Eesti in brief - 2004-09-15

The governmental business promotion agency Enterprise Estonia will try to sell Estonian Autumn as a tourist catch. The agency has allocated about 172,000 euros for the advertising campaign, which is to be carried out in Estonia, Latvia and Sweden, with Internet ads serving as the major focus.

In accordance with the Outdoor Air Law, which should be in force by October, residents in industrial areas can turn to environmental experts if the air around their homes is noxious. The Environmental Affairs Ministry has already received a number of complaints from all over the country, with the main sources being pulp factories and meat and fish processing plants. The ministry plans to form a commission of experts who will thoroughly consider every case.

Government officials have admitted that people were poorly informed about the decision to remove the Lihula monument. This lack of understanding may have caused the scuffle between locals and police during the removal. After hearing Interior Minister Margus Leivo's (photo) report, the government decided to put more attention on modern Estonia's history - particularly the occupation periods.

MP Marko Mihkelson (photo), chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs commission, recommended that President Arnold Ruutel accept President Vladimir Putin's invitation to the Victory Day celebration in Russia next May. According to Mihkelson, Estonia should act as an EU member state and thus follow the example of others in attending the celebration.

Police have discovered four underground moonshine production sites in Tartu over the last two weeks, confiscating about 7,000 liters of moonshine mash and over 130 liters of hooch along with the related equipment. Illegal alcohol producers can face a fine of up to three years in prison.

The Estonian Jewish community plans to install five monuments around the country to commemorate victims of the Holocaust. The memorials will be located on the spot of former concentration and labor camps, the first one to be revealed in Klooga on Oct.1. According to organizers, the project has been planned for a long time and is in no way connected to the recent controversy over Estonia's WWII monuments.

Unemployment has fallen by nearly 15 percent compared with last August, amounting to 4.2 percent of local residents aged 16 's 63, the Labor Market Board reported. There were 34,270 unemployed people officially registered with the employment bureau this past August, the highest rate 's 9.4 percent 's in the northeastern Ida-Viru county, and the lowest 's 2 percent 's in Tartu county.