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LITHUANIA

Lithuania destroys thousands of Danish pigs

Lithuania orders a pig cull on an Idavang-owned farm after the detection of African swine fever.

Lithuania destroys thousands of Danish pigs
Photo: Colourbox
Lithuania on Thursday destroyed thousands of pigs after confirming its first cases of deadly African swine fever on an industrial-scale farm owned by Danish company Idavang.
 
The spread of the disease, which is harmless to humans but poses a grave threat to pigs and the pork industry, comes as the World Trade Organization reviews a Russian embargo on EU pork sparked by the outbreak.
 
Lithuania's state food and veterinary service said cases were reported in the north-east of the country, close to Latvia and Belarus, on a farm owned by the Jutland-based Idavang.
 
"The farm had around 19,000 pigs, and they are being destroyed," Idavang spokeswoman Lina Mockute told AFP.
 
The developments come the day after Lithuania's southern neighbour Poland suffered its first cases of swine fever in pigs, and two days after northern neighbour Latvia extended an emergency zone for the same reason.
 
Russia in January imposed a pork embargo on the 28-nation European Union but Brussels turned to the World Trade Organization, arguing the ban is totally misplaced.
 
WTO's disputes settlement body have created panels to hear the complaint, trade sources said earlier this week.
 
Russia buys a quarter of the EU's pork exports, worth around 1.4 billion euros ($1.9 billion) a year.
 
Lithuania ordered a mass cull of wild boar earlier this year, targeting 90 percent of the estimated 60,000 living on its territory, after the disease was detected in animals thought to have come from Belarus.
 
Idavang opened its first pig farm in Lithuania in 1999 and is now the country's largest pig producer. It is based in the Jutland town of Gadbjerg. 

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LITHUANIA

New army scandal: Germany vows to punish soldiers caught singing anti-Semitic songs

Germany's Defence Minister on Tuesday vowed to severely punish soldiers stationed in Lithuania who were accused of singing racist and anti-Semitic songs, if the allegations turned out to be true.

New army scandal: Germany vows to punish soldiers caught singing anti-Semitic songs
German soldiers training in Saxony-Anhalt in May. credit: dpa-Zentralbild | Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert

“Whatever happened is in no way acceptable,” said Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

Those implicated would be “vigorously prosecuted and punished”, she added.

The Spiegel Online news site had on Monday reported that German soldiers in Lithuania sang racist and anti-Semitic songs during a party at a hotel in April.

One had also sought to sexually assault another soldier while he was asleep, a scene which was caught on film, said Spiegel.

According to Spiegel Online, the scenes took place at a party at which soldiers consumed large quantities of alcohol. They are also alleged to have arranged a “birthday table” for Adolf Hitler on April 20th and to have sung songs for him.

It is unclear to what extent more senior ranked soldiers were aware of the incidents.

Three soldiers have been removed from the contingent stationed in the Baltic country and an investigation is ongoing to identify other suspects, said the report.

The German armed forces have been repeatedly rocked by allegations of right-wing extremism within their ranks.

Kramp-Karrenbauer last year ordered the partial dissolution of the KSK commando force after revelations that some of its members harboured neo-Nazi sympathies.

SEE ALSO: Germany to compensate gay soldiers who faced discrimination

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