The religious leader at the center of a minor controversy regarding recently named U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is a Latvian-American.

Edgars Kalnins is senior pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God in Wasilla, the town in Alaska where Palin grew up and served two terms as mayor before become governor of the state. Palin, who became the Republican Party’s candidate for vice president on Sept. 4, is a former member of the church.

“Yes, I am Latvian,” Kalnins told Latvians Online in an e-mail. “I do have Latvian heritage but do not speak Latvian. I know some words.”

The church’s teachings and the influence they may have had on Palin were called into question in a Sept. 2 story in The Huffington Post, an online news outlet. Since then the story has been reported in other media as well.

According to The Huffington Post, Kalnins has “preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war ‘contending for your faith;’ and said that Jesus ‘operated from that position of war mode.’”

Kalnins became senior pastor of the church in 1999. Palin left the church in 2002 when she became governor, The Huffington Post reported.

Kalnins and his wife served as pastors in Florida, Wisconsin and New Jersey before moving to Alaska, according to the Wasilla Assembly of God’s Web site.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Georgia, NATO needs “to send signals” to the Baltic states that it will protect them from military attack, Kurt Volker, the U.S. ambassador to the defense alliance, has told the Financial Times newspaper.

“They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighboring country,” Volker told the newspaper during an interview in Brussels following a European Union summit on the Georgian situation. “We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit.”

As members of the defense alliance, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania need to be assured of NATO’s principle that an attack on one ally is to be answered by the entire alliance.

The Sept. 3 Financial Times article noted that all three Baltic countries have been outspoken in NATO and EU discussions about Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Latvia’s President Valdis Zatlers and Foreign Minister Māris Riekstiņš were among those condemning Russia’s actions in Georgia following the Aug. 9 invasion. Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis joined the presidents of several Eastern European nations in a visit to Tbilisi to show support for Georgia. Russia’s invasion was in response to Georgian military action in the breakway region of South Ossetia.

The paper also noted the large Russian minority populations in the Baltics. Russian officials have frequently been critical of Estonia’s and Latvia’s relations with Russian speakers in their countries.

Volker recommended military “planning and exercising” to shore up NATO’s presence in the Baltics, the Financial Times reported.

“We need to do what NATO ought to do, not in a provocative way and not in a rushed or hasty way,” Volker told the newspaper. “But NATO being credible is what’s important.”

The EU summit stopped short of issuing sanctions against Russia, a decision that met with approval from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. However, the EU did decide to postpone talks with Russia over a partnership agreement, is sending emergency and reconstruction aid to Georgia, and called on nations not to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Representatives of Latvia’s ethnic minority organizations have called on Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis to not close the country’s integration secretariat as part of a plan to trim the state budget.

Godmanis has been considering laying off 5 percent of government workers and eliminating three special assignment ministries, including the Secretariat of the Special Assignment Minister for Social Integration Affairs (Īpašu uzdevuma ministra sabiedrības integrācijas lietās sekretariāts, or ĪUMSILS).

Among other functions, ĪUMSILS also works with Latvian groups in the diaspora and helps fund educational and cultural projects.

Godmanis, according to media reports, has been considering liquidating ĪUMSILS, the Minister for Special Assignments for Electronic Government Affairs and the Minister for Special Assignments for Administration of European Union Funds. But after a Sept. 2 meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, it appears the plan is on hold, in part because of politicians’ concerns that cutting the three secretariats could upset the balance of power in the coalition government.

In their letter, the ethnic minority representatives said they were concerned about reports the integration secretariat might be on the chopping block, according ĪUMSILS spokesperson Zane Šneidere.

“Latvia is a multinational state in which 41 percent of inhabitants are members of minorities,” the representatives said in their open letter to the prime minister. Eliminating ĪUMSILS would be a wrong step in Latvia’s state politics that could negatively affect development of civil society, they said.

“Thanks to the support of the secretariat, Latvia’s minorities have should themselves as an integral part of Latvia’s society,” the letter continued, “which has in turn reduced the divide between Latvians and members of other ethnic groups.”

The letter was signed by representatives of the Russian, Belarussian, Estonian, Lithuanian, German, Polish, Georgian, Old Believer, Arab, Jewish and Balto-Slavic communities.