Sveiki!!

While it hasn't dominated the news, a milestone was reached in the current Latvian administration when President Vaira Vike-Freiberga met with Vladimir Putin. In the news this week:

• Putin plays the old saw about Latvian mistreating Russians, Vike-Freiberga tells him to get his facts straight
• Vike-Freiberga appears on Russian TV and takes the heat
• Some day Latvia will learn that just because something is imported it's not better -- mad cow disease is likely as the result of imported livestock feed made from animal products, not to mention Latvia importing 600 livestock from countries suffering from mad cow outbreaks
• Latvian doctors recommend early release for Farbtukh; Farbtukh was the head of the NKVD in Daugavpils -- so he's getting off lightly, in our opinion
• Russians complain again about proposed U.S. missile defense, insist they are abiding by all treaties, then threaten "retaliatory measures" should the Baltics join NATO
• Monitoring for mad cow is being increased in the Baltics; public appears concerned but there's no sign of panic

This week's link is to the Riga Graduate School of Law, sent to us by one of our readers. (Thank you!)

Every time it's a bit warmer here in New York, we hope it's a sign of early spring, and a portent of summer to come. This week's picture is of summer in Riga.

As always, 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 thanks to those of you who wrote back to let us know that our new method of sending the mailer has solved the formating problems we were having!

Ar visu labu,

Our picture of No. 2a Alberta iela last week prompted a reader to send us a link to the Riga Graduate School of Law (URL: www.rgsl.edu.lv). They are the renovators of No. 13 Alberta iela, where the school will hold its official unveiling this upcoming March 7th. The "opening" will be presided over by President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. The public is invited to tour the newly restored edifice. Ah, if we could only find the reason and the money (and the time) to afford office space there!

AP WorldStream Sunday, February 11, 2001 1:45:00 PM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

    MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin urged better treatment of ethnic Russians in Latvia and told his Latvian counterpart that more work is needed to improve tense relations between their nations.
    Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, meanwhile, said Sunday that her Saturday night meeting with Putin in Austria was a first step toward improving ties. It was their first meeting and a rare encounter by top Latvian and Russian officials.
    "This could be the beginning of an important improvement in the climate between our countries," Vike-Freiberga said at a news conference upon her return to Riga, the Latvian capital.
    Putin dismissed accusations of imperialist attitudes in Russia toward Latvia. "We are prepared to resolve all problems no matter how acute they would appear. ... We only ask that the same rules be applied in relation to Latvia's Russian-speaking population as are applied to ethnic minorities in Europe," he was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.
    Vike-Freiberga rejected charges of discrimination. In some cases, "Mr. Putin has insufficient information that does not correspond to the actual situation in Latvia," she said. "No one wants to harm or oppress (Russian-speakers in Latvia) in any way."
    Russia's relations with the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been strained since they won independence with the 1991 Soviet collapse. Russia has been particularly critical of alleged discrimination against Latvia's million-strong Russian minority through citizenship and language laws. Latvia, meanwhile, accuses Russia of failing to accept responsibility for Soviet atrocities in the Baltics.
    The two leaders refrained from discussing the desire of the three Baltic states to join the NATO alliance, another contentious issue, opting to take it up at future meetings, the Latvian president said.

Reuters North America Monday, February 12, 2001 3:17:00 PM
Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd.

    MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Latvia's president was grilled on Russian television Monday about her country's treatment of its Russian-speaking minority but was optimistic about ties with Moscow after meeting President Vladimir Putin at the weekend.
    President Vaira Vike-Freiberga met Putin Saturday, the first meeting between the two neighbors' presidents since 1994 when relations became mired in mutual recriminations over Latvia's Russian minority.
    "Our approach to minorities is simple. We want to have an open, democratic society where the rule of law is equal for all and there are no privileged citizens," Vike-Freiberga told ORT television, Russia's most widely watched channel.
    "We really did agree on the need to put ties between Latvia and Russia on a new footing," she said of her talks with Putin.
    Bilateral relations have been poor since Latvia regained its independence amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
    Russia says post-Soviet laws passed by Latvia are aimed at disenfranchising Russian speakers, accounting for one-third of the 2.4 million population, by making it hard for them to get citizenship.
    Latvia denies this, but says it had to introduce laws so that people who arrived after it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, mostly Russian speakers, could take language and history tests to become naturalized as citizens of post-Soviet Latvia.
    Vike-Freiberga also denied that cases opened against several former members of the Soviet army or secret police amounted to a campaign against former servicemen.
    "There is no public swell of opinion to engage in any sort of persecution of those who served in the Red Army and of course there is no persecution on the basis of them being Russian," she said.
    Russia has protested about the cases of former partisan Vasily Kononov and former secret police official Yevgeny Savenko, prosecuted and convicted despite being in their 80s.
    The Latvian leader said she was trying to get to grips with the Russian language. "I like the Russian sense of humor, I wasn't familiar with it before," she said, adding that she was learning from children's books.

COMTEX Newswire Tuesday, February 13, 2001 10:19:00 PM
Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

    RIGA (Feb. 14) XINHUA -- Mad cow disease will be possibly occur soon in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the Latvian news agency reported Tuesday.
    The governments of the three Baltic countries are now adopting emergency measures to prevent the disease from spreading, the agency added.
    Studies conducted by Germany's Ministry of Agriculture showed that young cattle would suffer from mad cow disease if they are fed with feed made from animal bone or fat stuff.
    The three Baltic countries have been importing such feed from Germany since 1997. An official of the German agriculture ministry said that the latent period of the mad cow disease ranges from three to six years. So such disease will be possibly occurred in the three countries in the coming years.
    Nine types of feed enriched with animal bones imported from the Netherlands and Denmark are now still used to feed young cattle and pigs in Latvia, which has also imported recently 600 head of cattle from the countries suffering mad cow disease.
    According to a survey carried out by a governmental department concerned in Latvia , one third of the Latvian population have begun to eat less beef because of fear for the mad cow disease.
    The governments of Lithuania and Estonia have also appealed to their people to take precaution measures against the disease and even not to eat confections containing animal gel or other animal stuff.

AP WorldStream Wednesday, February 14, 2001 2:01:00 PM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
By STEVEN C. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

    RIGA, Latvia (AP) -- A medical panel said Wednesday that an ex-secret police agent serving a prison sentence for participating in Stalinist-era atrocities is too sick to remain in jail and suggested a court consider his early release.
    Mikhail Farbtukh, 84, was convicted in 1999 for deporting scores of Latvians in 1941 and given a seven-year prison term, later reduced to five years on appeal. He began serving his term in Riga's Matisa Prison last May.
    Prosecutors and prison authorities ordered a medical examination of Farbutkh, who can barely walk and needs round-the-clock attention, last year.
    "Taking into account his old age, poor health and numerous ailments as well as the fact that he cannot take care of himself, we recommend the court consider issuing an order to release him," the doctors said in a statement.
    Officials had earlier said Farbtukh could not be released but could be moved to the more comfortable prison hospital if he was deemed to be seriously ill.
    However, Vitolds Zahars, director of the Prison Authority, said Wednesday that judges also had the option of commuting his sentence and releasing him outright.
    Farbtukh's lawyers initially appealed to President Vaira Vike-Freiberga for a pardon last October, but Latvian law requires that inmates serve at least half their terms before becoming eligible to receive presidential clemency.
    Zahars said he agrees with the doctors' finding.
    "He cannot walk, he cannot dress himself, he cannot go to the bathroom without help," he said. "He's paid his debt."
    The doctors' report has been sent to prosecutors, who are expected to pass it on to a Riga district court for a ruling. Zahars declined to predict how long the process could take.
    Farbtukh and another man in Estonia, 76-year-old Karl-Leonhard Paulov, are the only two men known to be serving jail time for repressions carried out in the Soviet Union.
    Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are the only former Soviet republics to have prosecuted former secret police. They say they're shedding light on the dark Stalinist era and bringing long overdue justice to victims of Soviet atrocities.
    But Russian officials have strongly criticized Farbtukh's conviction, saying Latvia was exacting revenge on an ailing, elderly man.
    Farbtukh became chief of the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB, in the Latvian city of Daugavpils after the Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic states in 1940. He was accused of deporting 31 families, including children, to Siberia.

AP WorldStream Friday, February 16, 2001 7:57:00 AM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
By DEBORAH SEWARD
Associated Press Writer

    MOSCOW (AP) -- The Russian military intensified its attack on the U.S. plan to create a national missile defense system, with a senior general saying Friday that the proposed shield would lead to a new arms race and destroy existing security systems.
    Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the international cooperation department of the Russian Defense Ministry, said the rhetoric of the new administration of President George W. Bush was "anti-Russian" and aimed at reducing Russia's prestige and power in the world.
    Ivashov is a leader of a Russian campaign to counter U.S. allegations that Russia is spreading nuclear missile technology to such countries as North Korea and Iran. The United States says a new missile defense system is needed to counter a potential nuclear threat from such "rogue nations."
    "Talk of the necessity to develop a national missile defense system to counter threats of strikes of intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea, Iran and Iraq on the territory of the United States is pure fantasy. Nobody in the world believes that story," Ivashov told a news conference. He said that such a system would be aimed at China and Russia.
    U.S. proposals to develop a limited missile defense system were just the first step in a plan to develop a full missile system "that would disrupt the current security balance" and "a new arms race" that would include space weapons, Ivashov said.
    "It's hard to believe that the United States, having spent dlrs 6 billion, or 60 or 100 billion, would limit the system to intercepting 10-20 missiles," Ivashov said.
    Meanwhile, the Russian armed forces on Friday test-launched two ballistic missiles, one from a land-based silo in northwestern Russia and the other from a nuclear-powered submarine in the Barents Sea. Officials said that both hit their targets in a test range on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, some 7,000 kilometers (4,200 miles) to the east.
    Russian opposition to the Bush administration's security policy has intensified following a television interview with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday in which he called Moscow "part of the problem" of nuclear proliferation.
    Ivashov stressed that Russia was fulfilling its international treaty obligations, and he again denied media reports that Russia either already had or planned to transfer tactical nuclear weapons to the Kaliningrad region on the Baltic Sea.
    Russia will be seeking a joint assessment of new nuclear threats and intends to discuss a new mobile, non-strategic anti-missile system with NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, Ivashov said.
    Robertson is to visit Moscow next week. The visit is part of a NATO effort for better relations with Russia, which were badly damaged as a result of the alliance's air campaign against Yugoslavia nearly two years ago and by NATO plans to further expand eastward.
    NATO expansion remains unacceptable for Russia, Ivashov said, adding that his country would take retaliatory measures if the alliance were to accept Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as members.

AP WorldStream Friday, February 16, 2001 11:05:00 AM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
By STEVEN C. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

    RIGA, Latvia (AP) -- The three ex-Soviet Baltic republics have stepped up checks for mad-cow disease in their livestock amid reports they may have imported contaminated feed or cattle from abroad.
    "Awareness of the (mad cow) problem isn't new, but we're growing more concerned," Martins Roze of Latvia's Agriculture Ministry said Friday.
    No cases have been detected in the three coastal countries, but a European Union report released earlier this week warned that bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, as mad cow disease is known, has probably already spread to Lithuania, which has imported 1,900 live cattle and 30,800 tons of meat-and-bone meal from EU nations since 1993.
    The disease, which has been linked to a similar brain-wasting, fatal ailment in humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is believed to be spread by feed containing the ground tissue of other mammals.
    German veterinary service head, Werner Zwingmann, said Tuesday in Riga that all three Baltic countries also may face risks from imported milk substitutes, which contain animal fat, that were fed to calves starting in 1997.
    The agriculture ministries in all three countries were quick to announce this week that tests have so far turned up no signs of mad-cow disease. But observers said people should face up to the possibility that local cows might be infected.
    "Without wanting to scare the reader, we have to realize that we no longer can claim for sure that Estonia is not in danger," Estonia's Postimees newspaper wrote in an editorial.
    The EU's report, which did not name Estonia and Latvia as high-risk areas for BSE, has already dented beef sales in Lithuania, industry officials said.
    "The demand for beef has dropped dramatically, as main sausage producers are shifting to the pork," Marijonas Burklys of Lithuania's Association of Meat Processors said.
    Any economic impact of a BSE scare could be particularly severe in Lithuania, where the agricultural sector accounts for around 10 percent of economic growth. In Latvia and Estonia that figure is under 5 percent.
    While the Baltic states are considered the economic successes of the former Soviet Union, they remain relatively poor and wouldn't be able to compensate farmers to the extent Western European countries have.
    European officials say the Baltics -- which all made EU membership a top goal after they regained independence after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union -- have good food safety rules on the books but sometimes lacked the money, equipment and knowledge to implement them.
    Bernard Fordet, of the European Commission office in Riga, also said individual farmers should be more aware.
    "Farmers need to start looking at their animals and calling for veterinary checks, even before the disease might be detected," he said.
    Latvia plans to set aside 65,000 lats (dlrs 106,000) for new equipment to test livestock and feed for traces of BSE. Estonian and Lithuanian food safety officials have asked for government money to do more testing.
    On the streets of the Baltic capitals, most people expressed some concern about the issue -- but few showed signs of panic.
    "I'm a little worried, because there's no guarantee the meat's safe," 24-year-old student Nikolai Kuzmin said in Riga. While Kuzmin said wouldn't stop eating beef completely, he may cut down in favor of pork and chicken.
 

A mother and daughter romp in Kronvalda parks, north of the National Theater. As Peters recalls, he could hear the girl happily shrieking in Russian...no signs of Putin's "Latvian oppression" here. This picture is from Peters' visit in August, 1997.