EU countries will have to introduce stronger controls on “blank-firing” guns, to prevent them being converted to fire live ammunition, under Internal Market Committee amendments, voted on Wednesday, to a draft update of the EU firearms directive. The changes approved by MEPs ensure that any firearm which has been converted to firing blanks continues to be covered by EU gun control rules. This closes a legal loophole which became evident in the aftermath of last year’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

There has been no change to the rights and status of EU nationals in the UK, and UK nationals in the EU, as a result of the referendum.

Thirty million passengers have already travelled through Vilnius Airport, Lithuania's main air gateway, during the twenty-five years of its existence. All seventy passengers arriving from Amsterdam with airBaltic became anniversary passengers.

Human trafficking is a highly profitable international crime in which people are traded for use in prostitution, forced labour or other forms of exploitation. In a resolution adopted in plenary last week, MEPs condemned it as a modern kind of slavery and one of the worst forms of human rights violations. Resolution author Barbara Lochbihler, a German member of the Greens/EFA group, told us victims needed more protection and that more needed to be done on forced labour and money laundering.

Vilnius Airport welcomed another new airline – the Spanish low-cost airline Vueling. It will operate one weekly flight to Barcelona on Wednesdays until 28 September. Over 100 passengers took the first flight from Vilnius.

Lithuania this year rose to number 29 in the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index, from 46th position previously, the Transport Ministry said on Thursday.

On July 5 the 6th rotation of Lithuanian military instructors where deployed to deliver training in Ukraine. The 6th shift Lithuania provides comprises 16 professional military service soldiers with the Motorised Infantry Brigade Žemaitija, Lithuanian Grand Duke Butigeidis Dragoon Battalion, and the Lithuanian Grand Duke Kęstutis Motorised Infantry Battalion.

The Government took the decision to extend the resettlement of the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, persons of Lithuanian origin and their family members residing in the Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol City, Donetsk and Luhansk regions to Lithuania, and the provide state support for their integration.

At noon on July 6 members of the Honour Guard Company representing the Lithuanian Land Force, Air Force, and Navy hoisted the national and the historical flags of Lithuania in Simonas Daukantas Square during celebration of Lithuania’s Statehood Day.

The Lithuanian government told the European Court of Human Rights in a suspected secret CIA prison case that what CIA-linked aircraft transported to Lithuania a decade ago was not prisoners, but communications equipment for an intelligence support center that was being set up close to Vilnius.