Eesti in brief - 2004-09-22

Healthcare sector workers on Sept. 20 reached a compromise with the government regarding their salaries in 2005 and 2006. According to the agreement, the doctors' minimum hourly salary would gradually increase from the current 50 kroons (3.2 euros) to 75 kroons in 2006. In the case of nurses and auxiliary personnel, the minimum pay per hour would increase from 25 kroons to 39 kroons and from 16 kroons to 23 kroons, respectively. As a result of the compromise, medical workers have canceled their planned strike.

Medicine Board experts said they suspected that Oxycodone, a painkiller similar to morphine and used in cancer treatment, is being abused by drug addicts. Demand for the drug has skyrocketed, especially among Finnish tourists, after restrictions were imposed on the similar drug Subutex. Tourists from the EU purchase certain medicines in Estonia to save on the price difference. Experts said that the demand for Oxycodone among Finns could pose a threat to the drug's availability with local patients.

Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said that the Finnish city of Kotka was interested in launching ferry traffic to an eastern Estonian port and that it was only a matter of time before the idea was carried out. "I have not heard anything about a concrete port on this side of the gulf, but my colleague Juhan Parts thinks it could be Sillamae. At present the thing is apparently stuck behind the fact that there is no suitable port in Estonia for receiving passengers," he told the Virumaa Teataja newspaper, which is published in the Estonian town of Rakvere.

The locomotive operators' trade union threatened the management of Estonian Railways with blocking train traffic until the workers' demand for a salary increase was satisfied. The operators demanded a 15 percent salary raise and set a 10 percent marginal rate for overtime hours.

Beginning this week former FBI agent Bill Moschella (photo) will begin training criminal and cybercrime police experts to develop a witness protection program as well as consulting with police on international surveillance issues. Moschella, 55, has worked in the FBI for 27 years and for five years as a law attache at the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn.

The Interior Ministry is planning to put price tags on all grave plots (photo) as of next year. The draft version of the Cemetery Act sets the maximum possible price for one grave at 50 percent of its tax-free limit, or about 55 euros in 2005. For this sum one grave could be used for 25 years, given that it is kept tidy. Currently many cemeteries establish only symbolic payments.

Military history enthusiasts discovered about 500 well-preserved 45-millimeter cannon shells and one land mine from World War II on Saaremaa Island's Sorve Peninsula on Sept.17. Experts believe that the ammunition was stored by the retreating Red Army in the early years of the war.