Lithuania is thinking about changing its name in English to something easier to pronounce in plans to boost its image, officials said yesterday.
The small southern Baltic state, in the shadow of neighbours Russia, Germany and Poland, wants to raise its profile to attract more investments and tourists. A commission led by the Prime Minister approved a marketing concept which says the country of 3.4 million people should promote itself as daring. A name change is also being mulled.
"Lithuania's transcription in English is difficult to pronounce and remember for English speakers, but the name change is only an idea under consideration," said government spokesman Laurynas Bucalis, who led the group behind the recommendations.
No ideas have been presented yet as to what the name should be in English. In Lithuanian, the country is called Lietuva.
Driver sues dead cyclist
A Spanish driver who collided with a cyclist is suing the dead youth's family for €20,000 for the damage the impact of his body did to his luxury car.
Businessman Tomas Delgado says 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo caused €14,000 of damage to his Audi A8 in the fatal 2004 crash in La Rioja region, El Pais newspaper reported.
Mr Delgado, who has faced no criminal charges for the incident, wants a further €6,000 to cover the cost of hiring another vehicle while his car was being repaired, El Pais said.
The youth had been cycling alone at night without reflective clothing or a helmet, according to a police report cited by El Pais. His family won €33,000 compensation from Mr Delgado's insurance company after the firm acknowledged he had been driving at excessive speed and this could have contributed to the incident, El Pais reported.
Smuggled parrots killed
Veterinarians fearing cases of bird flu have destroyed 275 parrots brought into ex-Soviet Belarus illegally by a smuggler on a bicycle, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Officials this week initially said the birds, crammed into cages and abandoned by a man after he was confronted by border guards, were to be handed to pet shops after health checks. But a lack of facilities at the border with Ukraine ultimately proved their undoing.
"By law, we could have left the parrots in quarantine for up to three days. But tests can only be conducted in Minsk," said a veterinary service spokesman, quoted by the daily Respublika. "Transporting them and waiting for the result would have taken a week. We decided to take no risks. They were put to sleep and incinerated."
Schmidt breaks smoking ban
German anti-smoking activists are trying to bring charges against 89-year-old former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his wife for breaking a new smoking ban in Hamburg, the group said yesterday. Mr Schmidt, Social Democrat Chancellor from 1974 to 1982, and his wife Loki are well known for lighting up in public. Many photographs of Mr Schmidt, now revered in Germany as an elder statesman, show him through a cloud of smoke.
Anti-smoking activists in the western city of Wiesbaden have taken legal action against the couple after pictures of them puffing away at a reception in a Hamburg theatre appeared in the press and on television.
"They were recklessly smoking in public and someone like Mr Schmidt should know better - he is setting a very bad example, so we launched legal proceedings," activist Horst Keiser said.
Man dies while hearing Mass
A priest who continued saying Mass while the body of a man who died of a heart attack during the service was still on the church floor has defended himself, saying that is what he would have wanted.
Pio Letta, an 86-year-old pensioner, suffered a heart attack during the Roman Catholic Mass in the northern city of Trento this week. When ambulance services arrived, Mr Letta, a regular at the daily early morning Mass, was already dead and they covered his body with a white sheet.
The Mass was briefly suspended but the priest, Mario Peron, decided to resume and complete the religious service while waiting for undertakers to collect Mr Letta's corpse.
A picture of the body covered by the sheet was published in local and national newspapers, some of which criticised the priest for not waiting until the body had been removed. "This is what he would have wanted," the priest told the Italian news agency Ansa on Thursday, the day he celebrated the funeral for Mr Letta.
Best-looking ski instructor
Switzerland will crown its most handsome ski instructor next week, following a contest that has drawn hundreds of thousands of votes around the world. "We have had more than 300,000 votes," said Roger Waber of the Swiss tourist board, which launched the campaign late last year with the slogan: "Switzerland has much more to offer than beautiful scenery".
Voters from Switzerland, Britain, Germany, the United States and elsewhere narrowed down the pool of 30 original nominees to three: 27-year-old Andreas Belser, 23-year-old Emanuel Utiger, and 25-year-old Thierry Wenger. The winner will be announced on Monday, with a ceremony to follow on Valentine's Day.