Briefs

  • 2002-09-12
EURO 2004 in the Baltics

National football teams in all three Baltic countries posted respectable finishes last weekend in the first leg of qualification for the 2004 European Championships.

Latvia tied World Cup quarterfinalists Sweden 0-0 in Riga, a game that Latvia very well could have won. A disallowed Latvian goal and a Marians Pahars header off the crossbar were the two best scoring chances of the game. Sweden was, however, missing many of the players from its World Cup squad.

Poland, Sweden and Latvia are tied at the top of Group 4, which also includes Hungary and San Marino. Latvia takes on Poland on the road Dec. 10.

Estonia tied 1998 World Cup third place finishers Croatia 0-0 for a piece of the top spot in Group. Estonia is level with Croatia and Bulgaria in a group that also includes Belgium and Bulgaria. Estonia faces Belgium on Oct. 16 in Tallinn.

Lithuania lost its Group 5 opener to 2002 World Cup runner-up Germany 0-2 in Kaunas, a fair result for Lithuania considering Germany brought most of its top players. Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland round out that group. Lithuania plays the Faroe Islands at home on Dec. 10.

Estonians nabbed

Finnish border guards found eight illegal Kurdish immigrants during a routine check of a small Estonian yacht docked at a port in Helsinki harbor, Finland's STT news agency reported.

Two Estonian crew members were found onboard with one Iraqi national and seven Kurds from Turkey, police said. There were also children among the yacht's passengers.

Both Estonians have been arrested on suspicion of arranging illegal border crossings for the Kurds, who were taken to a reception center in Helsinki.

Finnish authorities said they were expecting all eight to request political asylum in Finland. (Baltic News Service)

Amber thieves

A unique, 3.8-kilogram piece of amber was stolen in a pre-dawn break-in Sept. 9 from a museum in Lithuania's Baltic Sea resort of Palanga, police said.

Thieves entered the museum after smashing a window on the second floor, police said. They did not touch any of the other 13 pieces displayed in the hall.

The stolen item, called the Sun Stone because of its round shape, is the third heaviest piece of amber ever found in Europe.

It was part of a group of 77 amber pieces stolen from the museum in 1990 but later recovered by police.

Amber, a yellowish-brown fossil resin used in the manufacture of small ornamental objects, is closely associated with Lithuania and native to the pine-covered sea costs along the country's western edge. (Agence France-Presse)

Adamkus goes home

President Valdas Adamkus began a week-long trip to the United States Sept. 8 in Chicago, the city he called home for several decades. The leader, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official before moving back to Lithuania in the early 1990s, was expected to take part in a roundtable discussion at Northwestern University.

He was then slated to make a speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York as part of a tribute to victims of last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Adamkus is also being accompanied by 19 Lithuanian businessmen looking to cement business ties with counterparts in Chicago and New York. (BNS)

No duel

Notorious right-wing publisher Aivars Garda has declined a challenge from the left-wing National Bolshevik movement to fight an old-fashioned duel.

Artur Petrov, a National Bolshevik member from Daugavpils, challenged Garda after the latter made what he called "offensive" remarks about Russians in Latvia.

"If I were 15, I would take it seriously, but now I will ignore it," Garda said.

Garda's Vieda publishing company has earned enmity from many fronts for essay campaigns that demean and call for the removal from Latvia of "Russian colonists" and homosexuals. (BNS)

Still frosty

The presidents of Estonia and Russia will not meet any time soon because Russia is set against such a meeting, Estonian Prime Minister Siim Kallas said during remarks broadcast on national television Sept. 9

"That meeting can take place when Russia wants it to," Kallas said on a morning program on public channel ETV. "That wish is nowhere to be seen."

Kallas said Estonia hadn't even had a chance to press for a presidential meeting and said Russia's attitude toward Estonia remained significantly different than that of the United States.

"The United States is friendly, Russia rather tolerates us," said Kallas, who just returned from meeting U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington. (BNS)