Latvia’s ambassador to Portugal, Ints Upmacis, is recovering in a Lisbon hospital after sustaining serious injuries in a traffic accident, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced.

The accident occurred March 1, the ministry said in a short statement. Local police are investigating the accident.

Upmacis was named ambassador to Portugal in 2003.

While he is recuperating, First Secretary Inga Krastiņa will take over Upmacis’ responsibilities, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press office.

The Embassy in Latvia in Lisbon opened in 1997.

One of Latvia’s two four-man bobsleigh teams has finished 10th overall in the Winter Olympics as the games in Turin, Italy, near their end.

The team of Jānis Miņins, Daumants Dreiškens, Mārcis Rullis and Jānis Ozols finished with a total time of 3 minutes, 42.59 seconds over four runs, or 2:17 behind the gold medal-winning German team led by Andre Lange. The Latvians hit their top speed during the fourth run on Feb. 25—131.5 kilometers per hour.

The second Latvian team, composed of Mihails Arhipovs, Intars Dīcmanis, Māris Bogdanovs and Reinis Rozītis, finished
22nd overall. The team did not qualify for the final run.

Four years ago at Salt Lake City, the two Latvian teams earned seventh and 12th overall. Sandis Prūsis piloted the lead team in 2002, but he did not compete this year.

In other Olympic events Feb. 25:

• Ilmārs Bricis finished a disappointing 28th out of 30 biathletes competing in the men’s 15-kilometer mass start. He finished 3 minutes, 7.6 seconds behind gold medal winner Michael Greis of Germany, who completed the course of skiing and shooting in 47 minutes, 20 seconds.
• Madara Līduma finished 20th out of 30 biathletes in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start. She was 3 minutes, 16.2 seconds behind Anna Carin Olofsson of Norway, who clinched the gold medal with a time of 40:36.5.

Poet Andrejs Eglītis, who spent 53 years in exile before returning to his homeland in 1998, has died in a Rīga hospital at the age of 93, Latvian media report.

His most enduring work is “Dievs, Tava zeme deg” (God, Thine Earth Is Aflame!), a cantata written in 1943 with composer Lūcija Garūta. While in exile in Sweden, Eglītis in 1947 founded the Latvian National Fund (Latviešu Nacionālais fonds), an organization devoted to documenting the Soviet occupation of Latvia.

“From his land, from God’s land, has departed a deep Latvian patriot and defender of the Latvian essence,” President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga said in an announcement reacting to news of Eglītis’ death.

Eglītis was born in 1912 in Ļaudona, an area in Vidzeme province. He studied in the Rīga city technical school before joining the Latvian army in 1935. After his discharge, he wrote for the newspapers Brīvā Zeme and Rīts and also worked for Latvian State Radio, according a biography in the online encyclopedia, www.gramata21.lv.

He served in the Latvian Legion during World War II. In 1945, along with other members of Latvia’s cultural elite, he fled to Sweden, where he continued his literary work and also became a relentless fighter for the independence of his homeland.

Among the LNF’s work was the publication in 1951 of These Names Accuse, a 677-page book detailing the names of people deported to Siberia from Latvia in 1940 and 1941.

Eglītis in 1953 married Anda Jaunvīksne.

Eglītis is credited with more than 30 books, mostly of poetry. Last year, the Rīga-based publishing house and book store Valters un Rapa released the sixth in a planned seven-volume collection his work.

Eglītis received various honors for both his literary and his patriotic efforts. Among them were the World Federation of Free Latvians’ highest honor, bestowed in 1972; honorary membership in the Latvian Academy of Sciences, to which Eglītis was elected in 1992, and the Order of Three Stars, Latvia’s highest civilian honor, which he received in 1994.

But perhaps best known is the honor he received upon repatriation in 1998, when the Latvian government gave him an apartment on Rīga’s Tērbatas Street. A 30-minute documentary film, The People Are My Home, directed by Rodrigo Rikards, examined the poet’s return to his homeland.