The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) should be allowed to include the Baltic countries in a new real estate investment fund, staff members have recommended to the Sacramento, Calif.-based retirement system’s investment committee.

At present, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are not among countries listed as acceptable emerging markets for CalPERS investments, the Reuters news agency reported. If approved, CalPERS could invest as much as EUR 7.5 million in the three countries combined through its Nordic Investment Fund.

The Nordic Investment Fund is expected to invest up to EUR 50 million in Scandinavian and Baltic real estate properties, according to a CalPERS staff memorandum posted on the retirement system’s Web site.

The staff recommendation to include the Baltics takes note of the three countries’ improved economic, human rights and political climate, as well as their pending admittance to the European Union next May.

“Investment activity is expected to increase in the Baltic property markets as the countries become more integrated with Western Europe,” the staff memo states.

CalPERS’ investment committee is expected to take up the staff recommendation at its Dec. 15 meeting.

CalPERS serves more than 1.4 million public employees in California and has assets of more than USD 154 billion.

Latvian Foreign Minister Sandra Kalniete’s documentary book En escarpins dans les neiges de Siberie (With Dancing Shoes in Siberian Snows) has been nominated as one of December’s picks in an annual book contest sponsored by Elle magazine.

The magazine’s “Prix des lectrices de Elle” will be announced in May, according to a press release from the Latvian Foreign Ministry. Books chosen each month from August to April in three categories—novels, crime novels and non-fiction—will be in competition for the 2004 prize.

A panel of 120 judges names each month’s selection.

The contest has been held every year since 1970.

Before becoming foreign minister, Kalniete was Latvia’s ambassador to France.

The book was published in France by Editions des Syrtes. In Latvia, under the title Ar balles kurpēm Sibīrijas sniegos, it was published in 2001 by Atena.

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty’s programs to Latvia and six other East European countries will end Dec. 31, the U.S. government-funded broadcaster has announced from its headquarters in Prague in the Czech Republic.

But Baltic lobbyists, who have appealed continuously to the federal government to restore funding, are not ready to give up their fight while an omnibus appropriations bill remains under discussion in Congress.

The U.S. Senate may take up a conference committee’s report on the appropriations bill on Dec. 9. The bill includes USD $546 million for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Washington, D.C.-based agency that oversees RFERL, Voice of America and other U.S.-funded international broadcasters.

RFERL President Thomas Dine announced the pending end-of-the-year closure to his staff in Prague on Nov. 28, according to a press release from the broadcaster. In addition to Latvia, broadcasts to Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia also will cease “under a directive from the White House and the Broadcasting Board of Governors,” the press release said.

VOA broadcasts to Latvia also are expected to end, although a broadcasting board spokesperson declined to comment. “We won’t have any statement about languages until after Congress passes a bill and it is signed into law by the president,” Joan Mower told Latvians Online.

The end to the broadcasts, which will mean the loss of jobs for more than 100 journalists and other staff, is the result of shifting priorities within the Bush Administration. The White House’s proposed fiscal 2004 budget called for cutting broadcast services to those countries—including Latvia—scheduled to join the NATO defense alliance and the European Union, using the money saved to bolster new programs to the Middle East.

“Over the last six years, RFERL has rapidly expanded its operations in Eurasia and Southwest Asia,” Dine said in the press release. “It is now time to focus fully on these very troubled areas.”

When news of the proposed cuts first broke in January, Baltic-American lobbyists and government leaders in the Baltics tried to convince the White House and Congress to save the broadcasts. The Joint Baltic American National Committee, for example, expressed “profound alarm” at the threatened end of both RFERL and VOA broadcasts and what it could mean for U.S. efforts at public diplomacy in Europe.

In addition to continuing their appeals to members of Congress, supporters of broadcasts to the Baltic states are now trying to raise public awareness. Among their efforts are contacting conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and a call-in show on the C-SPAN cable television channel.

Funding for American broadcasts overseas falls under the Foreign Operations budget, which has now become part of HR2673, the Consolidated Appropriations bill approved Nov. 25 by a House-Senate conference committee. Both the House and the Senate have yet to agree to the conference committee’s report.