GallerySaturday, 21 October 2000
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Subj: Lat Mailer & AOL Reminder
for Sunday, October 22
Date: 00.10.21
File:
D:\+www.latvians.com\Oct94\Picts\Canal-bastejkalns.jpg (61314 bytes)
DL Time
(32000 bps): < 1 minute
Sveiki, all!
Sprinkled in-between some dismal autumn days have
been some wonderful sunny ones as well, bringing out the fall colors starting
to appear here in New York. With a little luck, we might even make it out for a
stroll along the shore, today!
Of course, it's first things first... so
on to the news:
- Russian, Baltic interior ministers to discuss cooperation on crime fighting
- Germany urges fair distribution of compensation to victims of Nazism
- Russia's export of ammunition cartridges grows 20-fold (the U.S. and Latvia counted among the destinations, what does that say about the world?)
- Vaira Vike-Freiberga urges NATO to step up expansion plans
and, regionally:
- Norway supports Lithuania's plan to shut down reactor (Lithuania's power reactor complex is a Chernobyl style design, so the sooner the better!)
This week's link continues last week's youth
theme, but under much happier circumstances
This week's
picture is of autumn in Riga.
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. And thanks to you participating on the Latvian message board
as well: Click here: LATVIA (both on
AOL only).
Our apologies for not keeping the mailer archive updated over
the past few weeks, we'll get to it when we can!
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 the Valhalla News, which features current
events concerning children’s and youth culture in the Nordic and Baltic
States.
Valhalla
News
http://valhalla.norden.org/eng/info_uk/news_uk/index.html
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(c) 2000 ITAR-TASS/zak
The ministers plan to discuss ways to enhance cooperation in the fight against crime, including terrorism, organised crime and illegal trafficking in drugs and arms, as well as joint work in such areas as logistics and the training of personnel.
The interior ministers of the four countries are expected to sign a protocol which will call for closer cooperation in various areas.
Rushailo also plans to sign a protocol on cooperation with the Latvian Interior Ministry in 2001-2002.
He will return to Moscow on October 18.
(c) 2000 ITAR-TASS/vfp
He said problems exist as under the German plan the funds allocated for the victims of Nazism in Latvia and Lithuania are to be channelled via Moscow but the state of the Baltia disagree with the planned procedure.
The German government allotted a total of over one billion German marks to pay compensation to the victims of the Nazi regime who now reside in the former Soviet republics. A special fund, "Memory, responsibility, future", has been set up under the law passed by the German Bundestag on July 6, 2000 to provide "material assistance to the former inmates of the Nazi concentration camps," Otto Lambsdorf said.
(c) 2000 ITAR-TASS/pop/ast
The major exporters of combat and civilian ammunition are the Tula cartridge-making plant and the Novosibirsk low-voltage equipment-manufacturing plant public joint-stock companies. Deliveries were made to the following 12 countries: the United States, Singapore, Mongolia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Britain, Moldavia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Latvia.
Nationally-produced small arms ammunition excels foreign analogues in a number of characteristics. By the middle of this year Russian enterprises mastered the manufacture of about 30 lists of cartridges of new purpose.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
By Burton Frierson
The appeal was made by President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who like other leaders of the formerly Soviet Baltic states has been pressing for membership of the NATO military alliance against fierce opposition from Russia.
Latvia and fellow Baltic states Lithuania and Estonia were disappointed by NATO's decision to leave it out of its first post-Cold War expansion in 1999 when it admitted Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
Baltic leaders were heartened by the military alliance's promise to keep the door open and hope it will decide to admit them at its next major summit in 2002, although no promises have been made.
"However, we are concerned by the fact that currently, serious planning for the next step of NATO enlargement does not seem to be particularly high on the agenda of NATO's member countries," Vike-Freiberga told a conference on Baltic regional security.
"I therefore urge NATO's constituent members to fulfil the promise made at the Washington summit to build a Europe free of ideological and military divisions," she said.
Latvia joined its fellow NATO candidates earlier this year in calling for a big-bang expansion that would bring in the nine central and east European aspirants in one wave.
Vike-Freiberga said some 60 percent of Latvians supported NATO membership and that the tiny Baltic country had proven it could contribute to security in the region through peace-keeping and other means.
"Latvians have been able to contribute important intelligence to their NATO allies in terms of planned movement of illegal arms during the Kosovo crisis as a result of which this movement of illegal arms was stopped," she said.
She did not explain further the incident she linked to the crisis over Kosovo, which caused NATO to bomb Yugoslavia last year over then-president Slobodan Milosevic's persecution of ethnic Albanians in the province.
The Baltic states have faced opposition from Russia over their NATO bids, which has hardened their resolve to join the alliance after emerging in 1991 from five decades of Soviet occupation and centuries of Russian domination.
They say leaving them out of the alliance would put them in an uncertain position in the region.
"Grey zones have always been, are and always will be potential sources of conflict," Harri Tiido, deputy under-secretary for policy, press and information affairs at the Estonian foreign ministry, told the same conference.
(C) 2000 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD
Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's Prime Minister, expressed satisfaction with the proposal after meeting with the Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus in Oslo. During Adamkus' official visit to Norway, the question of possible supplies of Norwegian gas to Lithuania was also discussed, according to Itar-Tass.
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This week's picture is of autumn in Latvia, a view of the city canal from the base of Bastejkalns, in Riga. It's from almost exactly the same day as today, from Peters' trip six years ago. Enjoy the fall colors!
