The Government was facing mounting pressure last night to act decisively on gun crime as reports suggested that the number of offences had doubled since Labour came to power. The Home Secretary is also said to be considering a ban on replica guns, which can be easily converted into working weapons.As police in Birmingham continued to appeal for witnesses to the murder of two teenage girls, Mr Blunkett said officers faced an “impossible task” without co-operation from the local community.Figures due to be published on Thursday are expected to show that gun crime has increased sharply under Labour and that an average of 22 firearms offences are committed in Britain every day.Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, called for “drastic measures” to curb gun culture. “This culture of mindless violence, which has sprung partly from the increasing influence of Jamaican and American culture and the glorification of gang warfare, must be stopped,” he said.Yesterday a boy aged 16 was in a stable condition with a bullet wound to the stomach. Peter McPhee was attacked after two men pulled up in a car at a caravan site in Maryhill, Glasgow.Meanwhile police investigating the murder of the two teenagers in Birmingham apparently caught in the crossfire of a gang fight vowed to catch the killers. Charlene Ellis, 18, and Latisha Shakespear, 17, had stepped outside a party at a hairdressing salonat 4am on Thursday when they were shot and killed. Yesterday police revealed that the older girl was hit in the head, while the younger one died of a chest wound.Charlene’s twin sister, Sophie, is under armed guard in hospital after surgery, while a fourth cousin, Cheryl Shaw, 17, was discharged after treatment for an injured hand.Paul Scott-Lee, Chief Constable of the West Midlands, said the force had received an encouraging number of calls, but had yet to hear from everyone who had been at the party.”This isn’t a gangland killing, these are members of the public, young people who’ve been shot down while they were at a party just enjoying themselves. So I think that the community’s response will be positive because this is not a gangland member shooting another gangland member.”He said he was very confident of catching the killers.

“If you look back at the last two or three years, we have a very good track record of working with the community, not only to identify those responsible for these sorts of heinous crimes, but also bringing them to justice. What I would say is we will get there quicker if more people come forward and fill in the gaps in our information.”Anthony Gordon, leader of Partnership Against Crime, said: “Enough is enough This cannot go on any more. This is not the black community’s problem, it is everyone’s problem We need to get as many people involved as possible. Guns are still easily available on the streets of Birmingham and kids in some areas carry them in the same way as others carry mobile phones. This tragic event should make everyone who lives here sit bolt upright and say, ‘We are going to work together to sort this out’.”. Home Secretary David Blunkett confirmed plans today for a five–year minimum sentence for illegal possession and use of a firearm. An easy victory for Valdas Adamkus appeared in doubt last night as sub-freezing temperatures kept voter turn-out low in Lithuania’s presidential election run-off.

The agency said 49.1 per cent voted for Mr Adamkus.The country’s Central Election Commission said that voter turn-out had been as low as 51 per cent.Mr Adamkus failed to land an outright victory in last month’s general election, when he was unable to win an absolute majority. A former American citizen, he won 35 per cent of the vote in the first round, compared with 19.4 per cent for the rightist Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Paksas.Mr Adamkus, 76, ignored the chill yesterday morning, arriving bareheaded, with his coat unbuttoned, to vote just outside of Vilnius. “I hope people will come to vote today and say what they think about the last five years,” he said.Mr Adamkus said he would continue to develop Lithuania’s foreign policy if he won a second term. “I’d help to use the new opportunities which are going to open up for Lithuania being a member of the European Union,” he said.Since being elected in 1998 Mr Adamkus has guided the Baltic state into relative prosperity, boosting economic growth and keeping unemployment low.Lithuania, with its Baltic neighbours Latvia and Estonia and seven other nations, was invited last month to join the EU on 1 May 2004. In November, Lithuania was invited to join Nato, moving the country further from its past as part of the Soviet Union.Nearly 2.7 million of Lithuania’s residents were eligible to vote in yesterday’s election, the third since the country regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Turn-out was hampered by the biting weather with temperatures in Vilnius as low as minus 18C.The lanky, white-haired Mr Adamkus has distinguished himself as one of the few politicians not to become embroiled in scandals over the past decade, and his approval ratings has risen to about 80 per cent.

Last month he was voted the country’s person of the year for 2002.But none of that stifled Mr Paksas, 30 years younger than the President. He won acclaim as mayor of Vilnius for reviving the city’s medieval quarter, which had fallen into disrepair under Soviet rule And he was confident of victory yesterday. “I was flying while mayor of Vilnius and I did so as a prime minister,” he said. “I will be a flying president.”Mr Paksas, running well behind Mr Adamkus in opinion polls, did whatever he could to draw attention to himself. This included flying his single-seater plane in formation with two others under a bridge (AP). A man stole a plane at gunpoint and flew it amid Frankfurt’s skyscrapers yesterday, threatening to crash it into the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB). He said he wanted to remind the world of Judith Resnik, who died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.On the German news channel n-tv the man said: “I want to make my great idol Judith Resnik famous, she deserves more attention …