Saturday, 12 August 2000

"For Fatherland and Freedom"   News
  Picture Album

Subj:     Latvian Mailer & AOL Chat Reminder for Sunday, August 13th, 2000
Date:    Sat, 12 Aug 2000 9:57:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:     Silvija
Attached:     P8040132-flowers-hood.jpg (50032 bytes)

Sveiki, all!

We (or more accurately, one half of us) is back from vacation in Latvia. For us, the best part about visiting Latvia is family, so it didn't matter that it was cold and rainy a good deal of the time—it was a good excuse to sleep in, in the morning! Well, that's not to deny the culinary delights of pickles, bread, cheese, sausage, and beer!

We did manage to get out and about a bit, for example, to the annual flower show at the Dailes Teatris. Peters took a lot of pictures of Alberta iela and Vecriga, hoping to eventually add an online tour or two to our web site. We also want to thank fellow AOL-er Pauls for hosting us to see the family property, Lubinas, just outside Cesis... as with any property neglected for half a century, the work is enormous! But there's no denying the beauty of the Latvian countryside!

News-wise, the big events in terms of coverage while we were there were the release of the Russian-Latvian pilots and their return home to Latvia. Equally high profile was the convention of Russian journalists——from 26 countries——discussing the state of Russians abroad. (And not a bad excuse for a week's vacation at Jurmala!)

No links this week, still recovering from jet lag! However, we have several news stories:

Unfortunately, the Russian journalist convention was too far back for us to have any news wire reports still available.

This week's picture is from the flower show held in Riga during our vacation.

We're still hearing reports of incomplete picture downloads, Remember, you can always connect to our home page to access the web-archived mailer, which is usually available on our site within a day or so after this Email is sent out.

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,

Silvija Peters


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.


  News

Reuters historical calendar - August 5
Reuters North America Saturday, July 29, 2000 6:42:00 PM
© 2000 Reuters Ltd.


     LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) — Following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 5 in history:

1884 - Cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe's Island in New York harbour.
1895 - Friedrich Engels, German socialist, political writer and co-founder with Karl Marx of modern communism, died in London.
1940 - Latvia was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
1962 - Marilyn Monroe, U.S. film actress, died in Los Angeles aged 36. Famed for her roles in the films "Some Like it Hot" and "The Misfits."
1963 - A Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow by Russia, the United States and Britain.
1984 - Richard Burton, British actor of stage and screen, died aged 58. Famed for his many Shakespearean roles and his films including "Cleopatra" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?."
1995 - The United States and Vietnam declared an end to decades of enmity, formally established diplomatic ties and pledged a new era of cooperation.

Russia's Putin thanks India PM for pilots' release
Reuters World Report Monday, July 31, 2000 12:20:00 PM
© 2000 Reuters Ltd.


    MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) — Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee by telephone on Monday for India's release of a five-man Russian air crew jailed for carrying out an arms drop, the Kremlin said.
     The pilots, ethnic Russians from the Baltic state of Latvia, were pardoned earlier this month by President K.R. Narayanan. They had been serving life sentences for aiding war against the Indian state.
     Four of them took Russian citizenship after their arrest five years ago. "Putin expressed gratitude for the act of good will undertaken by the Indian leadership, pardoning five Russian pilots," the Kremlin said in a statement.
     It said the two men also discussed preparations for Putin's planned October visit to New Delhi, when the two countries are due to sign a declaration on strategic partnership.

Latvian coalition split on privatisation
Reuters World Report Thursday, August 03, 2000 11:01:00 AM
© 2000 Reuters Ltd.


     RIGA, Aug 3 (Reuters) — Latvia's government on Thursday played down the impact of a coalition split over plans to privatise a state-owned utility after two of its four ruling parties backed the opposition in blocking the sell-off.
     Fatherland and Freedom and the New Party widened a rift with their larger coalition partners Latvia's Way and the People's Party by succesfully backing opposition sponsored legislation in parliament to prevent the privatisation of utility Latvenergo.
     "Government stability should not be affected by this vote. But we will also in the future keep our own strict stance in issues which we consider dubious," Fatherland and Freedom party chairman Maris Grinblats said.
     The vote marks a setback for Prime Minister Andris Berzins, a member of the People's Party, who promised to speed up privatisation in the Baltic state when he took office in May.
     "This was a logical outcome. I am not disappointed as we have seen democracy at work," Berzins said.
     Berzins' Latvia's Way has 21 seats in parliament while the Peoples's Party has 24. Fatherland has 16 seats and the New Party eight, giving the government 69 of the 100 seats.
     The decision to block privatising the company threatens to raise the ire of the World Bank, which set an end of 2001 deadline for restructuring Latvenergo as one of the conditions for a three-year $120 million loan package signed in March.
     The coalition's two biggest parties argued the sell-off was necessary to complete badly-needed restructuring of the firm.
    Proceeds from the sale were expected to foot part of the bill for a proposed 10-year, 1.2 billion lat ($1.97) investment programme for the company.
     But the government's privatisation plans encountered opposition from both trade unions and the opposition, which ran a campaign to pressure parliament to either ban the privatisation or put the issue to a referendum.
     The opposition accused the government of preparing to give away one of the state's crown jewels and said consumers would face higher electricity prices if the company was privatised.
     As a result of Thursday's vote Latvenergo and all its assets are to be put on a list of strategic state-owned firms which can not be sold to the private sector. The state will also be required to guarantee the company's loans.
     The privatisation setback also appears to derail a recently proposed merger with Estonian electricity generator Eesti Energia.

Hundreds come forward in Lithuanian KGB roundup
Reuters World Report Monday, August 07, 2000 10:44:00 AM
© 2000 Reuters Ltd.


    VILNIUS, Aug 7 (Reuters) — About 1,500 former agents and informants of the Soviet-era security police KGB have come forward to register with Lithuanian officials in a bid to have their files, and their past, sealed for life.
     According to a law approved last November, the names of those who came forward voluntarily by the August 5 deadline will be kept strictly confidential except with regard to those seeking public office.
     But those who failed to report may be investigated and named publicly by officials, prompting a last-minute rush of people confessing, officials said.
     "Let me put it this way, the number of those who failed to register is almost equal to the number of those who did," Mecys Laurinkus, head of the country's Security Department, told reporters after meeting with President Valdas Adamkus on the issue.
     Lithuania regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and has since tried to come to terms with the previous five decades of communist rule.
    Lawmakers approved the law because they wanted to clearly identify those who were collaborators with the KGB since a separate law restricts former KGB staff officials and informants from seeking employment in strategically important sectors.
     "During the second stage of the investigation, a working group will set a list of former agents who did not register and will submit it to a commission which will decide whether their names will be made public," Laurinkus added.
    Alleged collaborators will have the right to protest any commission ruling prior to having their names made public.
    "We have come across cases when some people even don't know they had been assigned code-names or registered as agents...so the commission will have to take into account all historical background from the period," Laurinkus said.
    The law aims to neutralise ex-agents and informers by setting up a confidential database and protect them from potential blackmail from their former masters or anyone to whom the information was made available, Laurinkus said.


  Picture Album

     No, the film isn't developed yet—but thanks to our digital camera, we already have vacation pictures! If you go out to the weekend flea markets, people always have their best goods displayed on the hoods of their cars. So too was the case at the annual flower show. Inside, the "artistic" flower displays were bizarre to say the least. Outside, adorning car hoods, were more—ahmmm—traditional arrangements which you could buy (of course!) and take home. Silvija spied this particular arrangement as she left the show.

Flowers on the hood
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