Summed up

2000-08-10

VIKINGS PLAN NEW DEFENSE COOPERATION: The Norwegian and Estonian defense ministries decided at a meeting in Oslo last week to continue a common personnel policy project next year, which among other things calls for introduction of a system of conscripts in the Estonian defense forces. Similar talks between the two countries got their start with the signing of a defense policy framework agreement in 1995. A pilot project of conscripts' representative was launched in the Rear Battalion last October.

ASKING FOR THE FLOOR: President Lennart Meri sent a letter to Parliament speaker Toomas Savi Aug. 3 asking to be given the floor to make a political speech on the topic of national defense at Parliament's extra session at the end of this month. The parliament will gather for an extraordinary session on Aug. 28 to discuss, at the president's proposal, the dismissal of armed forces commander Lt. Gen. Johannes Kert.

MUST PAY FOR AGING: The board of the Association of Estonian Trade Unions said Aug. 4 the second pillar of the pension reform or compulsory endowment pension must be made compulsory for young people at least. Payments into the second pillar must be inheritable and mechanisms must be agreed upon to ensure assets in the second pillar remain intact, AETU chairwoman Kadi Parnits said. The position of the AETU is that state pensions must be indexed. Also, introduction of the unemployment insurance budgetary assets of the bankruptcy fund must be brought in, Parnits said.

WILL NOT RUN IN ELECTIONS: The leader of the unrecognized Lithuanian National Socialist party, Mindaugas Murza, will not run in the forthcoming general elections this autumn, leaving it until the 2004 parliament elections. Murza told journalists on Aug. 4 that he had taken this decision after the Ministry of Justice had refused to recognize his party and register it. "I hope that we will have a landslide victory in the 2004 general elections," Mural said.

FARMERS GIVE UP PROTEST: Lithuanian farmers have said they would move their agricultural machinery away from the border crossing points and will not block the highways. Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and the President's Office met with farmers on Aug. 3. They reached a compromise solution with regard to the procedure of purchasing agricultural products and settling the accounts.

DAREDEVIL TO CONGRATULATE DAREDEVIL: The legendary Formula 1 driver Mika Hakkinen of Finland will watch a flight under a bridge over the river Nemunas in Kaunas carried out by Lithuanian acrobatic pilot Jurgis Kairys. Jurgis Kairys said that on Sep. 2 he is planning to carry out a flight in his Russian-built airplane SU-26 under the King Mindaugas pedestrian bridge with his plane upside down. The gap between the water level and the body of the bridge is about 10 meters. Kairys said he is looking forward to be congratulated by Hakkinen after the flight.

POLISH CITIZEN ROBBED: In Latvia's eastern city Rezekne on Aug. 6, four men beat a Polish citizen and took 36,000 Swedish kronas ($3.920), mobile telephone, a Nokia 7110, and 85 lats ($141) from him. According to information provided by the Interior Ministry Press and Public Relations Department, the theft took place on Atbrivosanas Aleja, the main street in Rezekne, and the robbers were approximately 25 years old.

LATVIA AND HOLY SEE TO CLOSE DEAL: Latvian government committee Aug. 7 accepted the draft agreement between Latvia and the Holy See on the legal status of the Catholic Church, Atis Sjanitis, Latvian ambassador at the Holy See, said. The agreement does not provide any financial or other liabilities for Latvia except those determined in the current legislation. The traditional denominations are acquainted with the draft agreement, the state secretary of the Justice Ministry said in his statement. The agreement is politically significant because it is a new stage in the relationships between Latvia and the Holy See, the authors of the draft agreement indicate.

SUSPECTED CHILD ABUSER DETAINED: In the southern Latvian town Dobele, the criminal police detained a man Aug. 2 who has raped three boys under age, Dobele's police reported. Rudolfs Rudaks, born in 1941, was detained in the village of Auru. The victims of the man are three boys born in 1990 and 1987 who are the man's neighbors.