It won’t be just folks in Latvia going Aug. 22 to their favorite local bridge to light lanterns in honor of Latvia’s 90th anniversary. Latvians in Ireland and Peru will be doing the same, says a Ministry of Defense spokeswoman.

The event, “Gaismas tilti” (Bridges of Light), is being coordinated by the ministry as part of the year-long “Iededzies par Latviju!” project. Across Latvia, residents are invited to go to a bridge at 21:00 hours to light lanterns. The date, Aug. 22, is 90 days before Independence Day, Nov. 18.

In Ireland, the Latvian Association for Latvians in Ireland (Latviešu apvienība latviešiem Īrijā, or LALI) is calling on community members to congregate at 21:00 hours at the Flower Hill Road bridge in Navan, about 50 kilometers northwest of Dublin. Lanterns will be placed on the bridge and participants will hear dedications from “Gaismas tilts” ambassadors, including writer Nora Ikstena, folklorist Ilga Reizniece, director Māra Ķimele, artist Imants Lancmans, stylist Žanna Dubska and conductor Māris Sirmais.

Instructions for making lanterns are available on LALI’s Web site, www.latviesi.org

In Lima, Peru, the small Latvian community will gather to light lanterns at 21:00 hours in Parque República de Letonia, a park in the Miraflores district named for Latvia. President Valdis Zatlers dedicated the park during a May visit to Peru. The park, at Calle Ocharán and the Malecón de Miraflores, overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

About 200 bridges in 146 municipalities in Latvia will be sites for the “Gaismas tilts” event, according to Līga Ivanova, regional media coordinator for the Ministry of Defense. Further information about the event is available by visiting www.lv90.lv.

Rīga earned the second-highest number of votes in six weeks of online balloting and will claim one of the most expensive slots in the new World Edition of the popular Monopoly board game, Massachusetts-based manufacturer Hasbro Inc. has announced.

While Baltic Avenue has been one of the cheaper properties in the classic version of the board game, Rīga will join Montréal in the top-priced dark blue property group in Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition, the gamemaker announced.

A total of 22 world cities will be represented in the new edition. According to Hasbro, more than 5.6 million votes were cast for 70 world cities, which determined 20 of the 22 cities featured in the game. A number Web sites in Latvia and abroad provided links to the Monopoly site in an effort to boost votes for Rīga.

The World Edition will go on sale Aug. 26 in more than 50 countries and in 37 different languages.

Besides Montréal and Rīga, the cities on the game board—in the order of ballot results—will be Cape Town, Belgrade, Paris, Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Beijing, London, New York, Sydney, Vancouver, Shanghai, Rome, Toronto, Kyiv (Kiev), Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Tokyo, Taipei, Gdynia (Gdansk). The last two won a write-in contest and will represent the least expensive properties.

Voting took place during a six-week period earlier this year.

“We hope that fans of the world’s most popular board game will enjoy buying, selling and trading real estate from around the globe in the new Monopoly game that they created with their votes,” Helen Martin, Hasbro’s vice president of global marketing, said in a press release. “We are thrilled that the first-ever global game board includes an interesting mix of cities that showcases the dynamic cultures, sights and history of the planet.”

Weightlifter Viktors Ščerbatihs has won Latvia’s first medal—a bronze—in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games with his Aug. 19 performance in the +105 kilogram event.

The 33-year-old athlete from Dobele, who also is a member of the Saeima, was considered in media reports as the frontrunner for gold in the heaviest men’s weightlifting class. But it was Germany’s Matthias Steiner who stole the show, lifting a total 461 kilograms in the snatch and clean-and-jerk portions of the event, according to the official Web site of the Beijing Games.

Ščerbatihs, who won a silver medal 2004 Games in Athens, lifted a total of 448 kilograms for the bronze. Evgeny Chigishev of Russia took the silver medal with a total of lift of 460 kilograms. The event took place in the Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Gymnasium.

Estonia so far has won one silver medal, won by Tõnu Endrekson and Jüri Jaanson in the men’s double sculls rowing competition. Lithuania has two medals. Mindaugas Mizgaitis won bronze in the men’s 120 kilogram Greco-Roman wrestling event, while Gintarė Volungevičiūtė took the silver in the laser radial sailing event.