Lithuania’s Vilnius airport was temporarily closed on Thursday after smugglers’ balloons appeared on radar, the National Crisis Management Centre said.
Last month, the Baltic state had closed its border crossings with Belarus in response to airspace disruptions caused by balloons entering from Belarus, but these crossings were reopened earlier on Thursday.
Authorities say the balloons are used by smugglers to transport contraband cigarettes and have criticized Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for failing to stop the practice, calling it a hybrid attack on Lithuania.
While air traffic incident reports had decreased in recent weeks, Thursday’s closure of Vilnius airport underscores ongoing concerns over balloon-borne smuggling operations and their impact on national airspace security.
No injuries or damages were reported, and airport operations resumed once the airspace was cleared.
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Delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the United States met in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for their first formal talks in nine months. They did so with no agreement on what a ceasefire would be tied to or who gets to keep the land currently under Russian control.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
At least 17 people have been reported killed in an explosion at a steel plant in western Türkiye, after a crane collapsed during maintenance work. The disaster has prompted a criminal investigation into what went wrong at the industrial facility.
U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said Washington believes the Russian President is prepared to reach a peace agreement under the right conditions, as U.S., Russian and Ukrainian delegations began trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 10 November.
Armenia could lose its voting rights within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on 11 November after failing to pay membership fees for more than two years, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Investigators found a sticky note bearing the names and mobile phone numbers of four left-wing public figures while searching the home of the suspect in last month’s deadly shooting near Paris, France’s national anti-terrorism prosecution office (PNAT) said on Wednesday.
The United States and China should have “no illusions” about their differences on artificial intelligence, even as they work together to manage the technology’s risks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said.
Pope Leo arrived in Peru on Wednesday for an emotional homecoming, the first Peruvian citizen to lead the Catholic Church, after wrapping up a visit to Argentina that drew a record six million people over three days.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Four million workers across Spain joined a general strike on Wednesday over the country’s deepening housing crisis, unions said, bringing disruption to factories, ports, shops and public transport just weeks before a snap general election.
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