Police in England have reported a possible breakthrough in the death of Latvian teenager Alisa Dmitrijeva, whose body was discovered on land in West Norfolk owned by the British royal family.

The 17-year-old’s body was found Jan. 1 on the Sandringham Estate northeast of London. She had been missing since August.

A bottle-green Lexus GS300 that Dmitrijeva was last seen in on Aug. 31 was recovered in January in a scrap yard in the Wisbech area and is being examined by police, according to a press release from Norfolk Constabulary. Forensic specialists are looking at soil and debris samples found in the vehicle and comparing them to samples from the area where the girl’s body was found.

“This may take several weeks to analyze and if a link is identified, it could be a significant step forward in the inquiry,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jes Fry, who is leading the Joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigation Team.

A forensic palynologist, who specializes in identifying pollen and spores, has indicated that a very rare composition of spores from fungi were found where Dmitrijeva’s body was discovered.

Dmitrejeva and her family moved to Great Britain in 2009 and became part of the Eastern European community in the King’s Lynn and Wisbech areas.

Anyone with information in the Dmitrijeva case may contact the Joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigation Team at Norfolk Constabulary on +44 01953 424242, or Crimestoppers UK at +41 800 555 111.

Latvia-born singer Laima Vaikule, backed by the female trio Lady’s Sweet and with a guest appearance by singer Jānis Stībelis (who also uses the stage name Jay Stever), kicks off a month-long tour of the United States and Canada with a March 8 concert in the Seattle area.

The concert tour, which will visit 15 cities, is aimed primarily at Russian-speaking audiences and is supported by the Russian-language television network RTVI.

Vaikule is best known as a singer who since the mid-1980s has been popular among Russian audiences. She has worked closely with Latvian popular composer Raimonds Pauls. Vaikule also is an actress, director and choreographer.

Vaikule’s 1996 concert program in Latvia, Russia and the United States earned her a Great Music Award (Lielā mūzikas balva).

Vaikule has released seven albums, according to her website, with the most recent being last year’s Новые песни.

Lady’s Sweet is a relatively new vocal trio that includes singers Karīna Tropa, Vineta Elksne and Jolanta Strikaite.

Stībelis, known as a pop and rhythm-and-blues singer, has seen a certain degree of success in Latvia and Russia. He won the Jaunais Vilnis (New Wave) competition in 2002. Stībelis has released a number of albums, the most recent being 2010’s Diapozitīvi.

Concerts are scheduled in:

• Washington at 8 p.m. March 8 in the Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 4th Ave. N., Edmonds.
• California at 7 p.m. March 10 in the San Francisco Scottish Rite Masonic Center‎, 2850 19th Ave., San Francisco.
• California at 7 p.m. March 11 in the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 West 8th St., Los Angeles.
• California at 7:30 p.m. March 12 in the Sherwood Auditorium (Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego), 700 Prospect St., La Jolla.
• Texas at 7 p.m. March 17 in the Lakewood Theater, 1825 Abrams Road, Dallas.
• Florida at 8 p.m. March 20 in the N.M.B. Performing Arts Theater, 17011 N.E. 19th Ave., North Miami Beach.
• Illinois at 8 p.m. March 23 in the Christian Heritage Academy, 315 Waukegan Road, Northfield (near Chicago).
• Ontario at 8 p.m. March 24 in the Global Kingdom Ministries, 1250 Markham Road, Scarborough (near Toronto).
• Michigan at 7 p.m. March 25 in the Shriners Silver Garden Events Center, 24350 Southfield Road, Southfield (near Detroit).
• Ohio ata 8 p.m. March 27 at the Tri-C Eastern Campus, 4250 Richmond Road, Highland Hills (near Cleveland).
• Pennsylvania at 8 p.m. March 29 in the Archbishop Wood High School, 655 York Road, Warminter (near Philadelphia).
• New York at 8 p.m. March 30 in the Whitman Theater, Brooklyn College, 2900 Campus Road, Brooklyn.
• Massachusetts at 7:30 p.m. March 31 in the John Hancock Hall, 180 Berkeley St., Boston.
• New Jersey at 6:30 p.m. April 1 in the FORM Theater, 314 Main St., Metuchen.
• Maryland at 8 p.m. April 3 in the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 7401 Park Heights Ave., Baltimore.

For further information about Vaikule, visit her website, laima.com or her Facebook page. More information about Lady’s Sweet is found on the group’s website, ladyssweet.com, or on its Facebook page. Details on Stībelis may be found on janisstibelis.lv. Further details about the concert tour are available on the website www.rtviprojects.com.

A Latvian government agency will appeal a recent Supreme Court ruling that restores dual citizenship for a scientist who now lives in Sweden, a spokesman says.

Attorneys for the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (Pilsonības un migrācijas lietu pārvalde, or PMLP) have reviewed the ruling in the case of physicist Uldis Bērziņš and plan to appeal it to the Senate of the Supreme Court, spokesman Andrejs Rjabcevs told Latvians Online in a Feb. 24 e-mail.

Justices of the Supreme Court’s Chamber of Civil Cases on Feb. 16 overturned a lower court’s decision that stripped Bērziņš of his Latvian citizenship. Bērziņš in 2007 became a naturalized Swedish citizen but did not relinquish his Latvian citizenship. However, under Latvian law, dual citizenship is not allowed and so the PMLP sought to revoke Bērziņš‘s Latvian citizenship.

From 1991-1995, a transitional rule in the Citizenship Law allowed more than 30,000 exiles and their descendants to reclaim their Latvian citizenship without giving up the citizenship of their home country. Several attempts to lift the restriction have failed, although proposed amendments to the Citizenship Law now before the Saeima appear to have broad support, especially as the emigration of tens of thousands of citizens in recent years has become a major political issue.

Arguing for Berziņš before the justices, attorney Māris Jansons pointed to the proposed amendments—and the fact that they have already cleared a first reading in the Saeima—as one of the reasons his client’s dual citizenship should be allowed, according to a Supreme Court press release.

Jansons also noted that his client’s ties to Latvia are strong and that he has contributed to the development of physics in his homeland. Many people in recent years have moved abroad in search of work, but maintain strong ties to Latvia, even participating in homeland elections, Jansons added.

From the PMLP’s perspective, lawmakers in crafting the Citizenship Law did not foresee special circumstances or criteria that would prevent revoking a person’s Latvian citizenship when that person has become a citizen of another country, Rjabcevs told Latvians Online. A decision by the Supreme Court would establish case law in how to deal with similar situations in the future, Rjabcevs said.

This is not the first the Supreme Court has dealt with the dual citizenship question. In 2010, for example, the court upheld a decision by the PMLP to deny Latvian citizenship to the daughter of Baiba Lapiņa-Strunska and Viktors Strunskis, a couple living in Germany. Ironically, the Supreme Court in the same case in 2009 called into question the fairness of the ban on dual citizenship, but the Constitutional Court in 2010 upheld the restriction.

At least one exception to the dual citizenship restriction has been allowed. In 2010, by a unanimous vote of the Saeima, Canadian citizen Agra Vāgnere was recognized as a Latvian citizen for her contributions to the diaspora community. Vāgnere moved from Latvia to Canada in 1989 and became a Canadian citizen, but missed the July 2005 deadline for reclaiming her Latvian citizenship.