Briefs

  • 2002-08-08
BERZINS GETS TOUGH

Prime Minister Andris Berzins did not mince words when he called young members of the National Bolsheviks "idiots" for throwing a pie in the face of composer and politician Raimonds Pauls.

The two youths approached Pauls before he went on stage at last week's Jaunais Vilnis (New Wave) concert competition in Jurmula and threw a pie in his face. They said it was for betraying Latvia's Russian-speaking community by joining the center-right People's Party.

Speaking on Latvian Radio the following day, Berzins said "I'm probably not supposed to use strong words, but I would like to call them idiots."

He said he was proud that Pauls shrugged off the attack.

"I am glad that Raimonds Pauls is above all this and regardless of the incident appeared before the audience after the concert yesterday as if nothing had happened," Berzins said.

The National Bolsheviks are a pro-Russian youth group that has run afoul of authorities in the past for threatening employees at St. Peters' Cathedral in Riga's Old Town with what turned out to be a fake hand grenade. (Baltic News Service)

EUROVISION 26

Twenty-six countries will participate in next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Riga, all gunning to replace defending champion Latvia at the top of the pile.

The European Broadcasting Union said the number of countries participating was a record high for the contest.

Some contestants will be from Latvia, Estonia, Malta, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Cyprus, Rumania, Russia, Croatia, Israel, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Turkey, Greece, Austria and first-time participant Ukraine.

Latvian singer Maria Naumova won this year's event in Tallinn. (BNS)

LEADS ON NAZI SUSPECTS

More than 20 people have come to the Lithuanian Jewish Community with possible information on Nazi war crimes suspects since the Simon Wiesenthal Center offered a $10,000 reward for such information.

Prosecutors, however, said only one person had approached them.

Simon Alperavicius, chairman of Lithuania's Jewish Community, said most information provided was vague and nobody requested the financial reward.

"Not a single person asked for money. People come to share the suffering they saw or experienced," Alperavicius said.

The initiative, called Operation: Last Chance, is aimed at Nazi suspects from all three Baltic countries.

About 90 percent of Lithuania's prewar Jewish community of 220,000 was killed by the Nazis and local collaborators during World War II.

Latvia lost about 70,000 Jews, some 80 percent of its pre-war population, while about 1,000 Estonian Jews were killed. (BNS)

HIV CASES UP

Sixty-seven new carriers of the HIV virus and one patient with full-blown AIDS were registered in Estonia in July, bringing the number of HIV positive people in the country to 2,455.

Tallinn has 238 HIV positive residents, the largest number in any Estonian area, according to public health statistics.

Eastern Estonia Kohtla-Jarve has 176 carriers of the virus and Narva 126. In Harju County, 19 people have been diagnosed as carriers, three have been diagnosed in West Viru county, two in Rapla county and one person in each of Jarva, Hiiu and Jogeva counties.

Of the carriers of the virus registered this year, 411 are men and 156 women. The biggest number of those with HIV are in the 15-24 age group.

The number of newly registered HIV cases has fluctuated between 64 and 109 per month this year. (BNS)

On the links

Currently at least four golf courses are being built around the Estonian resort town of Parnu.

Four is not too many and all will have enough customers because golfers are interested in playing on different courses, said Eino Ojandu, managing director of OU Audru Golf.

OU Audru Golf is the most recent entrant to Parnu's golf course construction boom but has got the farthest with its course and is planning to open the first nine holes next spring, either in April or May, the daily Postimees reported.

The firm owns 70 hectares for the project and plans to extend to a full 18 holes once the first nine holes have paid for themselves.

Ragner Matsalu, project manager at the Valgerand golf course, said earth moving work would begin at Valgerand within a few weeks. A full-scale golf course would be ready for use in the spring of 2005.

Training sessions will be available for golf novices from next year. The sport is relatively new to Baltic citizens, though a course was opened in Latvia recently by hockey star Sandis Ozolins. (BNS)