Friday, 9 June 2000
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Subj: Latvian Mailer & AOL Chat
Reminder for Sunday, June 11
Date:
6/9/00 9:51:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Sturgalve
File:
VARDU_~1.JPG (100042 bytes)
DL Time (TCP/IP): < 1 minute
Sveiki, all!
It's been a busy week! Still trying to finish
moving... so we're getting a head start on the weekend by getting the mailer
out a bit earlier than usual!
This week's link is a re-featuring from
some time ago of the "Names' Day" locator. It's in Latvian,
but it should be decipherable even for those whose Latvian skills need a bit of
work! It's in keeping with this week's picture theme...
This week's news articles include:
- Russian Experts Warn of Tension With NATO Over Baltic
- Conference opens in Jurmala to discuss Russia-Latvia dialogue
- Latvia will not win economically if it joins NATO (Russian threat)
- NATO, Baltic states hold exercises
- Talbott pledges to help Baltics hunt war criminals
- U.S. Urges Better Russia, Baltic Ties
- Putin rules out discussing Karelia status (pre-WWII Finland territory annexed by USSR)
- Chinese Top Legislator Meets Latvian Parliament Deputy Chairman
As for this week's picture... we had a "typical" Riga Dom Church
picture set for this week's mailer following on last week's sightseeing theme.
But, looking at the roses in bloom climbing up through the tree branches at the
back of our yard, we got another idea. Latvians have always loved flowers, and
giving flowers on every special occasion is a way of life. But when our parents
fled into exile, in the DP camps in Germany, there were no flowers to be had.
Latvians being Latvians, they sent or gave each other postcards of
flowers instead. This week's picture is a composite of a
Name's Day card to Silvija's grandmother from Silvija's mom, her dad, and
her best friend (who was separated from her own family and fled with Silvija's
mom and grandparents). A bit of detective work reveals that Silvija's
grandmother's second middle name was "Sarlote" (soft S), matching the
November 5th date on the card (5.XI.1945).
One's second middle name
might be stretching it for celebrating Names' Day — but it was a time when
occasions to celebrate were few and far between. The card has long since turned
brown — so we closed our eyes, turned back the clock, and imagined what it
might have looked like when its newly-printed fresh and radiant roses
brightened an undoubtedly cold and bleak Monday morning.
Remember,
mailer or not, Lat Chat spontaneously appears every Sunday on AOL starting
around 9:00/9:30pm Eastern time, lasting until 11:00/11:30pm. AOL'ers can
follow this link: Town Square -
Latvian chat.
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.
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The Latvian Names' Day site can be found at:
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Russian Experts Warn of Tension
With NATO Over Baltic
Rome, June 5
(ANSA) — Russian President Vladimir Putin sees a greater emerging
threat from chemical and biological weapons using various delivery systems
rather than nuclear arms, the director of a leading Moscow think-tank said here
today.
The seminar on Russian strategic issues
organised this afternoon by Limes, a geo-political strategy magazine,
was also warned that Putin would act more firmly if Nato tries to expand
further into the Baltic.
"Rather than just
blathering on as Boris Yeltsin did, Putin would be able to find adequate
responses in prevention and reprisal," said Vladimir Rybakenkov, a Russian
diplomat.
Experts at the seminar pointed out that
Nato's role in the Baltic has been a continual source of tension with Russia,
not least because of the naval base at Kaliningrad.
The director of Moscow's Centre for Political Studies
Vladimir Orlov told the seminar that Putin believes the main threat comes from
terrorist groups, but also 'proliferator states' such as Iran and North Korea.
The threat concerns Russia much more than the
United States, Orlov added, saying that Russia offers a "window of
vulnerability" to chemical or biological attack.
Orlov said Russia could decide to make "joint efforts" with the US on the
problem, even if they have yet to reach an agreement on it.
He also repeated that one solution could be Putin's
proposal for a local and limited anti-missile system to take care of delivery
systems that could include missiles.
"But the ABM
treaty must be maintained without any change," Orlov quoted Putin as believing.
Rybakenkov made the same point, telling the
seminar that the treaty has to be maintained because deployment of anti-missile
interceptors throughout the US could "destabilise" the Russian nuclear
dissuasion.
"We don't want a cure that is worse
than the disease," he said, quoting Putin, also pointing that, unlike the US,
Russia has no black list of 'rogue states'.
He
also said that, unlike Yeltsin, Putin is in full control of Russian foreign
policy, which will be "less ambiguous, more predictable, more comprehensible
and more realistic."
(c) 2000 ANSA
Conference opens in Jurmala to discuss
Russia-Latvia dialogue
RIGA,
June 5 (Itar-Tass) — A two-day conference opened in Jurmala on Monday
to discuss prospects for the development of dialogue between Russia and
Latvia.
The conference is being attended by
Latvian and Russian parliamentarians and politicians, and experts from Denmark,
Sweden and Estonia.
The conference participants
believe that the existing disagreements prevent Latvia and Russia from
developing relations. Among these disagreements, they name the existence of
"non-citizens" in Latvia and Riga's drive joining the North Atlantic
Alliance.
Deputy chairman of the Russian State
Duma Defence Committee Alexei Arbatov said his country disagrees that the
Baltics will build their security by ignoring the security interests of
neighbouring countries.
He noted that the
admission of Baltic republics to NATO will not only undermine relations with
Russia but also make it to take return steps.
yur/(c)
2000 ITAR-TASS
Latvia not win
economically if it joins NATO
JURMALA,
June 5 (Itar-Tass) — Latvia will not win economically if it joins the
North Atlantic Alliance, a Russian politologist said.
In this case Russia will review transit of their
goods through the republic because "Latvia will be forced to subordinate
the Alliance", Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the State Duma Foreign and Defence
Policy Committee, said.
Commenting on statements
on Russia's threat to Latvia, he said "such views can be alarming or, at best,
make one smile, but they put Latvia in a strange position".
Karaganov took part in a two-day conference, which
opened in Jurmala on Monday and devoted to prospects for the development of
dialogue between Russia and Latvia.
The conference
is being attended by Latvian and Russian parliamentarians and politicians, and
experts from Denmark, Sweden and Estonia.
On
Russia's further foreign strategy, the lawmaker said "it should economise
policy". It is necessary to pay less attention to NATO and concentrate on
national restoration and relations with the European Union, he said.
"I am satisfied with everything what the Russian
leadership is doing now", he added.
yur/(c) 2000
ITAR-TASS
NATO, Baltic
states hold exercises
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, June 6 (UPI) — War
vessels from NATO members Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and the
United States were joined by naval vessels from Sweden, Finland and the Baltic
republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Tuesday at the start of the
10-day Baltops 2000 naval exercises.
(c) 2000
United Press International
Talbott pledges to help Baltics hunt war
criminals
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
TALLINN, June 7 (Reuters) — The
United States pledged on Wednesday to help the Baltic states bring war
criminals to justice and chided Russia for saying that Nazism was being
rehabilitated in the region.
Deputy Secretary of
State Strobe Talbott met foreign ministry officials from Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania and said war crimes committed in the name of the Nazis and the
Soviets should be punished.
"The U.S. welcomes the
progress in redressing the injustices of the historic past, including through
the active work of the historians' commissions, education, restitution, and
bringing to justice accused war criminals, regardless of ideology," a
communique signed by Talbott and the three Baltic states said.
"The Baltic Partners reaffirm that their countries
will continue the work in this field, and the United States renews its
willingness to help in dealing with these issues," it added.
BNS news agency said Talbott had rebuffed Russian
remarks suggesting that human rights abuses and neo-nazism were on the rise in
the Baltic states. "Such announcements, to put it mildly, are not true," BNS
quoted him as saying.
US Urges Better
Russia, Baltic Ties
Copyright 2000 The Associated
Presss.
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer
TALLINN, Estonia, June 7 (AP) — Top
Clinton administration adviser Strobe Talbott urged Russia on Wednesday to seek
better relations with the three former Soviet Baltic republics.
Talbott, deputy secretary of state and adviser to
President Clinton on Russian issues, also urged Moscow to stop what he said
were extreme statements directed at the republics.
Russia has sharply criticized prosecutions in the Baltics of elderly Stalinist
agents on charges of crimes against humanity. Moscow has also singled out
Latvia and Estonia for allegedly discriminating against their large
Russian-speaking minorities.
Talbott said a
Russian government spokesmen had gone so far as to speak about a "rise of
neo-fascism" in Latvia and Estonia.
"Such charges,
to put it mildly, are not supported by the facts," he said. "We're trying to
bring about a better future for everyone in the region. That means enhancing
common aspirations, not engaging in divisive and unwarranted accusations."
Talbott was speaking in Tallinn during a one-day
meeting of high-level U.S. and Baltic officials on key security and economic
issues.
A statement signed by Talbott and his
Baltic counterparts at the talks said that Washington continued to support the
desire of Baltic nations to join NATO — another issue that has prompted
Russian criticism.
The Baltics have aspired to
join the Western alliance ever since they regained independence following the
Soviet collapse in 1991. But the Kremlin vehemently opposes Baltic membership,
viewing it as a potential threat to Russian security.
Putin rules out discussing Karelia
status
Copyright
2000 The Associated Press
MOSCOW,
June 7 (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia has
no intention of discussing the status of the Karelia region, which borders
Finland and once belonged to the Nordic country.
"The question for us is closed and decided finally," Putin said after talks
with Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
Karelia, a
region of forests and lakes stretching north from near St. Petersburg to the
Arctic, belonged to Finland before Soviet dictator Josef Stalin invaded the
area in the Winter War in 1939.
Finland makes no
official claim to Russian territory in Karelia, but after the collapse of the
Soviet Union has suggested that Russia voluntarily open negotiations. Putin
ruled this out Wednesday.
Halonen responded only
that relations between Russia and Finland have improved to the point where even
such contentious issues can be debated openly.
Halonen arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for talks focusing on Russian relations
with the European Union, of which Finland is a member, and regional security in
the Balkans.
The two leaders conferred on
improving customs facilities on the Finnish-Russian border, Russia's only land
frontier with the European Union and used extensively by companies importing
goods into Russia.
Halonen, elected Feb. 6, and
Putin, elected March 26, have met before, but this was their first meeting as
heads of state.
(ak/jh)
Chinese Top Legislator Meets Latvian Parliament
Deputy Chairman
BEIJING, June 8
(XINHUA) — Li Peng, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress (NPC), met here today with Rihards Piks, the first deputy
chairman of the Latvian parliament.
Sino-Latvian
friendship and cooperation has been growing steadily since the establishment of
their diplomatic relations in 1991, Li said, noting that China develops its
relations with Baltic countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful
Co-existence. China respects Latvia's path of development in line with its
national characteristics, and hopes to promote mutual understanding, friendship
and cooperation with Latvia, he said.
China hopes
that peace, stability and prosperity in the Baltic region will continue, he
added.
Li said that the NPC places great
importance on friendly exchanges with the Latvian parliament, and hopes that
leaders of the two parliaments as well as committees and groups in the two
parliaments will increase exchanges in the years ahead.
He said he believes that Piks' visit to China will
help promote friendly exchanges between the two countries and parliaments.
China appreciates the Latvian government's adherence
to the One-China policy, and hopes that the two sides will have more exchange
of views on issues of mutual concern, in order to promote mutual understanding
and expand common ground.
Piks said that China is
one of the first countries to recognize Latvia, and Latvia is grateful for
that, noting that the Latvian parliament is willing to increase exchanges with
the Chinese NPC.
He said the fact that his
delegation includes members of different political parties in Latvia reflects
the positive attitude of the Latvian parliament toward developing relations
with China.
He also extended an invitation from
Chairman Janis Straume of the Latvian parliament to Li Peng for a visit to
Latvia. Li accepted the invitation.
Piks praised
China's economic achievements, and said that Sino-Latvian cooperation has a
promising future.
Copyright 2000 XINHUA NEWS
AGENCY
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They may have only be "paper roses," but they held out the hope for real ones. The paper has long since turned brown (top) — so we tried to imagine what it might have looked like, back in a cold November in 1945 (bottom).