GallerySunday, 3 September 2000
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Subj: Latvian mailer, AOl chat reminder for Sunday, September
3rd
Date: 00.09.03. 13:11:54 Eastern Daylight Time
From:
Silvija
File: P81101~1.JPG (50516 bytes)
DL Time (TCP/IP): <
1 minute
Sveiki, all!
We hope everyone who has a three day weekend
(Labor Day) is enjoying it! We want to mention that Silvija and I will be going
back and forth to Virginia sometime over the next week or two, so we may miss a
mailer. If so, the following mailer will have two week's worth of news.
One of last week's stories had some ambiguous wording regarding Latvia's
potential admission to NATO. We sent an Email to Latvia's "embassy" to NATO
asking if we missed something, and they replied all is well, look for something
to start happening in 2002.
In the news,
- This day in history, September 3rd
- An accidental foreign ministry guard shooting incident ends in a tragic suicide
- Actor Maximillian Schell's visit to Riga cut short by health problems
- Bank clerk foils robbery attempt in Daugavpils
- Latvian officials meet with IMF to discuss budget deficit
- OSCE endorses Latvian language law (!)
- U.S. Embassy issues statement praising new language law
- Communist Chinese Chairman Li Peng to visit Baltics on his way home from New York
On a regional front,
- Poles and Russian dedicated a memorial in Mednoye, Russia commemorating the slaughter of Polish officers as well as Russians by Stalin's secret police. Poles want those responsible to be brought to justice, Putin has offered to assist. A hopeful sign that Russia will someday admit to others of Stalin's atrocities?
We would add that there was no official Russian reaction in the news
to the OSCE endorsement of the language law. The lack of yet another
denouncement may be another hopeful sign.
This week's link is to a page in Latvia dealing with folk tales and
music.
This week's picture is a Riga sunset as
viewed from a cruise along the Daugava.
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 (from
the AOL browser): Town Square —
Latvian chat
A special note to you AOL'ers out there... The Latvian
message boards are back on a 30-day trail basis, so get in there and use them!
Click here: LATVIA If you have never
visited the boards, they're a great place to share information, recipes, post
dainas and poetry for others' enjoyment, have discussions about Latvian
politics, get to know others in the AOL online community, and very, very
often....to ask for any receive help on a multitude of issues. Just yesterday a
young girl, 1/2 Latvian that doesn't speak the language, asked for help trying
to find someone to visit her grandmother, who is in a nursing home and
apparently only speaks Latvian. Already she's had two responses....where else
on AOL can people reach out for this type of help? So please, show your support
of the Latvian message boards by using them, and also, it would be
greatly appreciated if as many of you as possible would write directly to
HOSTINTLDom stating your desire to keep these boards alive, as he will
be heavily involved in the decision as to the fate of our Latvian (and all the
other "small" country) boards. Thanks in advance for your support!!
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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This week's link is to a page based in Latvia about folklore and associated information. We found some very good background on traditional Latvian musical instruments, among other things. The English version is at:
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Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
1991 - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania applied for membership of the United Nations.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
"According to what the injured security guard — currently in hospital — has told us, this was an accidental shot," Krists Leiskalns, a police spokesman, told Reuters.
Neither of the guards had been drinking at the time, he said.
"The guard who fired the shot called for an ambulance and then committed suicide within the next 15 minutes," the spokesman said.
The shooting took place in the foreing ministry entrance hall.
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
"We were ready to operate but he decided to go to Germany to consult with his personal physician," said Dr. Diana Rozkauns, head of the intensive care unit at Gailezers Hospital.
Schell, 69, left on a special medical plane at midnight Sunday en route to Munich University Hospital, she added.
Riga doctors had considered Schell's condition so urgent that they talked with him about an immediate operation. His diabetes, they said, had destroyed nearly half of his pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that produces insulin.
But while serious, the condition was not life-threatening, Rozkauns said. She said she was not certain whether he would undergo an operation in Munich.
The Austrian-born Schell was in Riga for the annual Baltijas Perle film festival, where he was to be honored with the best actor of the millennium award. He abruptly left the opening ceremony Friday, complaining of stomach pain.
"He is one of the greatest actors around. His versatility and his films are outstanding," said Natalija Gudima, spokeswoman for the festival. "We are all still a little in shock because of what happened."
Schell, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of a defense attorney in the 1961 drama "Judgment at Nuremberg," told local media he intends to return to Riga to pick up his award when his health improves.
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
A man armed with a pistol entered a Baltijas Tranzitu Bank on Monday in Daugavpils, 120 miles southeast of the capital Riga, and demanded money.
A female teller handed him a weighted sack designed to look and feel like a bag of bank notes. The unsuspecting robber snatched it and ran.
"Our employees were very scared and some were in shock, but this woman stayed cool," said Rita Zelmane, a secretary at the bank. "She's a hero."
Bank employees are trained in how to deal with robberies.
No suspect has been detained, bank officials said.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
The government had committed itself to keeping the deficit within two percent of GDP in an agreement signed with the International Monetary Fund.
However Finance Minister Gundars Berzins said earlier this month that while revenue collection was good, expenditures were pressuring finances and he was concerned the budget gap target would not be met.
"The sides noted that there are both negative and positive signs in terms of remaining within the target, Sanita Skiltere, an advisor to premier Andris Berzins said of Wednesday's meeting between Berzins and members of an IMF mission.
She said they had "agreed end-September results would be more of an indicator of how we are performing in this respect."
"No specific additional measures to restrict deficit growth were suggested by the IMF," she added. "Determining already now whether we would exceed this year's target is still largely fortune-telling."
However, IMF officials said that focus should be placed on the social budget.
"The IMF mission, headed by Jerald Schiff, stressed the need to balance Latvia's social budget to a level which would reduce its impact on the fiscal deficit," the cabinet press office said in a statement.
Total additional spending claim levels will be seen in September as ministries have a mid-month deadline to submit their proposals for this autumn's amendments in the 2000 budget.
The state budget deficit last year was 4.3 percent of GDP. Latvia's 2000 consolidated budget plans a full year fiscal deficit of 80.5 million lats ($131.3 million), with revenue at 1.374 billion lats and spending of 1.439 billion lats.
After the first seven months the shortfall was 46.3 million lats. Latvia's fiscal gap target for 2001 is one percent of gross domestic percent.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
The regulations, entrenching the use of the Latvian language for official use, had been seen as a possible stumbling block for Latvia's drive for membership in the European Union.
"I view the regulations implementing the State Language Law as being essentially in conformity with both the Law and Latvia's international obligations," Max van der Stoel, OSCE high commissioner for national minorities, said in a statement.
The Latvian cabinet approved the language rules earlier this month. They take effect on September 1.
Latvia has about 650,000 Russian speakers, or just over a quarter of the population, most of whom arrived in the Baltic nation before it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Moscow has accused Latvia of trying to push the Russian-speaking minority to the fringe of economic and social life. Latvia says it is trying to protect its language after centuries of Russian domination.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) earlier indicated the language law might not meet EU norms and could intrude into the private lives of citizens by forcing Latvian to be used outside official life.
Van der Stoel's statement said that "virtually all" his recommendations had been accepted in the drafting process.
"Overall, I trust that the public administration of the implementing regulations and the Law as a whole will be in the spirit of an open and liberal democracy and, thus, will fully respect the limited scope of the Law...and the requirements of Latvia's international obligations," he said.
Latvia was invited late last year to begin detailed talks on EU membership but is not expected to be invited to join the 15-nation bloc until 2005 at the earliest.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
The law and the special rules accompanying it went into effect on Friday. They aim to strengthen the use of Latvian as the official language.
"The U.S. Mission commends Latvia as its State Language Law goes into effect today," the U.S. embassy said in a statement.
"We expect that Latvia will continue to treat all its people fairly and meet its international obligations fully as implemented in the language law," it said.
The law and the administrative rules that enforce it had been seen as a possible stumbling block for Latvia's drive for membership of the European Union.
The European security and human rights forum, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), had earlier indicated that the law might not meet EU norms and could intrude into the private lives of citizens by forcing Latvian to be used in non-public spheres.
But the OSCE gave its approval to the regulations on Thursday.
Latvia has about 650,000 Russian-speakers, or just over a quarter of the population, most of whom arrived in the Baltic nation before it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Moscow has accused Latvia of trying to push the Russian-speaking minority to the fringe of economic and social life. Latvia says it is trying to protect its language after centuries of Russian domination.
Latvia was invited to begin detailed talks on membership of the EU last year but is not expected to be invited to join the 15-nation bloc until 2005 at the earliest. It is also applying to join NATO.
Li will visit Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Russia starting from Saturday, where he will meet parliament and government leaders and people from all walks of life to deepen mutual understanding and trust, and stimulate healthy and steady relations with these countries.
During his stay in New York, Li made a speech at the Conference of Presiding Officers of National Parliaments, expounding on China's stance on international cooperation. He met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and leaders of Inter-Parliamentary Union and parliamentarian chiefs from varied countries.
The Conference of Presiding Officers of National Parliaments, jointly organized by the United Nations and the Inter- Parliamentary Union, was aimed to express support for international cooperation and to enshrine a commitment at the highest level by parliaments to work much more closely with the United Nations system and other major international negotiating fora both nationally and globally through their world organization, the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The conference concluded Friday afternoon with the adoption of a declaration which highlighted the main challenges facing the world community and the United Nations in the 21st century, described changes in international relations and outlined the national, regional and international parliamentary dimensions of international cooperation.
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
By MIKHAIL METZEL, Associated Press Writer
Relatives took a special train from Warsaw to attend the ceremony Saturday for 6,313 Polish officers as well as more than 9,000 Russians who were victims of Stalin-era repressions in the Tver region northwest of Moscow.
Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek led the Polish delegation, and Russian Interior Ministert Vladimir Rushailo, along with Russian Orthodox Church leaders, also attended.
Those buried in Mednoye comprise part of the 15,000 Polish officers killed by Stalin's secret police in April and May 1940. They were all shot in the back of the head and dumped into mass graves near the villages of Mednoye and Katyn, and the now-Ukrainian city of Kharkov.
"You also have millions of graves across your land," Buzek said. "Let the wrongs and the cemeteries be our joint memory and a warning for next generations against treason and crime."
The dedication followed similar ceremonies at the two other grave sites. The events are partly aimed at ending a rift in Russian-Polish relations caused by the killings and the Soviet government's refusal to acknowledge its responsibility.
"What happened here should never have happened," Rushailo, the interior minister, said. "I am sure that there will be no more events that could lay a shadow on relations between our two nations."
Moscow persistently blamed the murders on Nazi forces invading the Soviet Union during World War II, and did not officially admit Soviet guilt until 1990. It was the Nazis who found the graves, in 1943.
Poland still hopes that those responsible for the executions could will be punished, and President Vladimir Putin called his Polish counterpart Aleksander Kwasniewski in April to offer help investigating the crime.
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It seemed as if we had plenty of time in Latvia on vacation. Still, in the end, it was a mad rush to get to see everyone before we left. Silvija and her dad got to spend a few more days there than Peters. One evening was spent with relatives, going for a cruise along the Daugava. Here's the sun setting behind the TV tower. The "beam of light" up out of the sun is an artifact of the digital camera — but we liked it and left it in!
