Stop trying to save the world

Vai tā tiešām ir?

Prieks redzēt, ka Anglijā Latviju piemin ne tikai kriminālziņās. Taču vai tiešām tikai sievietes koklē? Vai tiešām nav vairāk pa 500 koklētajiem visā pasaulē? Vai Latvijā tiešām ir tikai viens kokļu meistars? BBC dod mums drošu atbildi….

BBC NEWS | Europe | Latvia celebrates national instrument
Latvia celebrates national instrument
By Laura Sheeter
BBC News, Riga

Women play the kokle
The kokle is traditionally played by women and girls
A festival to celebrate an instrument played by only 500 people is taking place this weekend in Latvia.

The 10th annual festival of Latvia’s national instrument the kokle, features a performance by the largest kokle ensemble in the world.

Ninety-nine young women - one in five of all kokle players in Latvia - will be performing a piece written especially for them by one of the country’s leading composers.

Latvia’s national instrument is traditionally played by women and girls. It’s a triangular wooden box on legs with up to 33 metal strings, which the musicians pluck.

It is unique to Latvia, and although neighbouring countries do have similar instruments - the Finnish kantele and Lithuanian kankle for example - Latvians say nothing sounds quite like the kokle.

Playing the kokle was banned for a time under the Soviet Union, but now more and more people are taking it up and contemporary musicians are using the kokle in new works.

Master craftsman

There is a problem though - there is only one master kokle-maker in Latvia, and he has a five-year waiting list for new instruments.

Imants Robeznieks in his workshop
Imants Robeznieks will soon be training two students
It takes Imants Robeznieks a month to make each instrument - he says parents are now ordering kokles before their children have even started playing.

“I work 12 to 14 hours a day and still the waiting list keeps growing,” he says. “The telephone rings non-stop. I have to turn it off or I’d never get any work done.”

Mr Robeznieks has been making kokles for more than 20 years and says finding suitable wood is the biggest problem. He searches building sites where old wooden houses are being demolished, and uses off-cuts from old pianos, if he is lucky enough to find one.

The Latvian ministry of culture is so worried about the future of kokle-making that they have just agreed to fund two students to study with Mr Robeznieks. But it will take years of hard work before they are ready to take over the work of making kokles for the country’s leading musicians.

But Mara Vanaga, the organiser of this weekend’s festival, is far more optimistic about the future. She says that as Latvia has changed since independence, so has the kokle - with alterations to the instrument itself, and its adoption by young musicians playing music of all kinds.

The kokle cannot die, she says, as it is becoming ever more popular. She believes it is reasserting its place at the heart of contemporary Latvian culture.

This parody also mentions Latvia in a context I initially thought to be flattering in that Latvia, as well as the other named countries, still has a thriving folk culture and so on. Double take. No, they just meant that we’re poor as dirt.
Fair enough. It may be funny, but not amusing, as it makes me wonder about Latvia’s image abroad, and what this kind of publicity will do for it….
…………………………….
The Telegraph Online
Parody mocks American ‘culture of fear’

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” the star-studded Band Aid song about the Ethiopian famine that later inspired “We Are the World,” has just given birth to another charity song. The subject may surprise you: the plight of American and Canadian trick-or-treaters who are forced to beg for sustenance on darkened streets.

“Do They Know It’s Halloween?” is the brainchild of Canadian indie rockers Nicholas Diamonds and Adam Gollner, founders of the North American Halloween Prevention Initiative. In the parody, a diverse group of musicians led by Beck, the Arcade Fire and the Sex Pistols beg Latvia, Laos, Chad and Peru to send troops overseas to end the “orange-and-black plague” of Halloween.
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Latvia will be presented to France in anti-Soviet style - Politics - REGNUM
Latvia will be presented to France in anti-Soviet style

Read it in Russian

On October 30, “Amazing Latvia” Festival will open in France. The aim of this festival is to promote the image of Latvia in Europe and the entire world. As a REGNUM correspondent reports, the details of the festival were presented by the Latvian authorities on October 25. To stress the importance of the event, French ambassador to Latvia and Latvian ambassador to France were invited to the meeting.

At the beginning, the festival was planned as a “cultural season of Latvia in Paris”, but the current program includes cultural events — plays, concerts and cinema festivals, as well as business meetings, seminars on tourism and business.

One of the original innovations are 12 “talking stones”, placed on main squares of French towns. People faces will be projected on these stones. Faces will animate as passers go by and narrate some topic about Latvia nature, culture, history etc.

History will become an integral part in the upcoming forum. As REGNUM earlier reported, a new Latvian film “In the dancing-slippers in Siberia” has already been presented in one of the Paris cinema, and also will be shown on TV. The film is based on a book of the same name, written by ex-Foreign Affairs Minister and unfortunate Euro-commissioner Sandra Kalniete. The book tells about the times of Stalin deportation and Siberian exile of the Kalnietes family.

As the Latvian radio informs, the ex-minister has already seen the movie and got to like it. She said that the movie was “in the mainstream of forming the Latvian image” (the case in the point must be the “severe legacy of the Russian occupation”). As current Cultural Minister of Latvia Helena Demakova (People party) noted on Tuesday, the festival had not only cultural and economical aspect, it surely had some political aspects, which can be said regarding the number of politicians participating in the presentation. Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks (People party) also stressed that France and Latvia have a long story of cooperation, and that France never recognized “Latvian annexation by the USSR”. Pabriks also noted that now most EU countries are poorly informed about Latvia.

This “poor information” of European countries must be compensated by the “festival legend”, that can be found among other presentational materials. According to the legend, “in June 1940, when the German army marched through Paris, Latvia was occupied by a German secret ally – the USSR. In a year, the country was captured by the Nazi, but in 1945 the Soviet Regime was reinstalled. In next ten years, Latvia was under heavy ethnical and cultural pressure, thousands of innocents, including children and elder people were exiled or imprisoned.”

French ambassador Michel Fournier also commented the “Amazing Latvia” Festival. He said: “What is ‘Amazing Latvia’? It is an agreement of two presidents, three years of work, some money from the countries, many ideas and hopes.” He also added, “it was a good opportunity for French and Latvian people to meet and let the Latvians stop being strangers from an unknown country”.

Well, according to the “legend”, people of France can learn lots of new amazing facts about Latvia.

Irony*, unlike the Emperor’s new clothing, is something most people fail to see. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. Richard Paey languishes in prison, connected to a dosage pump containing the highly illegal opiate painkillers that put him there. The logical bootstrapping** necessary to keep him in prison escapes me. It’s OK to treat a patient for chronic pain, but first you have to incarcerate him?

Well, we all expect politicians and lawmakers, sheriffs and district attorneys to be populistic by nature, which sometimes requires ignoring facts and common sense, but when did we decide to let them run things to the degree that they can persecute scientists and physicians? We have truly entered a new dark age, where the Inquisition*** decides what is true and right, and the gray masses are kept ignorant and content in their consumerism. Meanwhile, the systematic corruption of law enforcement and the corporate takeover of the penal system (by giving them a vested and lucrative interest in the status quo, i.e. the lure of asset forfeiture, cheap prison labor etc.) go largely unnoticed, as the government does not hesitate to use tax dollars for propaganda, and even active lobbying against any attempts at reform. Now this is not ironic, it is simply evil.

* Irony: Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs:

** Baron Münchhausen was able to lift himself out of a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair and pull himself out of the sea using his own boot straps, hence the term “bootstrapping”.

*** Inquisition: An investigation that violates the privacy or rights of individuals.

by
Janis Abens

US NC: OPED: Prisoner Of Pain Becomes Martyr Of Drug War
PRISONER OF PAIN BECOMES MARTYR OF DRUG WAR

Now State Pays For The Medication He Was Convicted For Obtaining

Today, Richard Paey sits in a wheelchair behind high walls and razor wire in a high-security prison near Daytona Beach, Fla. Paey is a 46- year-old father of three, and a paraplegic. His condition is the result of a car accident, a botched back surgery and multiple sclerosis — three setbacks that left him in chronic, debilitating pain. After moving to Florida from New Jersey, Paey found it increasingly difficult to get prescriptions for the pain medication he needed to function normally.

Paey’s difficulties finding treatment were in large part due to the federal and state governments’ efforts to prevent the illegal use of prescription pain medicine. A doctor today could face fines or suspension, the loss of his license or practice, even prison time and the seizure of his property should drug cops ( most of whom have no medical training ) decide he’s prescribing too many painkillers. As a result, physicians are apprehensive about aggressively treating pain.

Paey went from doctor to doctor, looking for someone to give him the medication he needed. By the time he eventually turned to his old New Jersey doctor for help, he had attracted the attention of Florida drug control authorities. What happened next is in dispute, but it ended with a raid on Paey’s home, his arrest, and his eventual conviction on drug distribution charges.

Paey insists his old doctor wrote him the prescriptions he needed. The Florida pharmacists who testified at his trial back him up. But the doctor says Paey forged the prescriptions. Cops gave the doctor a devil’s bargain — give Paey up, or face 25 years to life imprisonment himself for excessive prescribing of painkillers. Paey maintains the prescriptions were legitimate, but understands why his doctor turned against him.

Why No Legal Access?

The larger issue, of course, is why a man who is clearly not an addict ( he wasn’t taking the medication to get high ) and had a legitimate use for the medication wasn’t given access to what he needed in the first place.State prosecutors concede there’s no evidence Paey ever sold or gave his medication away. Nevertheless, under draconian drug war statutes, they were permitted to pursue distribution charges against him solely based on the amount of the medication in his possession ( the unauthorized possession of as few as 60 tablets of some pain medications can qualify one as a “drug trafficker” ).

Paey was convicted and put in prison for 25 years. Ironically, the state of Florida now pays for a morphine pump connected to Paey’s spine that delivers the same class of medication at the same doses the state of Florida told him wasn’t necessary, and put him in prison for trying to obtain.

Prosecutors originally offered Paey a plea bargain that would have helped him avoid jail time, but Paey refused, insisting that ( a ) he did nothing wrong, and ( b ) even he had, it shouldn’t be a crime to seek relief from chronic pain. Paey feared that a plea would make other doctors in the state more reluctant to treat pain.

Publicly, Paey’s prosecutors have conceded that the sentence was excessive, yet they insist that Paey himself is to blame, citing his refusal to accept a plea agreement. The chilling implication: Paey is serving prison time for drug distribution not because he’s guilty of actually distributing drugs — the state admits as much — but because he insisted on exercising his constitutionally protected right to a jury trial.

No Threat to Anyone

Earlier this year, Paey was moved to a prison facility more than two hours from his wife and family, who live in New Port Richey. He was then moved even farther away, some 170 miles, to the Tomoka Correctional Institution near Daytona Beach.

At about the same time, prison medical staff told Paey that the state refused to give permission for them to refill his morphine pump. For Paey, this was the equivalent of a death sentence. The state let him agonize for weeks before finally authorizing the refill the day before his pump was scheduled to run dry.

Two activist groups — the Pain Relief Network and the November Coalition — have begun a campaign urging Gov. Jeb Bush to grant Paey a pardon. Paey is not a criminal. He isn’t a threat to anyone. He’s a tragic figure who has become a political prisoner of America’s allegiance to zero tolerance drug prohibition.

Paey should be freed. And Florida lawmakers should pass reforms to ensure that drug war fanaticism doesn’t prevent sick people from getting the medication they need.

Capitol Hill Blue: The War on Drugs is Over: We Lost

By LISA HOFFMAN
Oct 19, 2005, 02:05

When he was new in “blue,” Robert Owens was the scourge of East Los Angeles junkies, racking up record-breaking numbers of heroin arrests.

But even then, the young Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy wondered if all the collars and the time and resources it took to make them were making any difference.

Those doubts only grew during the rest of his 38 years in law enforcement, including his 22 years as police chief in gritty Oxnard, Calif.

Today, at 74, Owens is an outspoken proponent of ending America’s drug war, which has been waged for nearly four decades at an estimated cost of $500 billion. Despite the best efforts and intentions of anti-drug policies, it simply hasn’t worked, he says.

“This country is long overdue in recognizing that not only have we lost the war on drugs, but we have squandered billions of dollars and untold numbers of lives,” said Owen, who now coordinates law enforcement internships at the University of Texas in San Antonio.

Owen is not alone. He is one of 2,000 members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of current and former police officers, judges, prosecutors, prison guards and others across the country and in Canada and England.

All have toiled in the trenches of the drug war and now consider traditional approaches futile. Though there is not unanimity, most in the group believe that the government should regulate the distribution and use of illicit substances and offer treatment instead of prison time to those caught in their grip.

The group’s board of advisers includes former police chiefs of New York City, Seattle, Wash., and San Jose, Calif., along with current federal court judges in Denver, New York City, and Bridgeport, Conn. It also counts former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson as a supporter, as well as the sheriff of San Miguel County, Colo.

“This is not a tie-died group,” said Mike Smithson, who runs the group’s speakers bureau.

Perhaps not, but they are misguided and far out on the fringe of the drug issue, said a spokesman for the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.

“It’s simply an irresponsible message to put out there,” said Rafael Lemaitire, deputy press secretary for the anti-drug office.

By any measure, Lemaitire said, the drug war _ which employs police work, public education and treatment to attack the problem _ has been effective in driving down drug use in America. In 1979, at the peak of the drug epidemic, 14 percent of the U.S. population said they had used drugs in the past 30 days. Now, that number is 6 percent.

And, he said, everyone knows at least one person whose life was ruined by drug use, and whole neighborhoods and communities besieged by drug-related crime. To give up on the battle would mean more misery, criminality and despair, he said.

“It’s ludicrous to think that any law enforcement person would want to put people and communities at greater risk,” Lemaitire said.

But Owens and others affiliated with his group contend that the war on drugs has succeeded in little more than packing America’s prisons with low-level offenders. If the battle is being won, they ask, why is the scourge of methamphetamine use spreading around the country? Why is the marijuana bought on the street today more potent than it was 35 years ago?

“This is not a war on drugs. It’s a war on people,” said LEAP executive director Jack Cole, who worked for 12 years as an undercover narcotics officer with the New Jersey State Police.

Cole and others in the group acknowledge their beliefs are hotly controversial, but they contend that there are far more police officers and others who share their point of view but can’t risk the ostracism and professional damage that could occur if they went public. In fact, the organization welcomes members who want to remain anonymous and promises them their identities will never be revealed.

For now, the group’s aim is to spark a public discussion of the worth of the war on drugs, as it now is being fought, Owens said. He and others like him want to use their front-lines credibility to open a national conversation on the topic.

“We’re planting seeds,” Owens said.

On the Web: www.leap.cc

www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov

Since I started talking to my computer, my entire way of searching has changed. Because I am not typing, I dont feel a need to edit down my search string, and it often is a sentence instead of a series of keywords. This produces some amazingly accurate hits that I otherwise would not get. Natural sentences, such as “how can I …” often lead to exact matches and improved relevance.

The author of the follwing article has a reverse approach, which is due to the fact that he still types everything int the computer. Tsk, tsk!

I Speak Search
I Speak Search
By Gord Hotchkiss - O

I’m not sure if this is being done in some university somewhere, but I would love to know if our use of search engines is changing how we communicate.

The search query is a form of communication that is deceptive in its simplicity. We are becoming adept at paring down complex concepts into a few well chosen words. There is no unnecessary filler. Even if we do throw in a few “the”s and “what”s, the search engine conveniently strips them from our query.

For example, I wanted to know what time zone Atlanta is in today. I went to Google and typed in “What is the local time in Atlanta?” Google truncated my query to “local time Atlanta”. Of the 7 words I typed, 4 were unnecessary.

Which leads me to think, how many unnecessary words do we use every day as we communicate? If I cut this column down to the bare minimum of words required to convey the concept, it would probably drop from about 800 words to 200 or so. How much of our lives do we spend jamming extraneous words into our conversations and emails?

Who Says I’m Not an Advanced Searcher?

The common view is that we’re pretty unsophisticated in the way we use search. Less than 5% of all searches use advanced search techniques, and by advanced, I mean something as simple as using query operators like “and”, “all” or “not”. I’m betting that the vast majority of Google users have never clicked on that little “Advanced Search” link that sits next to the search box. Sometimes, I think we search marketers are the only ones who ever use these features to mine Google’s index for competitive intelligence regarding back links and pages indexed.

But I’m beginning to believe the common view is misguided. I think we’re getting quite sophisticated in the way we use search. We have learned how to make a few words go a long way. Don’t mistake short queries for a lack of sophistication. Generally, a short query matches our intent at the time. We want a broad, inclusive focus. When we’re ready to narrow the parameters, we add the words necessary. We understand that search is an iterative process.

One of my favorite ripostes came from two literary adversaries, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. It went like this:

William Faulkner said of Ernest Hemingway: ‘He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.’

And Hemingway’s response: ‘Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.’

Men (and Women) of Few Words

Perhaps search engines are turning us into the Hemingways of the online generation. We cut out the fat, distilling concepts into the fewest words possible. We are learning the language of the search query. And although it’s not perfect, and can be frustrating at times, most of the time it works very well, thank you.

Consider the plight of Ask Jeeves. This engine made much of its ability to interpret queries written in plain English. In other words, (lots of other words) queries that didn’t have the fat removed. The idea was that we would be more comfortable interacting with an engine with personality, which spoke the same language we do. Ask Jeeves current share of the search market? Less than 2% (according to Hitwise). While the Ask Jeeves model might have been attractive to new internet users, we tend to pick up “SearchSpeak” pretty quickly. It’s not difficult. After a couple of queries, we learn how many words it takes to bring back the results we’re looking for, most of the time. Soon, we leave full sentences behind and cut back to just the essential words to frame our search intent.

So, if I’m right, what will our communications look like in a few short years? Will we have discarded with the majority of the language, communicating in pared down task oriented phrases? Will using search lead us into a new linguistic shorthand? Further manifestation of this is now being seen in emails and instant messaging. In some cases, we’re even discarding words completely and going with acronyms. You don’t laugh uproariously anymore, you LOL, and if it’s really funny, you ROTFLMAOPMP.

Global SearchSpeak

Going further, will a truncated version of English become the new international language? Will “SearchSpeak” pick up where Esperanto left off? Finally, you can have revenge on your grade school grammar teacher and toss away adverbs, adjectives, modifiers and participles to your heart’s content. All we’ll be left with is a handful of tried and true nouns and the odd verb. Anybody should be able to become fluent in SearchSpeak in a few months. Then, you can travel the globe, communicating in short, to the point phrases: “London pub, near Buckingham Palace” or “Paris hotel NOT rude staff”.

While the discarding of the majority of the English language may be a frightening thought, it’s not really that big a leap. This is pretty much the way we all communicated with our parents between the ages of 13 and 18.
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DIENA

Irina Jesina

Valsts prezidente Vaira Vīķe–Freiberga šonedēļ Latviju slavēja par panākumiem korupcijas apkarošanā, turpretī starptautiskās organizācijas Transparency International (TI) pētījums liecina — uzņēmēju, politikas, ekonomikas ekspertu un ārvalstu investoru acīs korupcija valstī joprojām zeļ un plaukst. Latvija Eiropas Savienības (ES) dalībvalstu vidū ir otra korumpētākā aiz Polijas. Lielas afēras ir labi izplānotas, liecinieki negrib liecināt, noziedzniekiem piemēro maigus sodus, un Saeimas deputāti vispār par pārkāpumiem netiek sodīti, atzīst politologi un pretkorupcijas eksperti.

TI Latvijas nodaļas vadītājs Roberts Putnis vaicā, vai tiešām jābaidās no soda par kukuļošanu, skatoties uz Latvijas politisko eliti un tiesībsargiem, kad pat Valsts prezidentes vīra darījumi ar zemi vieš bažas par korupciju. Korupcijas uztveres indekss (KUI), ko aprēķina pēc aptaujām uzņēmēju, politikas ekspertu un ārvalstu investoru fokusa grupās, salīdzinot ar iepriekšējo gadu, ir uzlabojies tikai par 0,2 punktiem — līdz 4,2 punktiem no 10 iespējamiem. Jau vairākus gadus Somija tiek uztverta kā vismazāk korumpētā valsts ar 9,6 punktu indeksu.

Saeimas pretkorupcijas komisijas vadītāja Linda Mūrniece (JL) uzskata, ka uzlabojumi ir manāmi — parlaments izstrādā arvien vairāk korupciju ierobežojošu likumu, arī Korupcijas novēršanas un apkarošanas birojs (KNAB) pēdējā gadā ir aktivizējies. Deputāte arī uzskata, ka būtu jāaktualizē problēma par noziedzniekiem piemērojamo sodu bardzību.

R.Putnis bija skeptiskāks: Latvijā tiek pastrādāts simtiem tūkstošiem korupcijas noziegumu, un, par spīti KNAB aktivitātei, uzlabojumi nav vērojami — Igaunijas līmeni (KUI 6,4) Latvija varētu sasniegt tikai pēc 11 gadiem. “Kamēr mūsu valstī indekss aug minimāli, Igaunijā profesionālās grupas notic politikas nodomu nopietnībai arī bez neatkarīgu pretkorupcijas iestāžu izveides,” skaidro R.Putnis.

KNAB ir viena izmeklēšanas iestāde, kamēr korupcija skar lielāko sabiedrības daļu. Turklāt Saeima līdz šim nav vienoti cīnījusies ar politisko korupciju, uzskata politologs Valts Kalniņš. Viņaprāt, 0,2 punktu progress korupcijas uztverē ir ļoti niecīgs, tomēr progress, un galvenais nopelns šajā uzlabojumā ir dažām valsts iestādēm, kas kļuvušas civilizētākas, un arī ekonomiskās izaugsmes temps cilvēkus padarījis optimistiskākus.

Forskning & Framsteg 7/05 - Slut med 9 till 5
Slut med 9 till 5
Allt fler sköter sina arbeten hemma eller på resa Och vi arbetar alltmer oregelbundna tider.
Av Henrik Höjer ur F&F 7/05 sid 35-37. » Mer om artikeln.
Slut med 9 till 5

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Den fullständiga artikeln finns i papperstidningen. Här följer ett sammandrag:

En nystartad affärstidning, Att:ention, beskriver sig som en “guide för oss som inte skiljer benhårt på jobbet och livet”. Och kanske har man hittat en ny och växande målgrupp, eftersom många i dag har arbeten som de mentalt inte kan stänga av när de går hem.

Arbetstiden är på väg att bli ett diffust begrepp. Det menar Gunnar Aronsson, professor i psykologi vid Arbetslivsinstitutet. Många arbetsgivare avtalar bort ersättning för övertid, och genom e-post och mobiltelefon kan vi alltid vara nåbara. Det innebär att de fasta tidsramarna för arbetet löses upp och att gränsen mellan arbete och fritid blir alltmer flytande.

Enligt Gunnar Aronsson finns det risk att arbetet blir en ständig följeslagare - även på semester och helger. Är man osäker inför omorganisationer eller nya projekt jobbar man ofta mer än vanligt, av okunskap om hur mycket kollegerna jobbar.

De flytande gränserna mellan fritid och arbetstid gör det svårt att mäta arbetstiden, menar man på Statistiska centralbyrån. Det är svårt att säga om vi verkligen arbetar mer.

Flera forskare menar dock att vi arbetar på ett nytt sätt. Tommy Isidorsson vid Institutionen för arbetsvetenskap, Göteborgs universitet, anser att vi i stället för att producera för lagerhållning nu producerar direkt för kunden.

- Men även fler tjänstemän jobbar med målstyrd verksamhet, och då blir det exakta antalet arbetstimmar mindre intressant, säger Tommy Isidorsson. Det viktiga är i stället att arbetet blir klart i tid. Samtidigt vet vi att den obetalda övertiden ökar.

Det är inte tekniken i sig som gör att vi arbetar på oregelbundna tider. Det har skett en avreglering av arbetstidslagstiftningen.

- Vi lever dessutom i ett alltmer konsumtionsinriktat samhälle, menar Anders Wikman. Vi förväntar oss att affärerna är öppna när vi vill handla.

Generellt sett kan vi se en svag ökning sedan 1980-talet av dem som inte arbetar dagtid. År 1980 var det 14 procent av arbetskraften, år 2003 nästan 19 procent.
Om artikeln
Av Henrik Höjer, Forskning & Framsteg, webb.
Publicerad i F&F 7/05 sid 35-37.
Ovanstående text är ett sammandrag.

Light Reading - Networking the Telecom Industry
Tele2 Puts Brakes on Baltics
OCTOBER 17, 2005
PR Newswire

STOCKHOLM — Tele2 AB, (“Tele2′’), (Stockholmsborsen:TEL2A) and (Stockholmsborsen:TEL2B), the leading alternative pan-European telecommunications company, today announced that, based on the current regulatory environment in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, it has decided to stop any further investments in its fixed line operations in these countries.

Tele2 intends to stop product development and marketing of fixed telephony in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Tele2 will continue servicing its existing customers, but will not take on new customers. Tele2 will continue to offer mobile telephony as one of the leading operators in these countries.

ADVERTISEMENT

Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, CEO and President of Tele2 commented, “We regret that, given the current regulatory environment in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, we do not, at this point, see any alternative other than to stop further investments in our fixed line operations. The implementation of the new EU legal regulatory framework is very late and the necessary work required to be done by the local regulatory authorities to ensure an open and competitive market has barely started. We are not able, for example, to launch broadband in these markets. Instead, we will focus on continuing to offer our successful mobile products and services to our customers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”

Tele2 AB