Vilnius Regional Court has received the first part of the case over incendiary parcels sent in Lithuania and Latvia in September 2024, and six defendants are now headed to trial. Prosecutors frame the scheme as an attempted terrorist attack, while the wider investigation spans 16 suspects.
Donald Trump said on March 31 that U.S. forces could finish the Iran campaign within two to three weeks. Iranian strikes on Kuwait airport oil storage and a tanker off Qatar raised the risk to Gulf shipping and oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. In Baghdad, American journalist Shelly Renee Kittleson was abducted on Tuesday after Iraqi intelligence had warned of a kidnapping threat from Iran-linked armed groups. Off Turkey's Mugla coast, 19 migrants died when a rubber boat capsized, including a baby, and rescuers were still searching for one missing person. Gunfire at a factory in southern Poland on March 31 forced the evacuation of hundreds of people as investigators examined whether it was a targeted attack or an internal dispute. A Russian military aircraft crash in Crimea killed 29 people.
In Lithuania, a landmark International Court of Justice climate opinion is strengthening the case for tougher coastal protection, with water levels in the Klaipeda Strait up 15 centimetres over 50 years. The government has canceled the state-level emergency over frost.
Lithuania's Energy Agency says weekly average petrol and diesel prices fell in Latvia, Estonia and Poland, while Lithuania still has the cheapest petrol among the nearby markets it tracks. Wider cross-border price gaps could draw more truckers and motorists to refuel where prices have fallen the most.
Vladimir Putin has ordered preparations for a new assault on Ukraine and, according to intelligence cited late Friday, plans to continue the war for at least two more years. Alexander Lukashenko said Belarus is preparing for war. The Financial Times reported that Donald Trump is pressuring Europe by threatening to halt arms supplies to Ukraine.