The second retrospective album of popular music composed by Imants Kalniņš, featuring material from the 1960s and 1970s, is set for release June 6 by Rīga-based Upe Recording Co.

The album, titled Otrās dziesmas, is a followup to last autumn’s release, Pirmās dziesmas.

The 12-track compact disc includes popular songs such as “Viņi dejoja vienu vasaru” from 1967 and “Pilsētā, kurā piedzimst vējš” from 1973. Other songs on the album are “Par to gadījumu ar Džordāno Bruno” (1969), “Liedagā” (1968), “Es esmu bagāts” (1967), “Zelta haizivs” (1968), “Astoņkājis” (1968). “Bāka” (1978), “Balāde par viņu un viņu” (1970), “Dziesma, ar ko tu sāksies?” (1974), “Kad vēji kalnos rāpjas (1974)” and “Parīziešu dzīru dziesma” (1970).

Lyrics are based on the poetry of Viks (the nom de plume of the composer’s brother, Viktors Kalniņš), Māris Čaklais, Jēkabs Rūsiņš and Knuts Skujenieks. Performing on the album are Ance Krauze, Ainars Mielavs, Zigfrīds Muktupāvels and Jānis Strazdiņš.

Upe Recording, run by Mielavs, has released a number of albums over the past several years featuring music by Kalniņš, one of Latvia’s most popular composers.

Swarms of killer flies are being blamed for more than 400 livestock deaths in Latvia’s Latgale and Vidzeme provinces in recent days, according to media reports and the Ministry of Agriculture.

The midges have attacked cattle, sheep and other livestock. The toxic bites from the swarms have led to inflammation, fever and other effects that killed the livestock. One entomologist told the daily newspaper Diena that the situation could continue for two weeks.

“Already for a couple of days I sensed that there were insects in the pasture, but I had never seen such quantities, like bees when they swarm,” one farmer, who lost nine milk cows—almost half his herd—told the daily newspaper Neatkarīga Rīta Avīze. Other reports tell of cattle covered with the flies, particularly on sensitive and unprotected areas such as nostrils and udders.

The swarms of midges apparently are the result of recent flooding and hot weather in eastern Latvia, ideal conditions for the insects, agriculture officials said. Those same conditions already had led to problems for farmers.

Agriculture Minister Mārtiņš Roze said the ministry will provide financial assistance for farmers who lost livestock.

(UPDATED 30 MAY 2005)

Latvian President Vaira-Vīķe Freiberga has scheduled a weeklong visit to the United States and Canada, during which she will participate in the 44th Annual International Achievement Summit, meet with United Nations officials and unveil a new scholarship named for her.

The president travels May 30 to New York, where her first order of business will be to meet with U.N. officials, including Secretary-General Kofi Annan, according to the president’s press office. Vīķe-Freiberga in April was named one of five envoys charged with promoting Annan’s reform agenda.

She also is to meet with Gen. Joseph Ralston, former NATO commander in Europe, to whom the president will present the Order of Viesturs, Latvia’s highest military honor.

From June 1-4 Vīķe-Freiberga is to attend the achievement summit in New York. The summit, hosted by the Washington, D.C.-based Academy of Achievement, each year brings together a small group of graduate students with men and women from various fields who have achieved greatness. In 2000, Vīķe-Freiberga was among recipients of the academy’s Golden Plate award for achievement in public service.

After the summit, Vīķe-Freiberga heads to Toronto, where she will attend a fundraising event that will establish a scholarship fund in her name. The June 4 event, “Latvians in the New World,” is organized by the Latvian sorority Spīdola and the Latvian Canadian Cultural Centre with support from the Latvian National Federation in Canada. The president is a member of the Spīdola sorority, which was formed in Germany in 1947.

The Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga Endowment Fund will support postgraduate study in Latvian language education.

“Our goal in establishing the Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga Endowment Fund was to raise $30,000 as a starting point,” Inese Flude, president of Spīdola’s Toronto chapter, said in a press release. “However, based on the response we have received from the private sector, individual donors and community organizations, we are on track to raise much more than that.”

During her time in Canada, Vīķe-Freiberga also is expected to meet with students from four Toronto-area Latvian schools.