MOSCOW/VALKENBURG, Netherlands, Sept 4 (Reuters) — Russia denounced on Saturday as "blasphemous" a request by the European Union's Dutch presidency for an explanation for the bloody end to a mass hostage seizure at a school by Chechen gunmen.
      But Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, who made the request in a statement on Friday on behalf of the EU presidency, said he had been misunderstood and he would try to calm the row by talking to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
      "There obviously was a misunderstanding," Bot told a news conference after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Netherlands. "My words have been misinterpreted. I never said that I needed to be ... informed."
      More than 320 people, almost half of them children, were found dead after troops stormed a school on Friday in the southern Russian town of Beslan, where Chechen separatists had held more than 1,000 hostages for 53 hours.
      In a statement issued in the name of the EU presidency on Friday, Bot said all countries should work together to stop such tragedies, adding: "We also would like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened."
      The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted with outrage to Bot's statement, and Interfax news agency said the Dutch ambassador had been summoned to the ministry to explain.
      "Mr Bot's elaborations are an absolute contrast with the wide international support and solidarity with Russia in these tragic days," a ministry statement said.
      "Inappropriate statements by the Dutch minister look odious ... and blasphemous," it said. "We expect explanations from the Dutch side."
      Bot said had only sought more information from Moscow and had not intended to criticise.
      "I will certainly set the record straight with my colleague Lavrov later in the day," he said.
      "In the context of the fact that we are dealing with a global scourge ... it would be very useful if there was more intensive cooperation between all countries in the world, both in the preliminary stage when we are trying to prevent such things and in the aftermath, because we can all learn from each other," he said.
      At Valkenburg in the Netherlands, where the EU ministers were meeting, Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds told reporters she understood the Russian reaction and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said it would be "a very premature and wrong judgment" to fault the Russian security forces.
      But diplomats said former Soviet republic Latvia had pressed the EU at the meeting to react more strongly to the Russian handling of the siege.

      LIEPAJA, Latvia (AP) — After the ill-tempered guard clanged the cell door shut, the darkness was enveloping and complete. Then lights flashed and a voice barked: "Face the wall! Hands behind your back!"
      In the room, under pictures of Lenin and Stalin, a stern-faced Soviet army officer sat hunched over a desk, smoking. "What are you doing in a restricted military zone?" he demanded.
      So began an unusual Latvian exercise in retro-chic: a night in a Soviet-era slammer.
      Each weekend, about 25 people pay 5 Lats ($9.20) to spend the night being bullied and interrogated in a prison haunted by Latvia's 20th century miseries. Real and fake mix together in grisly harmony: Visitors witness the re-enactment of a prisoner being shot after his third escape attempt and visit the mass grave of 160 real inmates nearby.
      Those inmates were shot during the 1941-44 German occupation of Latvia. Then came the Soviet reoccupation which ended in 1991. Now, comes the age of nostalgia as this Baltic democracy of 2.3 million people moves ever further from its painful past.
      Tourists and locals alike can experience it in the prison at the Karosta, or "war port," in the coastal city of Liepaja.
      Built originally as a military hospital in 1903, the red-brick building was converted to a prison two years later and used until 1997.
      The prison sat empty until 2002, when a group of Liepaja residents led by tourism agent Liga Engelmane formed the Partnership to Save Karosta, whose well-chosen Latvian initials are KGB, and offered interactive tours.
      "Inmates" can pay $3.70 for a 90-minute daytime tour that includes being locked in a cell and a trip to the infirmary, or buy the $9.20 package billed as an "extreme night."
      Extreme nights are not for the fainthearted. The cubicles are damp and the "extreme toilet" is four holes in the floor. Visitors do calisthenics to stay warm and sleep on planks with fleas for company. Those who disobey orders may be sent to solitary confinement. "You are exiting Hell," says an inscription above the door, written by a real-life inmate long ago.
      Liepaja, like many Latvian cities, is losing many vestiges of its Soviet past as it becomes more westernized. Sunbathers now cover Liepaja's white sand beaches where Soviet tanks were once stationed with their guns pointed toward a possible Baltic Sea invasion.
      Even Karosta, for five decades a restricted military zone, now has an artists' commune occupying a former military headquarters and an art gallery nearby displaying their work.
      So why go through all this when you can lie on Liepaja's sandy beaches or enjoy the nearby art display?
      "It allows you to return to the past and to see how it was really done," said Martins Jaungailis, a 20-year-old college student from Riga, the capital.
      Jaunus Tammeaed, 39, came from neighboring Estonia with vacationing employees of the AGA industrial gas company. He said the experience brought back memories of his Soviet army service in the 1980s.
      "I don't feel threatened, so it's not so realistic in that way," Tammeaed said. "But it's a good idea for anyone who hasn't lived through those times."
      Gunta Insberga, the gas company's Latvian representative who arranged the tour, explained that the group wanted to do something other than visit art exhibitions, attend concerts and sit around in bars.
      "Sometimes it's more interesting in a pile of dung," she said, laughing. "We thought this would be a good way to end our trip."
      "I had never slept on a wooden plank before," she said. "Everyone is going to remember this for the longest time."
      KGB's Engelmane said the idea was to save a bit of history for future generations.
      "The Soviet era was painful for us," she said, "but we want to retain a part of it because there is already an entire generation in Latvia that has not grown up in the Soviet system."
      She said she has heard no criticism of the tours. In fact, former prisoners have walked KGB staff around the prison, handing out tips on how to make the experience more authentic.
      The tour revenues pay for salaries and have raised more than $5,500 for badly needed renovations, said Engelmane. Business is good, she said; every "extreme night" this summer has been fully booked.

      MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has complained to the European Union that one of its new members, Latvia, is continuing to violate the rights of the Baltic nation's Russian-speaking minority, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
      About one-third of Latvia's people are native Russian-speakers and they contend that laws aimed at strengthening the Latvian language discriminate against them.
      On the first day of school last week, thousands of Russian-speaking students and their parents converged in a rally to vent anger over a new law requiring a majority of school subjects to be taught in Latvian.
      The EU, which Latvia joined this year, says Latvian language laws conform to European minority rights standards.
      But Russia's Foreign Ministry, in its statement, said, "Neither Russia nor, more importantly, our compatriots in Latvia have noticed positive dynamics in the solution of well-known problems with the rights of the Russian-speaking population in the country after its accession to the European Union."
      It contended that since EU accession, the Latvian authorities have "considerably increased anti-Russian rhetoric."
      Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, then invaded by Nazi forces who were later driven out by the Red Army. The complicated wartime history has led many Latvians to praise pro-Nazi units because they fought against the Soviets.
      The Russian Foreign Ministry raised its concerns on Monday in meetings with Dutch representatives of the European Union, the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council of Europe, the statement said.

      RIGA, Sept 7 (Reuters) — Latvia's unpopular minority coalition government was plunged into more trouble on Tuesday as its key backers in parliament called a vote of no confidence.
      "Today we called for a vote of no confidence against this government, and hopefully the vote will come on Thursday next week," Janis Jurkans, leader of the left-wing National Harmony Party, told Reuters.
      Jurkans said his party — which has propped up the minority right-wing government in parliament since it was formed this year -- had called the vote of no confidence over the government's decision to proceed with education reforms that will limit the use of Russian in Russian-language high schools.
      The ex-Soviet republic and EU newcomer has a large minority of ethnic Russians who settled during the Soviet era, and there have been a wave of protests since the controversial reform was approved earlier this year.
      Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks, a member of the conservative People's Party, said he pinned his hopes of political survival on a splintered opposition.
      "The opposition in this country is not very united," he told Reuters, expecting the vote would fail as the opposition is divided sharply between left-wing and right-wing parties and could have difficulty agreeing on the vote.
      Earlier on Tuesday, his own party ended a month of discussions with the opposition New Era party of former Prime Minister Einars Repse about toppling the current three-party government and forming a new majority coalition.
      Both parties are concerned that the current government would be too weak to pass a tight 2005 budget to avoid the booming economy overheating and keep the EU newcomer's ambitious 2007 euro entry goal on track.
      The talks ended when the two disagreed on which party should hold the premiership.
      A New Era spokeswoman said the party disagreed with the reasons behind the no-confidence vote, but did not rule out backing it in order to oust the current government.
      New Era formed a right-wing coalition after winning 2002 elections, but was toppled in February after a personal spat between Repse and his deputy caused the coalition to collapse.
      With no end in sight to the resulting political vacuum, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga picked Indulis Emsis from the Union of Farmers and Greens to form a new coalition.
      Many analysts saw the appointment as a short-lived stopgap solution to avoid entering the EU in May without a government, and expected Europe's first Green prime minister would soon be out of office.

      GENEVA (Reuters) — A suicide takes place somewhere around the world every 40 seconds, or nearly one million a year, and the rate looks set to surge over the next two decades, international health experts said on Wednesday.
      Although men in their sixties — retirement age — are by far most likely to die at their own hand, the numbers among younger men between 15 and 29 are rising, largely because of availability of guns, the experts told a news conference.
      "Suicide is a major public health problem and accounts for 1.5 percent of the total cost of disease to world society," said Jose Bertolote, mental health specialist at the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO).
      "But it is largely preventable if the public is made more aware of the problem and governments show the political will to tackle it," said Lars Mehlum, President of the Paris-based International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).
      Mehlum, professor of psychology at Oslo University in Norway, said studies in many countries showed that restrictions on the accessability of firearms, especially to young people, brought reductions in the number of successful suicides.
      "Guns are the most lethal instrument of suicide. Few people survive attempts to shoot themselves," he added. But there was resistance in some countries, especially the United States, to reduce the number in circulation.
      The two were speaking in advance of the IASP'S World Suicide Prevention Day, to be marked globally on Friday with campaigning to raise awareness of the problem and how it can be tackled.
      EX-COMMUNIST STATES HIT
      Although up-to-date detailed national figures from all around the world were not available, according to WHO officials, former communist states -- Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Latvia and Hungary -- had the highest rates.
      In largely Catholic and rural Lithuania, some 42 people in every 100,000 were estimated to have committed suicide in the year 2000, 40 per 100,000 in Estonia, and nearly 38 in Russia.
      The next five were Sri Lanka, ex-Soviet Kazakhstan and Belarus, Slovenia and Finland, according to figures for the year 2000 issued by the Geneva-based Organization.
      Mehlum said the high rates in the Baltic region and Russia could be partly explained by the social turmoil caused by the transition from state-run economies with job stability to open market systems, and partly by longer historical trends.
      Alcoholism, a cause of the depression that leads to suicide, is traditionally strong in Russia and its Baltic neighbors, and restrictions on sale of strong drink -- as shown by a now-abandoned campaign in the last years of the old Soviet Union -- also help reduce the rates, Mehlum said.
      In number terms, China — where, in contrast to the rest of the world, there are more women suicides than men -- had most with 195,000, a rate of 16 for every 100,000 people. India came next with 87,000, a rate of 9.7, and then Russia with 52,500.
      The United States was fourth with 31,000 in the year 2000. But its rate of nearly 12 in 100,000 put it at 38th in the overall league for completed, or successful, suicides per head of the population.
      Mehlum said suicides among women in the Chinese countryside were very high. The most common means was drinking widely used and highly toxic pesticides, many of which are banned in richer countries, and more careful storage would cut the death rate.

      COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Travel officials in Denmark said Thursday they'll work with tourist officials in several Baltic Sea countries to promote more cruise ship visits to ports there.
      Already Scandinavia's biggest air travel hub, Copenhagen wants to become the center for the cruise ship industry, too, for the region, including the Baltic states.
      This year, some 280,000 cruise ship passengers are expected in the Danish capital, and their numbers are increasing, said Ole Andersen, marketing manager with the city's tourism agency, Wonderful Copenhagen. The forecast figure for 2005 is 350,000 passengers, he said.
      "Copenhagen is one of the pearls on the string that mostly American tourists want to see," Andersen said, adding that St. Petersburg, Russia, and Stockholm, Sweden, were the other popular stops for the giant ships during the summer travel months.
      "Many Americans want to set foot in Russia, and especially in St. Petersburg," he said, adding the city's famed State Hermitage Museum and the palaces where Russia's czar lived were major tourist draws.
      Because Copenhagen is a turnaround port — meaning tourists fly in and out for cruises -- Wonderful Copenhagen presented a three-year project with nine other Baltic Sea port cities to boost the number of cruise ships coming in and out of the Baltic Sea.
      The aim, organizers said, is to increase cooperation and harmonize docking procedures and increase the number of visitors by 20 percent through 2007.
      "We want all the ports of call to be good. All must have the same kind of facilities and offer the same kind of service," Andersen said.
      No overall figure for the region was available, but Andersen said that "most of the 350,000 passengers expected (in Copenhagen) for 2005 visit several of the Baltic Sea ports."
      The Ç1.3 million (US$1.1 million) project is partly financed by the European Union, Scandinavian airline SAS and the participating ports.
      They include Gdynia, Poland; Helsinki and Turku in Finland; Klaipeda, Lithuania; Riga, Latvia; Rostock, Germany; Oslo, Norway; Stockholm and Kalmar in Sweden; and Copenhagen.
      St. Petersburg and Tallinn, the Estonian capital, will take part as observers.
      "Northern Europe has become a bigger cruise destination than the Mediterranean Sea because of the instability in the eastern part of Mediterranean with the Middle East and Turkey," he said. "Because of fears of terrorism, many (tourists) have moved their cruises up here."
      He also noted that the number of cruise passengers has increased because the ships have gotten larger.
      "Before, most ships could only carry between 800 and 1,000 passengers," Andersen said. "Now, they can carry hey can have 3,500-4,000 passengers," he said.
      Last year, 17.7 million travelers transited through the Copenhagen airport, Scandinavia's hub.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — A group of lawmakers in Latvia's capital wants to rename a street that honors the first post-Soviet president of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
      Deputy Mayor Sergei Dolgopolov filed a request to rename the street in the wake of last week's massacre of some 300 people held hostage in a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan. Russian officials said Thursday that six of the attackers were separatist rebels from Chechnya.
      Dolgopolov said the late Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev, who died in 1996, could not be blamed for the Beslan hostage crisis. But he could be tied to the roots of terrorism as the first president of separatist Chechnya in post-Soviet Russia, the deputy mayor said.
      Dolgopolov told the state news agency LETA that he would like to see the avenue go back to its original moniker: Cosmonaut Street.
      A vote could take place next week, but it was unclear whether the request submitted by Dolgopolov's Different Politics faction had enough support to pass. Dolgopolov was unavailable for comment Thursday.
      Chechen leader Dudayev had been an outspoken advocate for Baltic independence before the 1991 Soviet collapse and, while a commander in the Red Army, refrained from sending his troops to take over Estonia's television and parliament buildings during that country's independence movement.
      As the Soviet Union dissolved and 14 former republics became nations, he declared Chechnya independent as well. Russian President Boris Yeltsin, however, refused to recognize the independence, and sent troops to the separatist republic.
      There is a plaque honoring Dudayev in Tartu, Estonia, and a square in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius that bears his name.
      The street in Riga was named for Dudayev after his death.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvian agriculture officials said Thursday they seized nearly 23 tons of expired canned herring originally produced for the U.N. World Food Program six years ago, but was being sold illegally by fishmongers from carts in the capital's bustling outdoor markets.
      Inspectors and police raided a Riga warehouse Wednesday and seized 22,848 kilograms (50,371 pounds) of canned herring marked "not for sale." The cans were manufactured in 1998 in Norway for the World Food Program and expired in February 2002, food surveillance inspector Maris Balodis said.
      Balodis said an investigation is underway of a Norwegian company called "Norway Fish" and a Latvian company called "Karavela." According to the customs order, said Balodis, Norway Fish sold the cans to Karvela.
      "We have a company in Norway that is selling these products to the EU market and a Latvian company that is buying it," he said.
      Telephone listings or addresses for either company could not be located.
      Francis Mwanza, a WFP spokesman in Rome, said that the cans were part of a shipment of 300,000 cans that were rejected by the agency.
      He said the cans were to have been stripped of the WFP logo and destroyed.
      "As far as we are concerned the company should have disposed of the logos and the commodities," he said, adding that once the WFP rejected them, monitoring their disposal was no longer its priority.
      The cans seized in the raid were shipped from Norway to the Latvian city of Ventspils on Aug. 22. From there, they were sent to the capital, Riga, for distribution.
      Police first discovered the cans being sold illegally by hand in the Riga's outdoor markets in July but were unable to arrest the vendors, who fled when they saw the police, Balodis said.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage expressed concern Tuesday about the sweeping anti-terrorism initiatives announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing them as "out of step" with U.S. hopes for more democracy in Russia.
      Putin told Cabinet members and security officials convened in a special session Monday in Moscow that the future of Russia was at stake, and called for the creation of a central, powerful anti-terror agency. His decree, signed late Monday, gave the government one month to draw up proposals.
      Despite the plans for the new anti-terrorism agency, the proposals were short on security measures, focusing instead on electoral changes, including the elimination of popularly elected governors and an overhaul of the way Russians elect their parliament -- a measure likely to increase the control of the dominant, pro-Kremlin faction.
      Armitage acknowledged he hadn't seen Putin's proposed plan in its entirety, but said "...it appeared to me that Mr. Putin was announcing that he would not have popularly elected governors but, rather, appointed ones. And this seems to be out of step with the way that we'd hoped that Russia was heading -- that is, to a much more open and democratic society."
      Armitage was meeting with Latvian government officials as part of a nearly weeklong trip through Norway, Latvia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland.
      Critics called Putin's measures a blow to democracy, and warned that Putin's reliance on topdown control ultimately could weaken Russia by driving those in power further from the citizens they rule.
      Some government critics also suggested that Putin's decision to focus on electoral changes was a sign he lacks practical ideas about protecting Russia after a series of stunning terror attacks blamed on Chechen rebels, climaxing in the school siege last week that killed more than 330 people.
      Putin's plan is being watched closely by Latvian officials. Latvia, on Russia's western border, regained its independence from the Soviet Union amid the 1991 Soviet collapse. Latvian officials have often accused Moscow of interfering in internal Latvian affairs to drum up political support back home.
      Armitage met with Latvian Prime Minister Indulis Emsis on Tuesday and said he wanted to thank the Latvian government for its support for the U.S.-led mission in Iraq.
      Latvia, which joined NATO earlier this year, has 133 soldiers serving in Iraq and nine soldiers serving as part of the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. One Latvian soldier has been killed in Iraq.

      VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — A Russian-controlled television channel that angered many Lithuanians by recently claiming their country had voluntarily joined the Soviet Union in 1940 may soon get knocked off the air in Lithuania.
      The First Baltic Channel, broadcast in Lithuania on cable, claimed in a history show last month that the Baltic state, independent at the time, voluntarily joined the Soviet Union in 1940.
      That year, the Red Army invaded Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, replaced governments, executed military leaders and started mass deportations to Siberia. The Baltic states were later occupied by Nazi forces, until the Red Army returned and forced the Germans out.
      "We have been outraged by the program First Baltic Channel, which distorted the historic truth about the occupation of Lithuania. We are taking this case very seriously," Jonas Liniauskas, chairman of the independent Radio and Television Commission, said Tuesday.
      The Latvian-registered First Baltic Channel rebroadcasts programs of the Russian ORT TV network in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. It has said the criticism of its history program was unfounded.
      The commission, run by academics, artists and broadcast personalities, has the legal authority to issue and revoke broadcast licenses. It will rule on the case of First Baltic Channel later this week.
      The Radio and Television Commission asked the independent Journalists and Publishers Ethics Commission to evaluate the Russian TV show. That commission Monday recommended First Baltic Channel's broadcast license be revoked.
      If the Radio and Television Commission does decide to do so, it would be the first time that a broadcaster's license was withdrawn in Lithuania.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvia's minority government successfully fended off a no-confidence vote called by an opposition party upset over a contentious law that restricts Russian-language instruction in public schools.
      The vote failed after three parties didn't vote. Thirty-two lawmakers voted to oust the government while 45 voted to keep it in place. A simple majority in the 100-seat Saeima, or parliament, was needed to oust the government.
      The left-wing opposition People's Harmony party, which helped the government of Prime Minister Indulis Emsis take office in March, called for the vote last week. It was upset over what it called the government's refusal to halt the language law, which took effect Sept. 1.
      The law has sparked loud protests from Latvia's native Russian speakers, who have dubbed it discriminatory. Moscow has also voiced its opposition.
      The People's Harmony Party, along with two other left-wing parties represented in the Saeima -- the Latvian Socialists party and For Human Rights in a United Latvia -- draw considerable support from Latvia's Russian-speaking community, which makes up nearly a third of the Baltic state's 2.3 million residents.
      But the Socialists' five lawmakers and For Human Rights' six lawmakers did not vote Thursday because many view the current center-right minority government of Indulis Emsis as preferable to one that would include For Fatherland and Freedom, the most nationalist of the Saeima's five center-right parties.
      For Fatherland and Freedom's six lawmakers did not vote because the no-confidence measure had been called by a left-wing party, leaving the other two opposition parties -- the center-right New Era and the People's Harmony party -- without enough support to oust the government.
      All 45 votes in favor of keeping the government in place came from members of the three-party ruling coalition, which controls 47 seats in the Saeima.
      Latvia has had 11 governments since it regained independence after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

      RIGA, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) — The Baltic air space will continue to be protected, Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Thursday.
      According to reports from Lithuania's Vilnius, the NATO chief made the pledge in a telephone conversation with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis.
      Scheffer said the protection of the Baltic air space will continue after Oct. 1 when Denmark concludes its patrol mission. But he did not say which country will take over.
      Harald Kujat, chairman of NATO's Military Committee, also said when he visited Vilnius earlier this week that the alliance will strictly implement its patrol plan for the Baltic region on a rotating basis. Since the three Baltic countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, joined NATO in March, their air space has been patrolled by NATO aircraft. Belgium was the first country to undertake the mission through June 30, and Denmark took over on July 1.
      Britain is supposed to take over from Denmark on Oct. 1, but it has indicated it can not patrol the region for technical reasons.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvia's parliamentary legal affairs committee has decided which KGB files left behind after the 1991 Soviet collapse should be made public and which to destroy, the committee chairman said Tuesday.
      Only the files of people who informed about ideological matters would be released, while KGB files on crimes such as corruption or smuggling would be kept private, chairman Mareks Seglins said.
      "The idea is not to publicize the names of the people who reported on actual crimes, on violations of the criminal law," Seglins said. "Corruption was still corruption, and contraband was still contraband back then."
      The committee will submit a finalized bill to the 100-member parliament, or Saeima, in the next few weeks for a vote, he said.
      The Saeima voted in May to open the files to public view, but President Vaira Vike-Freiberga sent the bill back to lawmakers to work on, saying the bill didn't stipulate who would have access.
      Vike-Freiberga extended a law barring KGB-linked people from holding public office for another 10 years.
      Almost none of the KGB files contain more than names of active agents in 1991, the dates they were recruited and the signature of the agent who recruited them. Few indicate if the person was an active member or just being watched, officials and police have said.
      Most of the files that show who worked with the KGB and whom they tattled on were taken back to Moscow when the Soviet intelligence service left Latvia in 1992.
      Since 1994, Latvians could see their own files, if they existed, but the contents were made public only if they sought public office or a job in law enforcement. If someone was found to have had connections to the KGB, they were banned from running or employment.
      Most Latvians are resentful of the Soviet occupation and those tied to it.
      In neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, ex-agents were allowed to declare their KGB affiliation to national security agencies to avoid having their names publicized.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Following the lead of Ireland and Norway, Latvian lawmakers are to consider a bill to ban smoking in most public places following its approval in a parliamentary committee Tuesday.
      If passed, the law would outlaw smoking in front of government buildings, in most public places, offices and at beaches. Smokers could still light up in restaurants and bars but only in areas closed off from nonsmoking areas. Smoking would be banned in single-room establishments.
      The committee decided not to include in its proposal a call by former Health Minister Ingrida Circene to ban smoking on the streets of Riga's old town, the heart of the Latvian capital.
      Lawmakers have not determined yet when the proposed ban would be voted on by the entire 100-seat Saeima, or parliament.
      The proposal didn't contain details on how the ban would be enforced or what the penalty for smoking in banned areas would be.
      Ireland's ban calls for a maximum fine of US$3,600 (Ç2,900).
      Any smoking ban is likely to anger Latvia's many smokers. About 33 percent of Latvia's 2.3 million residents are smokers, according to Health Ministry figures.
      Latvian health officials are eager to curtail the country's smoking habits. Health Ministry statistics show an average of 12 Latvians die daily because of smoking-related illnesses. In 2003, 4,380 people died from smoking-related ailments.
      Ireland was the first country to outlaw smoking in enclosed workplaces, modeling its move on similar measures enforced in California and New York City as well as more than a dozen other U.S. states and cities.
      India banned smoking in all public places as of April 30, while New Zealand passed a similar ban to go into force later this year. Neighboring Sweden instituted a ban this year that takes effect in 2005.
      Norway began enforcing similar restrictions in June.

      STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Hundreds of European cities and towns restricted auto traffic Wednesday, part of the continent's annual campaign to lower air pollution by encouraging commuters to use public transportation, bicycles or their feet instead of their cars.
      More than 1,500 municipalities, chiefly in Europe, participated in the seventh annual car-free day campaign by setting up roadblocks to prevent nonessential automobile traffic from entering city centers. The campaign also spread to cities in Japan and South America.
      "Listen how quiet it is here in the middle of the city," said Winnie Berndtson, mayor for environmental affairs in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. "We had 1,700 children playing and learning about traffic today in streets that are normally packed with cars."
      In Stockholm, a busy thoroughfare in the southern part of the capital was closed to all vehicle traffic. People were encouraged to walk or ride bikes to browse shops, and a local group offered historical walking tours of the Soedermalm neighborhood.
      The Austrian capital, Vienna, closed segments of the expansive boulevard encircling downtown for four hours, giving pedestrians and cyclists a chance to take over the Ring Street, normally clogged by cars, trucks, buses, trams and horse-drawn carriages.
      "The European Car Free Day initiative should be a motivator to reshape Austria's traffic policy," said Gabriella Moser, the Green Party's spokeswoman for traffic issues.
      But the closure irked the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, which complained of delays in business deliveries and traffic in surrounding streets.
      "The Environmental Ministry should be more interested in keeping traffic flowing than in causing increased noise and pollution by creating artificial traffic jams," said Heinz Havelka of the group's department for vehicle trade.
      Elsewhere in Europe, commuters pedaled or walked.
      Copenhagen kept open two bus lines and allowed emergency vehicles and local resident traffic. But other cars, cabs and tourist buses were forced to stop at eight manned gates, beyond which bicycles filled the streets.
      Passengers in those vehicles had to either walk or bike beyond the gates.
      About 30 percent of the Danish capital's 1.8 million people bike to work, Berndtson said.
      In the Finnish capital, Helsinki, where commuters make about 700,000 journeys daily on public transportation, customers were offered all-day tickets good on buses, trams, commuter trains and subways for $1.20. They normally cost $6.50.
      Morning rush-hour traffic moved at a snail's pace after central boulevards and main streets were closed to cars.
      "What we are trying to do is make people aware of the alternatives," Environment Ministry official Leena Silfverberg said. "Maybe they will get a spark from the campaign and realize they could go to work in a more environment-friendly way."
      Some European cities, however, kept streets open. In most Italian cities, including Rome, traffic was as bad as usual, and residents remained unaware of the environmental campaign.
      "I wouldn't have used public transport, because one initiative a year would not change the state of things," said Marcello Ramoni, a 26-year-old construction worker driving to work in Rome.
      Latvia has seen traffic in its capital rise rapidly since the country regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It will hold its car-free day Sunday, and is considering imposing a toll on drivers entering the city, similar to one imposed in London.
      "The security and health of our children is the main problem, which is why all drivers should think at least on the 'Car-Free Day' whether they always have to use their cars," Latvian Prime Minister Indulis Emsi said.
      In Athens, Greece, the government decided not to ban cars because of the Paralympic Games. The government, which has banned cars in previous years, said residents should decide how to travel, but it made public transportation free.
      In downtown Zagreb, Croatia's capital, drivers tried to navigate jammed streets near the city center, which was closed to traffic.
      "I'll definitely be late for work," said Jan Jurcic, who was stuck in traffic.
      Others, however, were delighted by the empty streets.
      "That's how it should be," said a cyclist who gave only her first name, Mirjana. "Without cars, you can really enjoy this city."
      — — —
      On the Net:
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      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Lawmakers on Thursday rejected a proposal to let nearly 500,000 ethnic Russians vote in local elections, despite giving the same right to citizens of EU countries who live in the Baltic state.
      The Saeima, or parliament, amended the Constitution to Latvian law in line with EU rules, meaning a resident who is from another EU country, but living in the country permanently, can vote.
      Latvia joined the 25-nation bloc in May, along with neighboring Estonia and Lithuania.
      The bill won't become law until it's signed by President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, which she is expected to do. She has three weeks to approve it or send it back to parliament.
      At the same time, the Saeima rejected another proposal that would have let the residents of the country's cities and towns decide the official working language. Latvian is the country's official language.
      About one-third of Latvia's 2.3 million residents are native Russian-speakers and more than half of them, or about 500,000 people, are non-citizens and cannot vote in municipal, national, or EU elections. Most arrived in Latvia during the five decade-long Soviet occupation of the country or are descendants of those who did.
      Although many non-citizens were born in Latvia, the Latvian government decided after the country regained its independence in 1991 to grant citizenship only to people who held citizenship during Latvia's first period of independence from 1918-1940 and their descendants.
      Left-wing lawmakers, who represent many of the country's native Russian-speaking voters, have argued that the Saeima's refusal to grant municipal voting rights to non-citizens has stripped them of their political voice, a claim echoed by Moscow.
      "This means that you, the ruling parties, love foreigners more than Latvia's residents," lawmaker Juris Sokolovskis said after Thursday's vote.
      But politicians from Latvia's center-right parties, which have controlled the government since 1991, argue that non-citizens must become naturalized if they want to vote in Latvian elections.
      Latvia's citizenship requirements have been eased in recent years but non-citizens have been slow to take advantage.

      CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Some NATO members won't ratify a conventional weapons treaty with Russia unless Moscow withdraws its weapons and troops from the separatist republic of Trans-Dniester, alliance Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Thursday.
      De Hoop Scheffer discussed simmering tensions in the pro-Russian breakaway republic of Trans-Dniester with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and other Moldovan leaders during a one-day visit to Chisinau.
      De Hoop Scheffer said promises made by Russia in 1999 to withdraw its troops and weapons from Trans-Dniester "should be fulfilled before we can discuss" the ratification of the modified Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which sets limits on heavy weapons across the continent.
      Russia in 1999 promised to withdraw by the end of 2003 about 1,300 Russian troops who guard an estimated 26,000 metric tons (28,660 tons) of Soviet-era ammunition, but progress has been slow.
      "I sincerely hope progress can be made on the removal of the munition stocks still to a large extent present in Moldova, in Trans-Dniester," de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference.
      Some NATO members have signed and ratified the treaty, while some have only signed it. Three countries that joined the alliance in March -- the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia -- have not signed it despite Russian pressure to do so.
      De Hoop Scheffer also called on the international community to be involved in finding a solution to the Trans-Dniester conflict. He did not elaborate.
      The Moldovan government in November rejected a Moscow-sponsored peace plan for the enclave, sparking Russian officials to say that the troops could remain until 2020.
      De Hoop Scheffer also discussed the recent closure of Moldovan-language schools, which has heightened tensions in the province. The closures demonstrated that the Trans-Dniester issue needed to be settled "urgently," de Hoop Scheffer said.
      Before being named NATO chief, de Hoop Scheffer was the chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which together with Russia and Ukraine is a mediator in the crisis between Moldova and the Trans-Dniester separatists.
      Trans-Dniester, which is mainly Russian-speaking, was a flash point of post-Soviet violence in 1992, when separatists feared newly independent Moldova would reunite with Romania. Formerly part of Romania, Moldova was annexed in 1940 by the Soviet Union.
      Some 1,500 people were killed in the 1992 violence, and many residents still harbor fears and resentment from that war.

      MOSCOW (AP) — A Kremlin envoy on Thursday accused the European Union of failing to fulfill the commitments it made to Russia before its historic move to embrace 10 new members earlier this year.
      Sergei Yastrzhembsky, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for relations with the European Union, said that the EU had failed to live up to its pledge to ensure that conditions for cargo transit to and from Russia's westernmost Kaliningrad region wouldn't worsen after May's expansion.
      "We are seeing that the transit has become more expensive," Yastrzhembsky said at a seminar on Russia-EU relations. "Instead of preservation of the status quo, we are seeing that the situation clearly has deteriorated."
      Yastrzhembsky added that customs clearance of Russian trains at Lithuania's border now takes days instead of hours as it had before the EU expansion in May, which absorbed Lithuania among other new members, most of them former Soviet satellites and republics.
      The EU's pledge concerning cargo transit to and from the Kaliningrad enclave, which is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, was part of a protocol which EU and Russian officials signed just days before the historic expansion.
      In the document, Russia also raised concern about the situation of ethnic Russian minorities in the ex-Soviet Baltic nations of Estonia and Latvia. Yastrzhembsky said Thursday that the EU should have made stronger efforts to protect their rights, which Moscow says are violated, and speed up the pace of their naturalization.
      The EU-Russia protocol is set to come up for ratification in the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, within a month, said Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Duma's international affairs committee.
      Kosachev said that his committee would recommend the chamber ratify the deal, voicing hope that the EU would take measures to assuage Russian grievances.

      MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Monday to set up a center that will help protect the rights of Russians in former Soviet republics, which became independent when the Soviet Union collapsed.
      The decree establishes the International Human Rights Center and instructs Putin's regional envoys and local officials to cooperate with rights groups, the Kremlin said in a news release.
      The international center will help defend the rights of Russian citizens abroad, said Ella Pamfilova, a former government minister and head of the presidential human rights commission that called for the center's creation.
      Russian authorities have often criticized the treatment of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in the former Soviet republics, which became independent in 1991, saying they are often deprived of jobs and of education in their native language.
      Russian officials have been particularly critical of the authorities in the Baltic states, especially Latvia and Estonia, and have repeatedly called on the European Union to protect the rights of Russians there.
      Russian authorities also express concern about the fate of Russians in Central Asian nations, including Turkmenistan.
      In addition, many people in separatist regions in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have been granted Russian passports, and Russian officials say Mocow is obliged to protect their rights -- a trend that worries Georgian officials who fear it is aimed to undermine their authority.
      Human rights activists also say that some of the worst violations occur in Russia's far-flung regions, where the rule of law is sometimes less prevalent than in Moscow.
      "Developing the human rights movement, especially in the regions, is very important," Pamfilolva said, according to the Interfax news agency.
      But the decree's focus may be on monitoring the rights of Russians living in what Russia calls "the near abroad" -- the former Soviet republics. Ethnic Russians make up sizable minitories in the former republics.
      Some activists criticized the initiative as a sign of a return to Soviet-style state control over society.
      "This is the return of the Soviet system of quasi-public organizations," said Yuri Samodurov, an activist who heads the Sakharov Museum. During the Soviet era, the Communist Party was in charge of every organization in the country.
      Samodurov expressed doubt over whether a state-funded public organization can be truly independent.
      "This is another step in building the so-called 'vertical of power,'" he said, referring to measures Putin has taken to consolidate his authority over the country. "Now they are targeting the human rights movement -- the only sector which is not yet under their control."

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — The Latvian Supreme Court Senate, the court's highest body, on Tuesday upheld a ruling that former Soviet partisan Vassily Kononov was guilty of war crimes for killing civilians during World War II.
      The decision, which cannot be appealed, upheld a similar ruling in April by the Supreme Court's Criminal Chamber that said Kononov was guilty of ordering the execution of nine civilians, including a pregnant woman, in Latvia in 1944.
      The 80-year-old Kononov was sentenced to 20 months in prison, much shorter than the 12 years prosecutors had requested, but was freed because he had already served that time during pretrial detention.
      Kononov appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court Senate anyway.
      The killings occurred during the Nazi occupation of Latvia, when Kononov led a small band of pro-Soviet partisans. He claimed that the civilians were caught in crossfire between the partisans and Nazis.
      Many Russians consider Kononov a legitimate war hero and Moscow has angrily criticized the trials as a witch hunt targeting a sick, elderly man. Russian President Vladimir Putin granted him Russian citizenship in April 2000.
      The ruling brought to an end a case that had wound its way through the Latvian court system since 1999.
      Kononov had previously been convicted of the same charges in 2000 and sentenced to six years in prison, but was released later that year after the Supreme Court questioned some of the evidence against him.
      A lower court ruled last October that Kononov was guilty of a lesser charge of "banditry" and released him because the statute of limitations on that crime had long since expired. But prosecutors appealed that verdict to the Supreme Court, which ruled last April that Kononov was guilty of war crimes.
      Latvia, which joined the European Union in May, was independent before being annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. After the 1941-44 Nazi occupation, the Soviet army returned, remaining there until the Baltic state regained independence after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Seven Latvian Olympians who finished among the top six in their events at the Athens games will share a cash bonus from the government, a senior official said.
      The government decided Tuesday to award a total of 440,000 lats (US$815,283, euro 662,024) to the athletes, along with 10 coaches, the Baltic News Service quoted Education and Science Minister Juris Radzevics as saying.
      Latvia won four silver medals at the games in August.
      Radzevics told BNS the government hasn't decided whether Latvians who participated in the Paralympics, which ended this week in Athens, would receive similar bonuses. He said a decision would come soon.
      Latvian Paralympians won three medals, including a gold in the discus.

      THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Russia appealed to the European Union presidency on Thursday help ease the transport of cargo from its isolated Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad through the EU's new member states that surround it.
      Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said he raised the problems of trafficking goods from Kaliningrad and the treatment of Russian speakers in the Baltic states in his talks with Dutch government leaders.
      "We requested our counterparts to intensify the work," Fradkov said.
      Moscow has complained that cargo transit has become more expensive and encumbered with bureaucratic delays since Lithuania and Poland joined the European Union in May, despite pledges that the EU expansion would not harm the enclave, which is cut off from the rest of Russia.
      The Europeans say, however, the cross-border traffic should fit with standard European customs regulations.
      The Netherlands holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, and Fradkov's two-day visit was intended to prepare for an EU-Russia summit in November.
      In April, Russia and the EU signed an accord easing tariffs imposed by Moscow on exports from the Baltic countries, in exchange for modifying the visa regime for passengers traveling through the Baltics to Russia. The EU also pledged to guarantee language rights for the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia and Latvia.
      Fradkov said he asked that the EU increase supervision of the situation of Russian speakers, reiterating Moscow's dissatisfaction with what it contends is discrimination against the use of Russian.
      Europe has said the language laws in the three Baltic countries conform to EU standards for protecting minority rights.
      "Our views are slightly less negative," said Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm, speaking at Fradkov's departure news conference.
      But he said the Europeans "feel an obligation" to review the issue if Russia asks for it.
      In a bilateral issue, Zalm said the Dutch again pressed Russia to return more than 300 pieces of artwork known as the Koenigs Collection, which the Netherlands claims were illegally seized during World War II.
      The Dutch say the works by mostly German artists were illegally sold in 1940 to leading Nazi officials and were later seized by the Soviet Union as war booty. The Netherlands has been negotiating for the return of 307 items since they were discovered 10 years ago in Moscow's Pushkin Museum.
      The artwork was collected by Franz Koenigs, a wealthy German businessman who opposed the Nazis and moved to the Netherlands in the 1920s. In July, Ukraine returned another 139 drawings that were found in a Kiev museum.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — After a day of rancorous debate, Latvia's parliament on Thursday approved a bill that prohibits dual citizens from holding national office.
      The bill passed 56-33 after its first reading in the 100-seat Saeima, or parliament. Eleven legislators did not vote or were absent.
      The bill must go through two more readings and then be signed into law by President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who once had dual citizenship in Latvia and Canada.
      To become president, Vike-Freiberga had to give up her dual citizenship according to the Latvian Constitution.
      If passed, Thursday's bill would prevent the thousands of Latvians who lived in exile in the West during the Soviet occupation -- about 5,000 of whom have since moved back to Latvia -- from becoming lawmakers or government ministers.
      It would also force several current legislators who hold dual citizenship to either resign from their posts or renounce their non-Latvian citizenship.
      Supporters say that similar laws exist in most other countries and argue that enough time has passed since Latvia regained its independence amid the 1991 Soviet collapse for Latvian expatriates to choose their national allegiance.
      Anta Rugate, a lawmaker with the center-right People's Party, which drafted the bill, said that the bill shows that "it is high time to start trusting Latvia completely. A servant that does not belong to any house cannot serve two masters."
      But opponents of the law call it a political attack on the opposition New Era party, which has four legislators that hold dual citizenship.
      New Era lawmaker Guntis Berzins, who holds Australian and Latvian citizenship, said the law would also send a signal to Latvian expatriates they are no longer needed or wanted in Latvia.
      "We are speaking about people who have returned from abroad to serve Latvia ... and many of them have left well-paying jobs behind to serve their homeland," Berzins told the Saeima. "These are the people whose loyalty we should doubt least of all."
      Berzins also recalled the crucial support from Latvians living in the West for the independence movement of the early 1990s and reminded lawmakers of how they sent money and goods back home "by the container load."
      Many political analysts said the bill was an attack on New Era's parliamentary chairman, Krisjanis Karins, who holds both Latvian and American citizenship. Karins has been tipped a future prime minister.
      "I see no motivation for this law," Karins told the AP after the vote. "Usually laws are passed when something is amok. Here nothing has happened."
      Karins said he hadn't yet decided if he would give up his American citizenship if the law were passed. He said he might not have to because it would be difficult for anyone to prove a lawmaker's dual citizenship, because many countries refuse to give out that information.

      RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvian police said Friday they had arrested a man suspected of making prank phone calls to the Riga airport and trying to get a plane that had taken off for Amsterdam grounded.
      Police did not identify the man, as is customary in Latvia.
      The suspect called the airport's information center six times Thursday and told operators he was an airplane mechanic and had forgotten to finish repairing the engine of a passenger plane that had departed for Amsterdam, according to state police spokeswoman Sintija Kanina.
      He warned of grave consequences if the airline didn't land the plane, but it had already landed safely in Amsterdam, Kanina said. The airline operating the plane was not identified.
      The suspect was celebrating his 32nd birthday, she said, and when police tracked the call to his house outside the capital, he was arrested.
      The man said he was surprised Latvian law enforcement agencies were so organized, Kanina said.