The nearly 800-year-old Dome Cathedral in the Old City district of Rīga has been named one of 100 endangered sites for 2006, the World Monuments Fund has announced.

The New York-based World Monuments Fund is a private, nonprofit organization that every two years evaluates sites around the globe and creates a list of the most endangered monuments in an attempt to raise awareness.

The fund sent a mission to Rīga earlier this year to evaluate the cathedral, which was partially closed to tourists last year when concerns were raised about the building’s structural integrity.

“The mission determined that computer modeling of the cathedral’s structural systems should be carried out and continuous monitoring will be needed to fully ascertain the cathedral’s condition and develop a plan for its stabilization,” the fund said in its June 21 announcement. “It is hoped that listing will provide the impetus for the technical study to save this highly significant building.”

Construction on the cathedral began in 1211. The structure includes several architectural styles representing various eras during which improvements were made to it.

The cathedral is the second site in Latvia to have drawn the attention of the World Monuments Fund. The Abava River valley’s cultural landscape was named to the list in 1996 and 1998.

No site in Estonia has ever been named by the fund, but in 1998 the old town wall in Vilnius, Lithuania, was listed.

A Latvian society, the goal of which will be to maintain and develop Latvian ethnic identity and cultural heritage, has been formed in Ireland, according to the Internet portal Delfi.

The society was founded in May. The first meeting was attended by 12 people as well as Latvia’s ambassador to Ireland, Indulis Ābelis. The embassy in Dublin has been instrumental in organizing Latvian social and cultural life, most recently encouraging the founding of a Latvian school.

An embassy official told Latvians Online in May that an estimated 20,000 Latvians live in Ireland. Many have come in recent years in search of work.

The Latvian Society in Ireland (Latviešu Biedrība Īrijā, or LBĪ) will be led by Elēna Kargina, Jānis Kargins and Ilze Torpa-Adebayo. Monthly meetings are planned at Luther House, 24 Adelaide Road, Dublin. For further information about the society, e-mail Jānis Kargins.

So far just one resident of Latvia, a woman who received a minor head injury, has been identified among hundreds of people hurt in the July 7 terrorist bombings in central London, according to the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the LETA news agency.

The woman spent the night in a London hospital but has been released.

About 700 people were hurt and more than 50 killed when three bombs exploded in London’s subway system and one ripped apart a double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, according to London’s Metropolitan Police. Although police say they have not received any claim of responsibility for the attacks, news reports have pointed to an al-Qaeda group’s announcement on a Web site that said it organized the bombings.

Of the injured, 22 are in a serious condition and remain hospitalized, police said. Of those, none are residents of Latvia, the foreign ministry in Rīga said.

The Latvian Foreign Ministry asks those who know of persons who could have been in the blast areas and whose whereabouts remain unknown to telephone the ministry in Rīga at +371 7016364 (during work hours) or +371 9287398 (24 hours a day). The ministry said it is trying to confirm the whereabouts of at least 56 individuals.

(UPDATED 08 JUL 2005)