Latvian Prime Minister Indulis Emsis submitted his nation’s NATO accession documents to the U.S. State Department on March 29 in Washington, D.C., making official Latvia’s entry into the defense alliance. The United States is the official repository for NATO documents.

Emsis, along with Defense Minister Atis Slakteris and other Latvian officials, then headed off to a White House ceremong to celebrate with U.S. President George W. Bush and leaders from six other nations, according to a statement from the White House. Besides Latvia, the other new members of NATO are Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Members of the local Latvian community also were present at the ceremony.

Before returning home, Slakteris is scheduled to meet with U.S. and NATO military officials to discuss Latvia’s role in the defense alliance, according to a press release from the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels, which will include raising the Latvian flag, is scheduled April 2.

NATO now stands at 26 member states, including Canada and the United States, as well as much of Europe.

Latvia’s permanent representative to NATO is Imants Viesturs Lieģis, who was born and raised in the Latvian exile community in the United Kingdom.

New ambassadors from Japan and Lithuania have begun their work in Latvia, the president’s press office has announced.

Seiichiro Otsuka is Japan’s new ambassador to Rīga. In her March 29 meeting with the ambassador, Latvian President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga said her country recalls that Japan’s diplomatic representative was the last to leave Latvia when it was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940.

Although Latvia does not have an embassy in Japan, Vīķe-Freiberga told Otsuka that opening one is a priority that she hopes soon will be realized.

The president also met with Lithuania’s ambassador, Osvaldas Čiukšys, the press office said. The two noted the symbolism of the day, when both countries became members of the NATO defense alliance.

Toronto Ziņas, a biweekly electronic publication in Canada that claims to be “the world’s only bilingual Latvian e-zine,” has launched a new Web site.

Started as an e-mail newsletter in 2000, the publication is edited by Māra Gulēna, a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Creation of the new Web site was coordinated by Gulēna between workers in Canada and a Web programmer in Latvia.

Launch of the new site, torontozinas.com, was timed to occur a month before Latvia joins the European Union, Gulēna said in a press release.

“The timing is perfect,” she said. “Latvian sites with any news component tend to be either only in Latvian, or only in English. Since Torontozinas.com is bilingual, it is accessible to Latvian speakers and non-speakers around the world.”
 
The publication is centered around an events calendar for the greater Toronto area. About 14,000 Canadians of Latvian descent live in Ontario province, about half of them in Toronto, according to the 2001 federal census.

The publication also carries news and commentary.
 
Gulēna also hosts the “Sveiks” Latvian program on Toronto’s OMNI Television and writes a column for the daily newspaper Diena in Rīga.

Torontozinas.com has received major financial support from the World Federation of Free Latvians (Pasaules brīvo latviešu apvienība), the Latvian National Association in Canada (Latviešu nacionālā apvienība Kanādā) and the Latvian Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto.