OFF THE WIRE

HAZING: A Riga city court imposed suspended jail terms on April 23 on soldiers of Latvia's National Armed Forces' special task unit who beat a fellow soldier to death during an unofficial inauguration ceremony. Riga's Kurzeme District Court sentenced Aleksejs Steinbergs, who threw the last, lethal punch to the chest of Vladimirs Gromovs, to a five-year suspended jail term, while the remaining 14 accused soldiers got suspended jail terms of six months to one year. The court stated in its verdict that responsibility for the tragic incident should be assumed by the unit's officials who allowed informal hazing in the unit and did nothing to stop it. The court also said there were grounds to conclude that hazing at the unit proceeded "in part voluntarily." Imposing the punishment the court took into account that the young men had fully admitted their guilt and regretted the tragic incident. The court also said that, although it does not diminish Steinbergs' guilt, young Gromovs had suffered from a serious heart disease before serving the army. The court said in the judgment that during the hazing ceremony in which bodily injuries were caused to 28 soldiers plus the death of Gromovs, all in all 228 punches were inflicted on the chests of the youngest recruits. (Baltic News Service)

HELD TO RANSOM: Members of the Lithuanian Parliament's largest opposition faction, the Liberal Union, are threatening to block the adoption of constitutional amendments considered crucial for EU membership if the majority coalition refuses to discuss a date for holding municipal elections. The April 23 morning session of the Parliament saw the introduction of the Social Democratic coalition's proposed changes to the law on municipal elections. Liberal MPs asked for a break in procedures for adopting the amendments, and warned they could block the passage of changes to Article 119 of the Lithuanian Constitution, set for a second vote in the Parliament at the end of May. "I would link consideration of this law with the adoption of Article 119," Liberal faction alderman Eligijus Masiulis said. The amendment to Article 119 would allow permanent residents without Lithuanian citizenship to vote and run for office in elections to municipal administrative bodies. It must be approved by a two-thirds majority in the Parliament to carry. That means no less than 96 of the country's 141 MPs would have to vote in the affirmative; the majority coalition could come up short. The Social Democrats are proposing to hold the municipal elections scheduled for February and March 2003 earlier, together with the presidential election this December. (BNS)

WASTED: More than 3 kilograms of heroin, the biggest lot of the drug ever seized in Estonia, ended up in a dump in Estonia's Harju county on April 18. Officers of the Central Criminal Police received a hint from their Russian colleagues that there may be narcotics in a railway wagon that had arrived in Estonia with a load of aluminum. Later in the day, the police established that in Estonia the wagon was directed to Muuga Port. But when the policemen arrived it had already been unloaded. Questioning revealed that besides the aluminum there had also been plastic packages of some kind of powder in the wagon, but the men had thought it was just trash and thrown it away. The policemen found the heroin in 10 plastic packages, in a trash can still in the port and in the nearby Saha-Loo dump. "It's highly improbable, but we managed to find all the packages of heroin that had originally been in the wagon in the trash," Vallo Jaarats, chief police officer of the Central Criminal Police's drug-related crimes department, said. (BNS)

TONGUE-TIED: Despite an absolute majority of Latvia's population recognizing the need for all residents to be able to speak fluent Latvian, Russian-speakers are still slow to upgrade their state language skills, a recent survey showed. The survey, conducted by the Baltic Institute of Social Sciences, covered over 2,000 people of different ethnic origin, all residing in Latvia. Although 96 percent of ethnic Latvians and 87 percent of Russians and representatives of other ethnic groups believe it's important for all residents of Latvia to be able to communicate in the state language, ethnic minorities have been slow in improving their Latvian language skills as compared with 1996. Only 8 percent of non-Latvians use Latvian more frequently than Russian when communicating with their friends. At the same time, the number of Latvian residents completely ignorant of Latvian has gone down by 10 percent since 1996. Also, 56 percent of Latvians and 83 percent of Russian-speakers believe Latvian residents should also be able to speak fluent Russian. No major improvement in Latvian language skills among non-Latvians was observed; 12 percent of Russian-speakers don't know a word of Latvian, nearly a half (48 percent) have only elementary knowledge of the state language, a quarter (27 percent) said their Latvian was at a medium level and just 13 percent have top proficiency in the state language. (BNS)

STILL POOR: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on April 18 that his country was not making enough progress in lifting the living standards of ordinary citizens despite a windfall in oil revenues. "Some progress was made last year, but it remains insufficient," and "there is no reason be satisfied," Putin said in a live televised state of the nation address. "The favorable international (economic) environment has not been used to change the material situation of Russians, with some 40 million people still living in poverty," he added in his annual speech. "To guarantee a decent standard of living for the population, for Russia to remain an important member of the international community, our economy must grow at a faster rate," he added. Earlier this month the Russian government moved to revise upwards its forecasts of economic growth after criticism from President Putin that previous targets were "unambitious." On becoming president two years ago, Putin set himself the goal of narrowing the economic gap between Russia and the West and improving standards of living. But Russians' average monthly salary stands at only $140. (Agence France Presse)