Minox “spy camera” inventor Walter Zapp, who produced the first models of the tiny device in his Latvian homeland, has died at age 97 in Binningen, Switzerland, according to media reports.

Zapp was born Sept. 4, 1905, in Rīga. He died July 17 in his Swiss home.

Born in Latvia into a German family, Zapp developed an early interest in photography. In the early 1930s, he created the first design for a miniature camera that would later become the Minox. The first cameras were produced in 1938 by VEF-Rīga.

The camera soon was being marketed around Europe and in the United States.

Zapp fled to Germany in 1941 during World War II. After the war, he and a partner founded the Minox company to continue manufacture and development of the camera.

The Minox camera gained popularity as a spy tool during the war and later often was featured in films and television shows with espionage themes.

Hope for saving Radio Free Europe and Voice of America broadcasts in Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian dimmed July 16 when the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives failed to restore funding for the services.

Baltic-American supporters had looked to the committee to add USD 8.9 million back into the fiscal 2004 budget proposed by the Bush Administration for the State Department. The department includes the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency that oversees American broadcasts to audiences abroad.

The administration’s proposed budget eliminates funding for RFE and VOA broadcasts to Eastern Europe, shifting the money to services aimed at listeners in the Middle East.

In its review of the budget, the Appropriations Committee supported the Bush Administration’s request for international broadcasting, a total of USD 564 million.

If the full House of Representatives approves the State Department budget as it stands now, and if the Senate does the same, the Latvian broadcasts would end come October.

A man described as an organized crime gang leader and a fugitive from a Latvian jail is set to go on trial in Florida for fraud and other charges, according to court documents and the Associated Press.

Using the alias Rustan Hodjaev, Vadīms Liede was arrested July 9, 2002, in Coral Springs, Fla. The 36-year-old Liede is one of four men charged Oct. 15 by federal authorities with identity fraud, motor vehicle theft and conspiracy involving efforts to cheat some Florida automobile dealers. Liede, also known as Pablo, has pleaded not guilty to the charges in federal district court in Miami.

The FBI identified Hodjaev as Liede based on fingerprint records, the Associated Press reported. The Latvian state prosecutor’s office is expected to seek Liede’s extradition.

Liede was one of 10 inmates who escaped in 1993 from the Pārlielupe prison in Jelgava, Latvia, where he was serving a 13-year term for organized crime. Liede also is wanted in Poland on charges of murder, robbery and heading an international gang.

Liede’s jury trial is scheduled to begin July 28 in federal district court in Miami.