More than 1,200 citizens abroad applied for new or renewed their Latvian passports in a project that brought mobile processing stations to the United States, Canada and Australia during July and early August, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced in Rīga.

The project was coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior’s Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (Pilsonsības un migrācijas lietu pārvalde, or PMLP). It was designed to serve Latvian citizens abroad in advance of the Oct. 2 parliamentary election, especially those who live a great distance from Latvian embassies.

Although the effort did not serve the 1,800 citizens the ministries had expected, the project brought in LVL 67,000 in state and consular fees.

In all, 1,247 citizens were processed by representatives using the mobile passport stations. Of those, 709 were in the U.S., 346 in Australia and 192 in Canada.

Three pairs of representatives, with one from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one from the PMLP, visited the three countries.

They brought with them a processing station that allowed the representatives to take passport photographs and to record fingerprints. In the U.S., the processing station was brought Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York and Seattle. In Canada, the representatives visited Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver. Australian cities visited were Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

A 17-year-old javelin athlete from Smiltene, Latvia, has won a bronze medal in the the 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) underway in Singapore.

Intars Išējevs took third place overall in the Aug. 22 final of the event, held at Singapore’s Bishan Stadium, according to results posted on the official website of the Youth Olympic Games, www.singapore2010.sg.

His farthest throw, which was also a personal best, was 74.23 meters.

The gold medal in the javelin event went to Braian Toledo of Argentina, whose best throw was 81.78 meters, while the silver medal went to Devin Bogert of the U.S., who threw for 76.88 meters.

This summer’s Youth Olympic Games are the first ever. The International Olympic Committee in 2007 authorized the games “to inspire young people around the world to participate in sport and adopt and live by the Olympic values,” according to www.singapore2010.sg. The YOG are for athletes ages 14-18. An estimated 3,600 athletes from around the world are participating in the Singapore games, which began Aug. 14 and conclude Aug. 26.

Išējevs is one of 11 Latvian athletes participating in the games. Besides the javelin event, Latvian athletes are competing in cycling, the modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, swimming and weightlifting.

Elza Gulbe, 17, placed fourth overall in junior women’s single sculls rowing. The Aug. 18 final took place in the Marina Reservoir. Gulbe finished the 1,000-meter course in a time of 3:45.60. The gold medal in the event went to Judith Sievers of Germany, who finished with a time of 3:44.21.

Sindija Roga, 16, finished 19th overall in the girls’ combined running and shooting event, part of the modern pentathlon. The finals of the event took place Aug. 21 at the Singapore Sports School.

Artjoms Žerebkovs, 16, placed fourth overall in the 56-kilogram weightlifting event, which took place Aug. 15 in the Toa Payoh Sports Hall. He scored 122 in the snatch and 128 in the clean and jerk, for a total score of 226.

Latvian cyclists finished 18th overall in the combined mixed team event.

According to Singapore YOG rules, each national cycling team has three men and one woman. The Latvian team consisted of 18-year-old men Aleksandrs Kurbatskis, Kristers Taims and Andris Vosekalns, as well as 17-year-old woman Lija Laizāne. The combined event includes seven competitions. One man from each team must compete in the mountain bike, time trial and BMX races, while the woman competes in all three. Finally, all three men compete in the mass-start road race.

Vosekalns had the best result of the Latvian men in the road race, finishing 48th—on foot—after a tire on his bicycle came off, according to a report posted on the Latvian Olympic Commitee’s website, olimpiade.lv

The first individual to be extradited to the U.S. from Latvia under a new treaty between the two countries has been sentenced to two years in prison for conspiring to produce and sell counterfeit slot machines, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.

A federal district court judge in Las Vegas on Aug. 20 sentenced Cuban citizen Rodolfo Rodriguez Cabrera, 43, to two years in prison for his role in the scheme. Also sentenced to two years in prison was his co-conspirator, Henry Mantilla, 35, of Cape Coral, Fla.

The men also were ordered to pay USD 151,800 each in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release after their prison terms, according to the Department of Justice.

A federal grand jury in Las Vegas indicted the men in April 2009, charging each of them with one count of conspiracy, two counts of trafficking in counterfeit goods, two counts of trafficking in counterfeit labels and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. They were alleged to have produced and sold fake International Game Technology (IGT) slot machines and software. Las Vegas-based IGT is a leading maker of gaming systems. Cabrera, according to the indictment, was responsible for producing the unauthorized copies of IGT software, labels and gaming machine components, while Mantilla’s job was to find customers in the United States.

Cabrera, who ran a company called FE Electronic in Rīga, was arrested in Latvia in June 2009 and extradited to the U.S. in October 2009, according to the Department of Justice. The new extradition treaty between Latvia and the U.S. was ratified in May 2007 and went into effect in April 2009.

The FBI began investigating Cabrera and Mantilla in December 2007. At the time, Cabrera was involved with FE Electronic, while Mantilla was involved with Southeast Gaming Inc. of Cape Coral, Fla. FE Electronic, according to the Latvia’s Register of Enterprises, was established in November 2004.

The FBI arranged for a source to solicit information from Mantilla about slot machines. During a two-year period, according to court documents, the FBI source agreed to several transactions with Mantilla and Cabrera that involved acquiring machines and software that supposedly were genuine IGT products, but instead were fake. Circuit boards were shipped to the FBI source from Cabrera in Rīga, according to court documents.

Under an agreement reached in May, both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. The maximum penalty they could have received is five years in jail and a USD 250,000 fine.

Prosecution of Cabrera and Mantilla was part of a larger effort by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat intellectual property crimes.