BEIJING, Jun 11, 2002 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) — Highlights of today's newspapers:
      PEOPLE'S DAILY
      -Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with his Latvian counterpart Vaira Vike-Freiberga Monday in Riga, capital of Latvia.
      -The 50th anniversary of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong's inscription on promoting physical culture and building up people's health was marked Monday in Beijing.
      -Acting President of Botswana Seretse Ian Khama met Monday in Gaborone with Wei Jianxing, member of the Political Bureau Standing Committee and member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
      GUANGMING DAILY
      -Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with his Latvian counterpart Vaira Vike-Freiberga Monday in Riga, capital of Latvia.
      -The 50th anniversary of Mao Zedong's inscription on promoting physical culture and building up people's health was marked Monday in Beijing.
      CHINA YOUTH DAILY
      -Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with his Latvian counterpart Vaira Vike-Freiberga Monday in Riga, capital of Latvia.
      -China Monday launched a national development plan to guarantee primary health care for the country's 900 million rural population.
      CHINA DAILY
      -China is expected to increase grain imports to ease population and urbanization pressure.
      -China is mobilizing money and manpower to fight against a locust plague that is likely to threaten its summer crops and grasslands.
      ECONOMIC DAILY
      -Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with his Latvian counterpart Vaira Vike-Freiberga Monday in Riga, capital of Latvia.
      -The value of China's exports and imports of mineral products exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars annually in recent years, Tian Fengshan, minister of Land and Resources, said at a seminar on China's mineral resources and sustainable supply on June 10.
      XINHUA DAILY TELEGRAPH
      -Visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin met with his Latvian counterpart Vaira Vike-Freiberga Monday in Riga, capital of Latvia.
      -China's production safety supervision authorities said that economic means, together with legal and administrative means, will be used to strengthen supervision over production safety.
      CHINA SECURITIES
      -The National Interbank Borrowing and Lending Center launched an interbank bond index Monday.
      -Guotai Junan Securities Company has underwritten 10.18 billion yuan worth of treasury and financial bonds so far this year, next only to the four state-owned commercial banks.

      RIGA, Jun 11, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — Chinese President Jiang Zemin said here Tuesday that there are great potentials to be tapped in developing trade and economic cooperation between China and Latvia, and China is ready to participate in port construction in Latvia.
      Jiang made the remarks during his meeting with Latvian Prime Minister Andris Berzins. Jiang arrived here Monday on a state visit, the first by a Chinese president since the two countries established full diplomatic relations in 1991.
      Jiang told Berzins that he has seen during the current visit that Latvia has found its own way of development following 10 years of efforts. As a result, the economy of Latvia has grown rapidly and the living standards of Latvian people has been raised constantly.
      Ties between China and Latvia have grown steadily and healthily, Jiang noted, adding that China is ready to enhance its relations with Latvia on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.
      Jiang said Latvia is an important passage linking Europe and Asia, and Chinese companies are experienced in port engineering, and willing to participate in the construction of Latvian ports.
      Jiang said China is developing its vast western areas, and it encourages foreign investment in infrastructure, ecological construction and resources development there. Latvian entrepreneurs are welcome to invest in China's western areas.
      Berzins said Latvia appreciates China's stance that all countries, regardless of their sizes, should be equal. Latvia attaches great importance to China's international status and role, and has made it a policy priority to develop relations with China.
      The prime minister said China is now the biggest trading partner of Latvia in Asia, and he hoped that China can upgrade cooperation in transit trade and transportation.
      In a separate meeting with Latvian Chairman of Parliament Janis Straume Tuesday, Jiang said that to increase exchanges between parliaments of the two countries will help promote mutual understanding and friendship between the people of the two countries.

      BRUSSELS, June 13 (Reuters) — The European Union's executive will present a generally upbeat report at this month's summit of EU leaders on candidate countries' progress in upgrading their laws to the bloc's standards, officials said on Thursday.
      The 12, mostly east European applicants are struggling to bring their national legislation in line with 80,000 pages of EU legislation before they join, 10 of them possibly in 2004.
      "Overall, they are on track and they are doing things they are supposed to do," an EU Commission official said, summing up the 1,600-page paper, which EU leaders are to debate in Seville, Spain, on June 21-22.
      EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said last week some candidates could even surpass some current members in transposing EU laws into national legislation.
      But Verheugen added that candidates needed to work harder to improve their administrative capacity, including courts of law and government agencies, to implement those laws.
      The report, needed for EU leaders to be sure they can press ahead with enlargement, lists areas in which candidates have failed to meet commitments.
      Poland, the biggest candidate, still needs to amend its central bank's charter to shore up its independence, said the official, who asked not to be named.
      The government has sent a relevant bill to parliament, but its passage has been delayed by many deputies who have proposed their own draft law, which could jeopardise the bank's independence in a bid to force a cut in interest rates.
      President Aleksander Kwasniewski has pledged to block any attempt to curb the bank's independence.
      The report also criticises Hungary for failing to pass a media law that would prevent the government interfering in state radio and television.
      Hungary's new centre-left government has pledged to enact such a bill to allow the country to complete accession talks on the "culture and audiovisual chapter," one of some 30 policy areas that need to be agreed before any country joins the EU.
      The Commission also shames Hungary and the Czech Republic for dragging their feet over adopting new public procurement rules, which would help fight corruption by making public tenders more transparent.
      The official said Poland should adopt a new food and nutrition act to improve animal feed standards and strengthen veterinary controls and should better implement intellectual property laws.
      The EU hopes to wrap up accession talks by December with the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Bulgaria and Romania hope to join later in the decade.

      Riga (dpa) — Lettland plant, die genetischen Daten der Bevölkerung systematisch zu sammeln. Ein entsprechendes Gesetz dazu wurde am Donnerstagabend im Parlament in Riga mit breiter Mehrheit verabschiedet. Es sieht vor, ab dem kommenden Jahr durch eine neuzuschaffende staatlichen Forschungsstelle den Aufbau einer landesweiten Gendatenbank zu betreiben. Jedem Einwohner wird dabei freigestellt sein, sich an dem Projekt zu beteiligen.
      Elmar Grens, Leiter des biomedizinischen Forschungszentrums an der Staatsuniversität Riga, begrüßte am Freitag die Entscheidung. Mit dem nun geschaffenen gesetzlichen Rahmen könne nun in Lettland die Genforschung vorangetrieben werden. Das Gesetz sieht vor, Gendaten für medizinische Forschungszwecke auch privaten Unternehmen zur Verfügung zu stellen.
      Für 2003 will der lettische Staat 300 000 Lats (517 000 Euro) zur Verfügung stellen, um in einem Pilotprojekt Gendaten vNn Risikogruppen zu salm%ln. Wissdnschaftl%r erhoffen, in Zukunft auf Grund von Massenerhebungen gdnetis#h wirksame Medikamente gegen Krankheiten wie Krebs und Alzheimar entwickeln zu können.
      Bislang wurden die Gendaten der Bevölkerung nur in Island syrtematisch erhoben. In Estland läuft ein ähnliches Projekt seit Anfang des Jahres.
      ...Basically, a law was passed, by a wide majority, to collect genetic data of the Latvian population. A single research center would operate the country-wide gene database. Elmars Grens, director of the biomedical research center in Riga, welcomed the decision. This law will allow gene research to progress in Latvia. The data is to be used for medical purposes, and will also be put at the disposal of private enterprises. For 2003, the goal is to allocate 300,000 Lats (517,000 euro) to a pilot project. Hopes are to be able to develop effective future medicines against cancer and Alzheimers. So far, systematic genetic data collection of the population has been done only in Iceland.

      Moscow, Russia, Jun 17, 2002 (RosBusinessConsulting via COMTEX) — OSCE high commissioner on national minorities Rolf Ekeus will start a two-day visit to Moscow today. He will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and parliamentarians from corresponding State Duma committees. The OSCE commissioner and Russian officials are going to discuss the situation with human rights observance in Latvia, Estonia and some CIS states. In addition, they will consider the general situation with national minorities in the zone of OSCE influence and negotiate further human rights collaboration between Russia and the OSCE.

      TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Troops from 15 nations were set to open military exercises on a former Soviet air base in Georgia on Monday under the aegis of NATO's Partnership for Peace, underlining the Caucasus nation's efforts to bring itself closer to the western alliance.
      The approximately 600 servicemen were to practice patrolling, organizing checkpoints, and anti-sniper techniques, according to Col. Irakly Batkuashvili. They were also to work on boosting their ability to work together.
      "These exercises have an important significance in raising the professional level of Georgian servicemen, as well as the representatives of the other countries taking part," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said Monday.
      The exercises, dubbed Cooperative Best Effort 2002, are being held at the Vaziani air base, about 20 kilometers east of the capital Tbilisi, and are scheduled to end on June 28. The base, headquarters of the elite 11th Army Brigade, was evacuated by Russian troops in June 2001. It has been renovated with Turkish funding, and it is being brought up to NATO standards.
      Troops taking part in the exercises are coming from Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Canada, Greece, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, Romania, Britain, Hungary, Bulgaria, the United States, and Turkey. Two officers from Ukraine will also be participating.
      Uzbekistan, which was to take part, pulled out Saturday because its troops were preparing for another exercise at home, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing officials in the Uzbek Defense Ministry.
      In addition to its cooperation with NATO, Georgia is hosting U.S. troops that are to instruct its forces in anti-terrorism operations. U.S. and Georgian officials have said that fighters connected with the al-Qaida terror network may be based in Georgia's lawless Pankisi Gorge, on the border with Russia's rebel region of Chechnya.

      WILTON, CONN., Jun 18, 2002 (The Christian Science Monitor via COMTEX) — The headlong rush of "progress" and "development" has made the world poorer. As whole species of animals and plants are endangered and disappear, the human family, too, is a loser. Not in terms of number, to be sure, which increases without letup. It is the marvelous miscellany of human expression that suffers.
      Of the roughly 6,000 languages (plus their dialects) spoken around the world, 3,000 or more are classified as endangered, seriously endangered, or dying. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, this year published an "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing."
      The atlas's editor, Prof. Stephen Wurm of the Australian National University, writes that the death of languages is a very old phenomenon. A few, like Latin and Sanskrit, have been kept alive artificially, but many have left no traces. Some remain undeciphered while others have evolved and given birth to new languages. Our own era, he says, with the upsurge of new means of communication, seems to have created more situations of conflict between the languages of the world than ever before, causing more to disappear at an accelerating pace.
      Experts in linguistics consider a language endangered when it is no longer learned by at least 30 percent of a community's children. It is seriously endangered when the youngest speakers have moved to middle age and beyond. It is moribund when only a handful of speakers are left. Five years ago, researchers found the last speaker of Bikya, an African language. In Europe, Livonian - related to Finnish - was registered in Latvia and spoken by only 200 people.
      In the United States, 200 or more languages are thought to have been in use before the Europeans arrived. Today, fewer than 150 remain, all endangered, many moribund. Even tongues with many thousands of speakers, such as Navajo, are used by few children, and it is believed that almost half the Navajos do not speak it.
      The pressure of English is too great, as has been that of French and English in Canada. In America's lower 48 states, the treatment of native Americans was harsher than in Alaska and Canada, and recent waves of conservatism and "English only" policies have hastened the extinction of native languages. Imperial Russia's surge across Siberia, followed by the heavy Soviet hand in Central Asia, supplanted native languages with Russian.
      Natural phenomena have disrupted societies over the centuries but, in the main, the process has been less dramatic. Where more dynamic cultures have moved in on local communities, their traditional idioms may be inadequate, putting them economically and politically at a disadvantage. They tend then increasingly to adopt the speech of the dominant culture.
      Language is, obviously, key to a society's identity. Hebrew, which seemed lost, was revived as the tongue of Jewish nationalism and flourishes now, meeting all the semantic needs of science, politics, and the arts. Ethnic consciousness, and the freedom to exercise it, has been bringing back fading idioms as a rebellion of particularity against globalization. The language of Ainu in northern Japan, down to eight elderly speakers in 1980, has reawakened, with strong official support. Maori in New Zealand and Hawaiian on Hawaii have been reborn.
      Languages of Central Asia, steamrollered by Russian, are coming back after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The 40 languages of the Caucasus fiercely proclaim ethnic pride. Circassian and Abkhaz, which have the largest number of consonants of any language, sound so alien, says Professor Wurm, that outsiders doubt they are listening to human discourse.
      The other side of the coin is the fluctuation of the mega-languages, especially English. This tongue of a small people on an island off the coast of Europe is becoming the world's lingua franca, not by conquest, but by acclamation.
      Little more than a century ago, the language of science was German. Today it is English. Well into the 20th century, French was the vehicle of diplomacy. Today it is English, which has become the language of global business and aviation while making inroads into sports, the arts, and even the vernacular of many countries. Even so proud a language as Arabic feels besieged.
      The prospect of a homogenized world is depressing. The Inuit languages have many different words for what English can call only "snow." Others encapsulate traditions, myths, and community experience that enrich the tapestry of human life.
      Each disappearance diminishes the whole. But there is a remedy: not artificial respiration or intensive care, but the cohabitation of multi-lingualism and the acceptance of others that cushion a world running out of elbow room.
      Richard C. Hottelet was a longtime correspondent for CBS.

      Applications selected in the 2001 visa lottery [excerpt]:
      Europe
       — Estonia: 61
       — Latvia: 172
       — Lithuania: 2,245
      Source: State Department

      SEVILLE, Spain, June 22 (Reuters) — Germany cast doubt on a pledge made by European Union leaders on Saturday to forge a deal in November on farm subsidies for candidate countries but said enlargement remained the EU's overriding historic aim.
      At a summit in Seville, the 15 EU leaders vowed to "communicate all the items lacking in the financial package to the candidate countries in early November."
      This would keep talks on accession for 10 aspiring EU members, mainly from eastern Europe, on track. Negotiations are due to be finalised by December so they can join the bloc, and symbolically end Europe's Cold War-era divide, in 2004.
      But the vast cost of giving the poorer newcomers, and especially their farmers, aid similar to that enjoyed by current members has caused a split.
      Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, facing a stiff challenge from conservative opponents in a September 22 general election, is reluctant to commit to any tight timetable on resolving an issue involving billions of euros from German taxpayers.
      "We did not agree on a date. But because we assume continuity of the German government we will be ready to take decisions in November as also in December," he told a news conference after the two-day summit.
      GERMAN CONCERNS
      But, highlighting that Germany remains keen to see its eastern neighbours join the bloc, he added: "Enlargement is politically such an overriding goal that it must be reached."
      "This means that the price should not be set too high...I am not ready to accept that the chance for enlargement be destroyed by petty agricultural politics."
      Germany is the biggest contributor to the EU's 95 billion euro annual budget but fears it will face a much bigger bill after enlargement unless there is reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
      Backed by Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands, it opposes making any early commitment to granting farm aid to the candidate states and wants time to assess a report due out next month from the European Commission on CAP reform.
      France, Spain and others, anxious to retain the current CAP, say the candidates are also entitled to direct payments.
      In Berlin, German Finance Minister Hans Eichel was quoted on Saturday as saying southern European Union states must also help pay for expansion. "If EU policies, above all agricultural subsidies, remain as they are (enlargement) can become very expensive," he told Focus magazine in an interview released ahead of Monday publication.
      "Without changes, Germany's net contribution to the EU budget would double to 20 billion euros in 2007 from around 10 billion euros today."
      In Seville, French President Jacques Chirac brushed aside Schroeder's comments on the deadline for a farm deal as pre-election posturing.
      "In this area, let's wait for the election deadline. Germany is going to vote soon and one can understand that in this period such subjects are very delicate," he told reporters.
      Chirac, bolstered by his own recent re-election and the victory of his centre-right supporters in a parliamentary election last weekend, said he did not doubt that the EU would find a compromise on aid to candidates in the autumn.
      DANISH DISMAY
      Denmark, which takes over the EU's rotating six-month presidency from Spain on July 1, was less sanguine about Schroeder's remarks on the November deadline.
      "The timetable has been agreed unanimously, including by Germany, so...I don't understand," said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
      Before Schroeder's remarks, candidate states had welcomed the early November deadline, saying it should give them enough time to negotiate favourable entry terms.
      "The early November deadline is positive. The threat that we would be told 'take it or leave it' with no time for negotiations has diminished," said one Polish diplomat.
      The 10 countries hoping to join the EU in 2004 are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia and the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta.
      In their declaration, EU leaders also praised progress made in the accession talks by Bulgaria and Romania, which are expected to join later in the decade, and included a message of encouragement to Turkey, the 13th candidate country.

      SEVILLE, Spain, June 21 (Reuters) — EU leaders on Friday rejected Moscow's call to allow Kaliningrad citizens to travel freely to Russia proper once the enclave is encircled by the European Union after the bloc's eastward enlargement.
      Poland and Lithuania, which hope to become EU members in 2004, surround the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea.
      European leaders, meeting in Seville for a summit, said any travel arrangements for Kaliningrad's 1.3 million residents would have to be compatible with EU laws, which require visas for Russian citizens travelling through member states.
      According to a draft declaration seen by Reuters, the leaders instructed the European Commission, the EU's executive body, to propose a solution for Kaliningrad "exploring the options available under the acquis (EU legislation)."
      Spokesman Jonathan Faull said the Commission would report on the issue by September.
      Diplomats said Kaliningrad residents might be offered cheap multi-entry visas, but added that Moscow's proposal of "corridors" or "sealed trains" across Poland and Lithuania were out of the question.
      Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the issue of Kaliningrad is an important test of future ties between Moscow and the EU, which want to boost cooperation, notably in the energy sector and the field of counter-terrorism.
      EU security bodies fear that Kaliningrad, the former German territory of Koenigsberg seized by the Soviet army in 1945, will become further beset by organised crime, disease and poverty after EU enlargement.
      The EU said that when reviewing the Kaliningrad problem it would closely consult Poland and Lithuania.