RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Police in the Latvian village of Kuldiga are searching for the cause of a fire that killed three children New Year's Eve and made 2002 the deadliest year for fires in more than a decade.
      An eight-year-old girl and four-year-old twin boys died in the blaze, which began early Tuesday night in a two-story wood farmhouse 120 kilometers (72 miles) southwest of this ex-Soviet republic's capital, Riga.
      The children died from smoke inhalation, police said. The children were not identified.
      Worn wiring in an electric heater may have started the fire, Kuldiga Police Chief Sergejs Rozite said. He said the children's parents were visiting relatives nearby when the fire started.
      The fire increased the 2002 death toll in Latvia from fires to 269, the highest since the country declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

      MOSCOW, Jan 3 (Reuters) — Russian President Vladimir Putin waded into a Latvian investigation into a Russian citizen and anti-Nazi partisan accused of war crimes by praising him in a birthday note.
      Vasily Kononov's 2000 conviction for the 1944 murder of nine Latvian civilians had been overturned but the High Court in the now-independent country, which the Soviets occupied after driving out the Nazis, has ordered the case be re-examined.
      Kononov says the civilians were caught in the crossfire of an engagement.
      "Russian society fully supports your selfless struggle against modern Latvia's oppression of human rights and attempts to rewrite history," a Kremlin statement quoted the president as writing to Kononov in a greeting for his 80th birthday.
      The Russian government sees him as a hero who fought the Nazis, but Latvia has said there were war criminals on both sides in the Second World War.
      Latvia has struggled to emerge from Russia's shadow since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its former master has only recently become resigned to its moves to join Western bodies such as NATO and the European Union.

      VILNIUS, Lithuania (Reuters) — Right-winger Rolandas Paksas won a surprise victory in Lithuania's weekend election, securing power with a populist message that will shake up local politics but is unlikely to knock European Union entry off course.
      Paksas, a 46-year-old former prime minister and stunt pilot, defeated President Valdas Adamkus by a stunning 10 point margin by appealing to those who have lost out in the small Baltic state's transition from communism to democracy since 1991.
      His disagreements with the leftist coalition of Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas over economic policy may overshadow a May referendum on EU entry but are unlikely to affect its outcome, analysts say.
      "I hope that the bitter pre-election period has ended today and that we can work together for the common good," a conciliatory Paksas told reporters after an aggressive campaign which left him with few friends among political parties.
      EU membership is popular among Lithuania's 3.5 million people, and opinion polls show 64 percent support for joining the bloc in May 2004 and just 17 percent against.
      "Foreign policy goals will not change," Paksas said. "They are to join the EU and NATO and keep good ties with our neighbors."
      Adamkus easily won last month's first round vote and Paksas was given little chance in the run-off against the president, 30 years his senior and hailed for guiding Lithuania toward NATO and EU entry while rebuilding ties with Moscow.
      But Paksas pulled ahead in the poorly attended vote with vague promises to improve the living conditions of the many Lithuanians suffering hardship.
      "People are getting high on the word 'change', but changes can also be for the worse," Vytautas Landsbergis, who led the ex-communist republic's freedom movement and was president at independence in 1991, told reporters Monday.
      Lithuanian voters have a tradition of surprising pundits in what analysts say is a reflection of the youth of its democracy. Adamkus, who spent much of his life in the United States, was himself a shock winner of the presidency five years ago.
      Paksas accused Adamkus during the campaign of selling out in EU entry talks, especially on farm subsidies, and for failing to get the Union to replace an elderly Soviet-era nuclear plant.
      But the populist politician, who lasted just a few months as premier and whose politics are ill-defined, says he backs the goal of EU entry and will keep Lithuania on a pro-Western track -- though he wants Brussels to review Lithuania's entry deal.
      "I am not fully satisfied with the terms agreed in the area of agriculture and I would like to know if it is possible to improve them, if not now then over time," he said, adding that he also wanted a better deal on the closure of the Ignalina plant.
      Paksas has rejected comparisons with radicals like France's Jean-Marie Le Pen or right-wing populists who have won support in neighboring Poland, where the EU entry vote is seen as at much more risk from radical opponents of the bloc.
      The EU last month invited 10 mostly ex-communist east European states to join in 2004. Most candidates back EU entry strongly, but some states, such as Latvia, Malta and Poland, have strong domestic opponents of membership.
      Paksas's election will have the biggest impact at home, where he has already called for the sacking of several members of Brazauskas's cabinet, despite having little constitutional authority to interfere in the daily running of government.
      "I am not inclined to make changes in government," Brazauskas told reporters Monday.
      Paksas said while the presidency had little influence over domestic policies, he would try to gain influence as an adviser. "As president I can say that lower taxes create jobs, and I will encourage both government and parliament to create conditions that are good for business," he said.
      Paksas vowed to keep up his spectacular acrobatic flying and his hobby of cruising the streets of Vilnius on a large motorcycle.

      OSLO, Norway (AP) — Extreme cold made traveling difficult in the Nordics and Baltics, and was blamed for at least four deaths. In Stockholm, warm water was used to free several swans trapped in the ice of the Swedish capital's canals.
      Norway suffered an extended period of extreme cold, which is expected to last through the week. In Oslo, the temperature was -18 Celsius (just below zero degrees Fahrenheit) at midday Monday.
      The cold, combined with snow last week, forced the state railroad NSB to cancel many departures, including 11 of 450 routes in and around Oslo.
      "Extreme and long lasting cold, combined with light, loose snow, has caused problems in eastern Norway's traffic since New Year's," said Preben Colstrup, an NSB spokesman.
      The Oslo newspaper Aftenposten on Monday reported that two elderly Oslo residents died of hypothermia at a hospital last week.
      On Sunday, two skiers were found frozen to death just 700 meters (yards) from the cabin they trying to reach at Norefjell near Oslo.
      In Denmark, 120 flights out of the Danish capital Copenhagen were canceled Sunday and Monday, and road and rail traffic was hampered by heavy snow.
      By Monday midday, rescuers in Denmark said they had to pull free hundreds of vehicles. Two men were killed in separate road accidents late Sunday.
      The coldest temperature in Denmark this winter was recorded early Sunday when it dipped to -19.8 Celsius (-2 Fahrenheit) in the southern part of the Jutland peninsula. Meteorologists said more cold was expected in the coming 24 hours.
      In Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, the weather was so cold that swans and other birds got stuck in ice and had to be freed. The Stockholm harbor authority pumped warm water into the Stockholm Stream to break up the ice and keep it from freezing. The temperature was -18 Celsius (zero degrees Fahrenheit) Monday.
      In Finland's north, the temperature overnight fell to -39 degrees Celsius (-38.2 Fahrenheit). In the capital, Helsinki, the temperature was -23 Celsius (-9.4 Fahrenheit).
      The country dispatched six large icebreakers to keep coastal water routes open.
      In Estonia, maritime authorities were searching for more icebreakers to keep the country's 10 cargo ports on the Gulf of Finland free of ice.
      In Cesis, Latvia, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northeast of the capital, Riga, the temperature fell to -38 degrees Celsius (-36.4 Fahrenheit), a 16-year low.