The EU and Brazil today signed an agreement to develop 5G, the next generation of communication networks. The Commission also started work on an action plan to deploy the technology in the EU by 2020.

The European Social Innovation Competition will be launched by the European Commission on 25 February. The event, which takes place in a different city every year, is being held this year in Amsterdam in partnership with the municipality. The 2016 competition will focus on social innovation for refugees and migrants. The event is free and open to everyone in Europe with inspiring and creative ideas on the subject.

Interaction of science, education and business is a major success factor in nowadays economy.

Loreta Graužinienė, Speaker of the Seimas, attended a solemn general meeting of members of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences to mark the 75th anniversary of the Academy. In her welcome address the Speaker of the Seimas was delighted to note that free and progressive scientific ideas have been generated in the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences since its very foundation to this day.

On 1.30 p.m., 4 March, Professor Robert Frost from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland) will hold a public lecture at the Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy (44 Gedimino St., Room 202) entitled "The Polish-Lithuania Union: Success or Failure?".

Teachers are on strike in 233 education institutions in 43 municipalities of Lithuania on February 22nd.

On 18 February in Vilnius, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius received the governor of Cirebon Region of Indonesia Sunjaya Purwadi Sastra. The governor is visiting Lithonia with the Indonesian delegation at the invitation of the Mayor of the city of Vilnius Remigijus Šimašius on 14-19 February. The purpose of the visit is to develop economic cooperation between Lithuania and Indonesia, especially in the renewable energy-related field – solar energy.

To fight the growing resistance of bacteria to today's antibiotics, the use of existing antimicrobial drugs should be restricted, and new ones should be developed, said Environment and Public Health Committee MEPs on Wednesday. In a vote on draft plans to update an EU law on veterinary medicines, they advocate banning collective and preventive antibiotic treatment of animals, and back measures to stimulate research into new medicines.

The Zika virus has hit the headlines all over the world as people fear it could be linked to microcephaly in babies, which causes them be born with abnormally small heads. On Wednesday Parliament's public health committee discussed the issue with representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO). After the hearing we talked to Dr Roberto Bertollini, WHO's chief scientist and EU representative, who assured that Zika was a "mild disease" that we were ready to deal with.

A US filmmaking company is starting to shoot a movie Cobbler by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy's novel Where Love Is, God Is.