country:latvia

History of Latvia - YouTube

L’histoire de la Lettonie en 8 minutes 53 secondes - une très jolie petite animation en pâte à modeler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKIeD3RxRQ

History of Latvia

#lettonie #animation #visualisation

Pour terminer ce soir le référencement de trois années de biblio en retard, cette série de liens cartographiques en vrac où il y a beaucoup de savoirs passionnants

Cartographie Blog
►http://www.savoirsenreseau.com/2007/11/23/cartes-heuristiques-et-performances-scolaires

Cartographie interactive
http://education.france5.fr/?EspId=1&DiscId=85&ObjId=17565
http://www.autrement.com/cartotheque.php
http://www.histoirealacarte.com

Cartographie Antje Lehn
http://socialtapestries.net
http://research.urbantapestries.net
http://diffusion.org.uk

Cartography Imaginary museum project
Tjebbe van Tijen - Imaginary Museum Projects
Avec quelqus planches des oeuvres d’Otto Neurath
http://imaginarymuseum.org
info@imaginarymuseum.org
t.tijen@chello.nl
http://imaginarymuseum.org/MHV
http://imaginarymuseum-archive.org/PILWARstat/PILWARstat01.html (Mapping Human Violence)

Histoire de la cartographie
http://maphistory.info/harlflws.html

Cartographie Peuples premiers
http://survivalfrance.org/related_material.php?id=508

Presse alternative En anglais
http://www.newsbatch.com
http://www.theglobalist.com
http://www.alternet.org
http://www.motherjones.com

Conflits, géopolitique
http://www.crisisgroup.org
http://www.grip.org

#cartographie #presse-alternative #cartographie-radicale #savoirs #connaissance #géopolitique

« Les Etats-Unis occupent la 26e place sur vingt-neuf – juste derrière la Grèce – pour la mesure du “bien-être global des enfants” – » selon le classement de l’UNICEF. ►http://www.lemonde.fr/vous/article/2013/04/10/indicateur-de-bien-etre-des-enfants-une-invitation-pour-chaque-gouvernement-,

Avec des précisions supplémentaires sur le site “International Business Times”, http://www.ibtimes.com/unicef-report-child-well-being-shows-us-near-bottom-list-1186975

Les États-Unis se classent aussi deuxième à partir du bas pour la pauvreté des enfants. Le seul pays parmi les 29 qui a plus d’enfants vivant dans la pauvreté que l’Amérique est la Roumanie. Les États-Unis sont aussi près du fond pour les taux de vaccination contre la rougeole et la polio*, ainsi que pour la « satisfaction de vie des enfants. »

Par contre, rappelle l’auteur de l’article,

Les Etats-Unis sont No. 1 sur plusieurs autres listes : leurs dépenses militaires sont supérieures aux 12 nations suivantes sur la liste combinées ; ils sont les meilleurs au monde dans l’emprisonnement des gens ; et ils ont les personnes les plus obèses, le taux de divorce le plus élevé, et le taux le plus élevé de consommation de drogues illicites et de prescription à la fois.

Ce qui n’empêchera nullement certains de réclamer des Etats-Unis qu’ils assument une position de “leadership” dans la défense des droits humains.

(* Tout en insistant à vacciner les enfants des pays pauvres.)

Latvia plans restrictions on land ownership
http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/21842

The Latvian government is planning tougher restrictions on selling land, which may affect foreign investors, writes news2biz LATVIA.

Running extended articles about foreigners who buy up Latvian land for pennies, the Latvian press has, in a slightly xenophobic manner, already suggested that the new regulations aim to cut sales to foreigners.

However, the Ministry of Agriculture maintains that the regulations are not aimed at maintaining the national purity of the Latvian countryside and aim to ensure that Latvian agricultural land and forests are used productively.

#terres #Lettonie

Dans l’affaire Magnitsky, les justices autrichiennes, finlandaises et chypriotes suivent la position russe de classer l’affaire, dans l’indifférence européenne la plus totale http://euobserver.com/magnitsky/119042

“He noted that Lithuania and Switzerland have frozen bank accounts and that Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia and Moldova have opened criminal proceedings on the back of the same information he gave to Austria.

‘How could Austria come to a different conclusion than six other law enforcement agencies based on the same evidence?’ he told this website.”

Tension entre la Russie et la Lettonie

Regrettably it has to be established that, when addressing the meeting of the Latvian Council of Non-governmental Organizations on 6 February, the Ambassador of Russia to Latvia Alexander Veshnyakov has denied the fact of the occupation of Latvia and pointed out that Russia was not going to admit Latvia’s occupation, however hard the Latvian side pressed for it. Such rhetoric regarding history does not facilitate a positive background of our dialogue.

The Ministry would like to remind of an internationally recognised fact that as a result of a secret agreement between the USSR and the Nazi Germany Latvia lost its statehood for several decades in 1940. Both Soviet and Nazi occupation erased and crippled the lives of thousands of people. Due to the policy of non-recognition pursued by democratic countries across the world, Latvia was able to retain the continuity of the state and restore its independence in 1991 in a democratic way.

Latvia will go on emphasizing the principle of the continuity of its statehood, and the recognition of the Soviet occupation fact is one of the elements of the principle. Only by honestly facing the past, a future, full on mutual respect, can be built.

#russie #Lettonie #ex-urss #nazis #allemagne #frontières #europe

Lessons from Latvia « iMFdirect – The IMF Blog

June 11, 2012 by iMFdirect
By Olivier Blanchard

http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2012/06/11/lessons-from-latvia

Le cynisme du Fonds monétaire international

In 2008, Latvia was widely seen as an economic “basket case,” a textbook example of a boom turned to bust.

From 2005 to 2007, average annual growth had exceeded 10%, the current account deficit had increased to more than 20% of GDP. By early 2008 however, the boom had come to an end, and, by the end of 2008, output was down by 10% from its peak, the fiscal deficit was shooting up, capital was leaving the country, and reserves were rapidly decreasing.

The treatment seemed straightforward: a sharp nominal depreciation, together with a steady fiscal consolidation. The Latvian government however, wanted to keep its currency peg, partly because of a commitment to eventually enter the euro, partly because of the fear of immediate balance sheet effects of devaluation on domestic loans, 90% of them denominated in euros. And it believed that credibility required strong frontloading of the fiscal adjustment.

Using Passports to Construct Enemies?

http://www.globalpolicy.org/home/172-general/52142-using-passports-to-construct-enemies.html

In times of increasing mobility of individuals across borders, citizenship rights have become central to understand geopolitical disputes. This is particularly true in Eastern Europe, where passport have become weapons of foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian passports have certainly facilitated Abkhazian and South Ossetian separatism in Georgia and allowed Moscow to launch a military intervention in the country in 2008. Some argue that “Russia has ‘weaponized’ citizenship by combining its right to grant citizenship with its sovereign ‘right’ or ‘duty’ to protect its citizens at home and abroad.” Governments in Georgia, Latvia and Estonia have also used citizenship rights to prevent their ethnic Russian populations from gaining political power in their country. Ultimately, Xenia de Graaf concludes that “ as long as Russia and former Soviet Republics remain insecure about their national identity and need ‘significant others’ to define themselves, passport and citizenship troubles are likely to remain.”

By Xenia de Graaf
International Relations and Security Network
December 12, 2012

Twitter / GazaYBO : Voted against: Israel, Nauru, ...
https://twitter.com/GazaYBO/status/274274944295268352

Voted against: Israel, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Panama, Canada, Czech Republic and the U.S.

Latvia’s ‘aliens’ | minorities in focus
http://minorityrights.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/latvias-aliens

Latvia’s citizenship policy, which assigns almost a third of Latvian Russians non-citizen/alien status, prohibits non-citizens from taking part in many aspects of society, such as seeking employment, travelling abroad, or voting during national elections. Even though the Latvian government ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities on 6 June 2005, there is still a considerable part of the Russian population who cannot freely participate in Latvian economic, political and cultural life.

[...]Being born into a Russian family from Latvia myself, I have been granted citizenship through my father, whereas my mother was a non-citizen until 2006. My uncle and my grandmother are still non-citizens. I asked my grandmother how it feels.

‘It is heartbreaking and unfair. It is like you have been born into a family and they don’t accept you as their child. The state, the government, and society is the family, and we, non-citizens, are unwanted and alienated children.’

#apatridie #Lettonie #Russie #minorité #discrimination

Randy Wray: The World’s Worst Central Banker

Naked capitalism

Non non, il ne s’agit pas de Bernanke...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/randy-wray-the-worlds-worst-central-banker.html

By Randy Wray, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, New York.

Yves here. I guarantee some readers will recoil at Wray’s refusal to depict inflation as Economic Enemy Number One. Even if you think his praise of the central banker in question is overdone, consider: would you rather be an ordinary worker in her country, or in, say, Ireland, Latvia, or Spain right now?

OK, I know you think this is yet another critical column on Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Nay, I just returned from a conference held by the Central Bank of Argentina—“Central Banks, Financial Systems and Economic Development” held in Buenos Aires on October 1st and 2nd. Yours truly gave a talk on Modern Money—and the powerpoint will appear below (not magically—I’ll probably need professional help so your patience will be required).

#crise #banques #crise-bancaire #crise-financière

In former Communist states, populations are shrinking fast - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/in-former-communist-states-populations-are-shrinking-fast-7606243.htm

More than 20 years after the fall of communism, the wealth gap between the east and west of Europe persists, and countries from the Black Sea to the Baltic are shedding people at an alarming rate. While membership in the European Union has brought prosperity to many, it has also made it easier to emigrate, drawing young people out of the east and leaving behind an ever older and poorer population.

#démographie #post-URSS #Europe #développement

Latvians reject Russian as official language | World news | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/19/latvians-reject-russian-official-language

Latvian voters have resoundingly rejected a proposal to give official status to Russian, the mother tongue of their former Soviet occupiers and a large chunk of the population.

Russian is the first language for about a third of the Baltic country’s 2.1 million people, and many of them would like it to be a national language to reverse what they claim has been 20 years of discrimination.

But for ethnic Latvians the referendum was an attempt to encroach on Latvia’s independence, which was restored two decades ago after half a century of occupation by the Soviet Union since the second world war.

According to the current law anyone who moved to Latvia during the Soviet occupation, or was born to parents who moved there, is considered a non-citizen and must pass the Latvian language exam in order to be naturalised.

There are approximately 300,000 non-citizens in Latvia.

#Lettonie #Langue #Russie #référendum

#Latvia's pulp fiction - People & Power - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2011/02/2011211357149645.html

#bois #forêts #lettonie #aljazeera