FORGIVING: While the crimes committed by the communist regime must not be forgotten, not all those who were members of the Communist Party during the Soviet period deserve outright condemnation, Estonian President Lennart Meri said in an interview with Postimees published on June 1. He said the banning of a certain ideology should not be set as a goal. "But we do have the duty to ban organizations that have fought against human rights and whose hands are stained with human blood," he said about a bill on communism currently being handled by the Estonian Parliament. The president said he did not regard the Communist Party in itself a repressive body. Very much like the Nazi party in Germany, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union rapidly gained mass membership, he said. Deserving condemnation are those people who "made decisions at the very carefully echeloned top of the Communist Party."
DEATH TOLL: Latvia registered 110 new HIV cases in May, reported the AIDS Prevention Center. The total number of people registered as HIV positive in Latvia since 1987 is 1,340, with 85 registered as AIDS patients. Of those registered, 26 have died. In the first five months of this year 382 people were registered HIV positive with 13 people developing AIDS. Two people with AIDS cases died in those five months. The director of the AIDS prevention center, Andris Ferdats, said that by the end of the year the number of people infected could reach 1,000. This is a sign that the disease is spreading much faster than before. Last year saw only 466 people registered. The most widespread way of being infected in Latvia remains through the use of intravenous drugs, with 945 people infected this way so far. HIV/AIDS is more common among men than women with 294 men and 88 women registered this year.
EYE TROUBLE: Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus is recovering from eye surgery "according to plan," said the president's private doctor Remigijus Nargela. Adamkus was rushed to a Vilnius hospital for immediate surgery on the morning of Sunday June 3, which prevented him from making a planned visit to Ukraine. The president was diagnosed with retinal separation. Presidential spokeswoman Violeta Gaizauskaite said that Nargela was cheerful about Adamkus' health. "And if the doctor is in a good mood, it means everything is going - as the doctor put it - to plan," said Gaizauskaite. Adamkus is recovering at the Santariskes Clinic in Vilnius. It was unclear when the president would be released from hospital and return to work. His return to the job of being president will depend on his doctors. Adamkus, 74, has only needed reading glasses until now.
EURO-VISION: Estonia's victory in the Eurovision Song Contest earlier this month appears to have halted the deepening anti-European Union sentiment in the country and boosted support for accession by nearly 10 percent to 44 percent of the population entitled to vote. Early in May, 35 percent of voters backed entry into the EU, but in the second half of the month support grew to 44 percent, according to the latest public opinion survey by Emor. Support for the EU gained the most ground in the under-35s and over-50s age groups. People between 35 and 50 have always shown greater stability in their evaluations. The positive trend is even more evident when the opinions of all the respondents, not just those entitled to vote, are taken into account, as Estonia's Russians strongly support the country's entry into the European club.
BACK TO THE USSR: More than half of Latvia's non-citizens and nearly one-fifth of its citizens support the idea of Latvian joining the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), now comprising most of the former Soviet republics, a poll shows. Recently released results of the survey, commissioned by the Latvian Naturalization Board last year as part of the public integration promotion program "Toward a Civic Society," showed that 18 percent of Latvian citizens and every second non-citizen supported the idea. Citizens with a low income, the rural population and young people aged 15 to 30 had the greatest preference for the CIS while among non-citizens the CIS was seen as the most attractive option by the elderly and the poor. The idea of Latvian joining the CIS was opposed by 74 percent of citizens and 33 percent of non-citizens, while 8 percent of citizens and 17 percent of non-citizens were undecided.
THIRSTY BARMAN: A homeless man who broke into a Vilnius pool hall donned bartender's clothing and drank a great deal of the alcohol he found there until he was discovered at noon the next day. The director of the company that owns the bar unlocked the establishment for business and found a bearded man dressed as a bartender. The director was reportedly at a loss for words. The man behind the bar wore a name tag identifying him as Darius. Police later arrived and certain facts in the case became clearer. The man pretending to be Darius the bartender was actually 56-year-old Jurgis Balvicius, who had a prior conviction for burglary. He entered the closed pool hall during the night. He dressed himself in clothes he found in different rooms in the building, choosing black trousers, a bartender's jacket with the name tag, shoes and a necktie. He drank eight bottles of Finlandia, Black Velvet, Lithuanian vodka and other types of alcohol.
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