Off the wire

Sep 28, 2000

LITHUANIA BUYS BIG GUNS: On Sept. 14, a shipment of Swedish air defense armaments and equipment was shipped to Klaipeda port to form the backbone of Lithuania's first post-independence air space defense battalion. The Lithuanian Defense Ministry reported that Sweden handed delivered anti-aircraft guns, artillery tractors to tow them, mobile radar, electricity generators, a field hospital with aid posts and additional transportation. The equipment will go to the air space defense battalion being set up near Siauliai.

BISHOPS URGE ON VOTERS: Lithuanian bishops have urged people to participate in the Oct. 8 parliamentary elections and to cast their votes for honest and proficient candidates. According to an address read out in Lithuanian churches during Sunday masses, every Christian should view participation in the elections as an important duty because passivity and failure to vote damage society and empower special interest groups. The believers were also invited to think and vote rationally.

DIPLOMAT CRASHES CAR DURING LESSON: A diplomat of the U.S. Embassy to Lithuania suffered an injury when his car hit a building in suburban Verkiai Street in Vilnius in the afternoon of Sept. 17. The accident took place at about 2:23 p.m. local time when Matthew David Christ, the embassy's second secretary for economic affairs, was giving his 14-year-old daughter a driving lesson in an embassy-owned Lancia Delta.

PICTURE ANGERS GOVERNMENT: The Estonian government was angered when a photo of its members was used in an advertisement for Copterline helicopter service printed in the weekly Eesti Ekspress on Sept. 21. A government spokesman said using the government's group photo in an advertisement was totally unacceptable. The government is not connected with the advertising of any product or service, the spokesman said. Tonis Lepp, director of Copterline, said the weekly had suggested using the photo, and the idea had appealed to him.

RUSHED HOME OVER HOUSE SCANDAL: On learning that a housing deal in Tallinn Old Town had been declared illegal, Mayor of Tallinn Juri Mois interrupted his vacation and is planning to decide if Elmar Sepp will continue as a member of the city's coalition government. According to law firm Glikman & Glikman, Elmar Sepp and Juri Ott, former governors of the central borough of Tallinn, broke the law when they permitted the conversion of dozens of non-residential premises in the Old Town into apartments.

ILLEGAL MIGRATION: Estonian border guards intercepted a group of 25 Chinese citizens, seeking to enter the country from Russia using fake South Korean passports, Sept. 24. The group's leader has been living in Austria for several years. Most of the migrants said they had been hoping to reach Italy, and had decided to go through Estonia since the country has a visa-free travel arrangement with South Korea, a border guard representative said. Estonian border guards previously caught a large group of Chinese people with fake passports in October 1999.

KLAIBER PRAISES NATO IN LATVIA: NATO enlargement will strengthen security within current NATO member countries and in candidate countries preparing to join the alliance, assistant NATO secretary general for political issues, Klaus Peter Klaiber, said at a conference on security in Riga on Sept. 25. NATO therefore welcomes candidate countries, said Klaiber. Last year, three countries were admitted to the alliance, and the rest of the candidates will follow them, he said.

ONE MORE CHANNEL IN LATVIA: After repeated efforts by TV3-Latvia, which represents a Scandinavian media group, the Latvian National Radio and Television Council decided on Sept. 21 to hold a tender for the granting of another permit for nationwide broadcasting. TV3 currently broadcasts only in the area around the capital Riga but is seeking a permit to broadcast to the whole of Latvia. If TV3 gets a nationwide broadcasting permit it will be able to compete with the national public broadcaster Latvian TV and the LNT commercial channel, which both have nationwide coverage.

CALL FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: During its Council of Europe presidency, Latvia should devote its main attention to strengthening human rights in Europe, as well as increasing the Council of Europe's political role, Council of Europe director general, Walter Schwimmer, said in Riga on Sept. 22. Latvia believes it will be able to implement the Council of Europe's goals, despite the fact that it has itself been criticized for human rights violations.

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