Subj: Latvian mailer (belated), Sunday October 8 edition, Part 1
Date: 2000.10.09

Sveiki, all!

Between work and chores and hiccuping systems, we've been running behind schedule the last couple of weeks. Thank goodness for 3 day weekends!

This mailer, Part 1, has the news stories from the prior week (skipped mailer):

• Russia expresses military concerns about EU expansion, takes another swipe at Estonia and Latvia on minority rights
• Swedish bank SEB also poised to take over Lithuania's biggest bank (after bidding on Latvia's biggest the previous week)
• Latvian prosecutors charge Kalejs on war crimes
• Lattelkom to be privatized; consortium to advise

and regionally:

• First Belarrussian local councils meeting takes place; representatives from Lithuania and Latvia attend as guests

Part 2 coming soon!

Ar visu labu,

IN ACCORDANCE WITH AOL'S MAIL POLICY and good manners, please let Silvija (Silvija) know if you wish to be deleted from our mailing list. Past mailers are archived at latvians.com. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.

    MOSCOW, Sept 26 (Reuters) — Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov told visiting Swedish counterpart Goran Persson on Tuesday that Moscow generally welcomed the expansion of the European Union, but was worried over its military component.
    Kasyanov and Persson also signed a deal under which Sweden will grant 120 million crowns ($12.5 million) to Moscow for new equipment to clean sewage before it is pumped into the Baltic Sea from its Kaliningrad enclave, Prime-Tass news agency said.
    "We view Sweden's position about a fast expansion of the EU without particular worry," Russian news agencies quoted Kasyanov as saying. Sweden takes up the rotating EU presidency next year.
    "However, some aspects worry us," he added, giving the military aspect of the EU's growth as the main example.
    "We would like to have more information on this issue, about the processes going on inside the EU, more contacts with EU leaders on this question."
    The EU has only slowly put together plans for military cooperation, eyed warily by the United States which does not want the domination of NATO to be threatened.
    EU defence ministers decided last week to prepare up to 230,000 troops for an EU rapid reaction force, to be used when the bloc wants to intervene militarily but Washington does not want its troops involved.
    Russia has looked askance at NATO's rapid expansion eastwards after the collapse of the communist bloc, but has generally favoured the EU's parallel march east.
    The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary have already been accepted into NATO and are on the fast track to EU entry.
    Of former Soviet states, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are knocking most urgently on the door of both NATO and the EU. Their NATO chances are said to be slim, given Moscow's objections, but all three have been accepted for talks to join the EU.
    Kasyanov took a thinly veiled swipe at Latvia and Estonia, telling Persson the EU should also make sure the new entrants respect the rights of their ethnic minorities. Russia has for years accused the two nations of discriminating against large Russian-speaking minorities. Both countries deny the charge.

     VILNIUS, Sept 28 (Reuters) — Lithuania's competition authority said on Thursday it had approved a bid from Swedish SEB to boost its stake in Vilniaus Bank, the country's largest, to 100 percent from just over 41 percent.
    "The competition authority gave permission to SEB to buy 100 percent in Vilniaus as the change in ownership does not affect the bank's market share (or) damage competition," authority Chairman Rimantas Stanikunas told Reuters.
    SEB announced in August that, in a move to consolidate its Baltic presence, it would launch buy-out offers for the remaining shares in its subsidiaries in the region, Estonian Uhispank (EYAP.TL, Latvian Unibanka and Vilniaus.
    SEB is offering 40 litas ($10) a share for Vilniaus, versus the 39.80 litas it was trading at at 1:00 p.m. local (1100 GMT). The total cash offer from SEB to shareholders of all three banks is worth about $215 million.
    Recently the takeover was approved by the central bank but has still to be registered with the market watchdog, the securities commission.
    Earlier this month, SEB embarked on an offer that runs to October 20 to buy Estonian Uhispank for 38 kroons per share ($2.16) per share. Its offer to buy Latvia's Unibanka for 1.90 lats ($3.08) expires on October 27.
    No buyout date for Vilniaus has been set. SEB is the majority shareholder in Uhispank and Unibanka.
    In Lithuania, traders have said small investors are considering the formation of a one-third blocking minority to negotiate a better offer from SEB.
    In Latvia a minority shareholder in Unibanka, High Bridge Services, was said it was mulling a counter-offer, saying that SEB's offer was not high enough.
    SEB said its offer for all three banks is non-negotiable.

    RIGA, Latvia (Reuters) — Latvian prosecutors said Thursday they had filed war crimes and genocide charges against an elderly Nazi-era suspect now living in Australia, but a court had denied their request for an arrest warrant.
    The charges against 86-year-old Konrads Kalejs stem from his time as an alleged commander of a concentration camp guard company during the World War Two Nazi occupation of the Baltic state. Kalejs has previously denied Nazi hunters' claims that he aided the wartime slaughter of Jews.
    Latvia was accused abroad of being soft on elderly Nazis after Kalejs surfaced last year in a British old people's home. He later flew back to Australia to avoid a deportation order.
    "We have decided to bring criminal charges against Konrads Kalejs as our investigation has given us enough evidence to do so," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office told Reuters.
    She said Riga district court had turned down a request for an arrest warrant on the grounds they had no evidence that Kalejs was evading investigation.
    The spokeswoman said prosecutors believed the crimes were serious enough to call for an arrest, which would also necessitate an extradition request.
    Latvia does not have an extradition treaty with Australia, but parliament is expected to approve one by the end of the year.
    Under Latvian law, prosecutors now have seven days to ask the court to reverse its ruling on the arrest warrant.
    But it was unclear if an extradition was possible without the ratification of the treaty, the spokeswoman said.
    Latvia stepped up its investigation of Kalejs and another Nazi-era suspect — 87-year-old Karlis Ozols, who also lives in Australia — after the criticism that followed Kalejs' discovery in Britain.
    Thursday's announcement also follows the death in Vilnius on Tuesday of Lithuanian Nazi war crimes suspect Aleksandras Lileikis, who died before his trial was completed.

    RIGA, Sept 29 (Reuters) — The Latvian privatisation agency said on Friday it had chosen an international consortium including U.S. Chase Manhattan to advise on the sell-off of fixed-line monopoly Lattelekom.
    The agency said in a statement the consortium includes Chase Manhattan, Robert Flemming & Co and Baltic consultancy firm AS Trigon Capital.
    The consortium will also advise Latvia in its talks with Lattelekom minority stake holder, Tilts Communications, on the shortening of the firm's monopoly by 10 years to 2003.
    Tilts Communications, majority owned by Finnish Sonera, has filed a suit with the internatioanl court of arbitration against the Latvian state seeking compensation for the shorter monopoly period.

    MINSK, September 29 (Itar-Tass) — Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has praised the outcome of the first congress of local councils that took place in Minsk on Friday. He said it was a historic event of huge importance for the country.
    "The congress reaffirmed correctness of the policy of the authorities," Lukashenko said in his final address to delegates. The development of local councils is a priority sphere of democratization, he remarked.
    Resolutions of the congress say it is important to expand powers of the local councils. The delegates voiced support to the foreign and domestic policy of Belarus, which was targeted at prosperity of the Belarussian people and development of the law-governed and socially-oriented democracy.
    The forum was attended by more than 2,400 delegates, among them the top leaders of Belarus. Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, Russian lawmakers, representatives of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, the Public Chamber of the Russian-Belarussian Union, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Poland attended the congress as guests.