija Pavilioniene, deputy for the social-democratic party Ausrine. In the meantime, the conservatives have been explaining that the purpose of these regulations. According to one of the bill’s originators, Petras Grazulis, a well known “tribune of the people”, this is all “to prevent these persons from forcing themselves on others and aggressively demonstrating their lifestyle.” Petras Luomanas from the ruling Homeland Union echoed Gazulis – ‘Because of propaganda, young people are beginning to uncritically accept the following cliché: a homosexual is a European and a progressive, whereas the heterosexual is a redneck and an ignoramus.”