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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

As Libya celebrates a year of freedom, evidence grows of its disintegration
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/19/libya-government-absent-revolution-anniversary

The decision of the NTC to hold its meetings in private and rule by decree has left diplomats dismayed, and the country is fragmenting under its feet.Misrata, Libya’s third city, will tomorrow hold its own elections, unsanctioned by the NTC, a final step towards what is independence in all but name. Its militias control a 300-mile-long corridor stretching across central Libya, policing it according to the city’s own leadership, rather than that of the NTC.

To the east, tribal leaders are meeting to consider a similar step, dismayed, as are the Misratans, by rumours that the NTC may delay June’s promised national elections. Nor are the government’s critics impressed by the declaration by NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil last week that it will form a political party, which seems an aberration of its promise to withdraw from politics once democracy is established.

And then there are the militias: Libya has more than 500 armed groups, each following their own orders. The wonder is not how bad the violence and armed clashes are – the latest being intertribal violence in the southern town of Kufra that has left more than 20 dead – but how tranquil the country is.

Intervention occidentale en faveur de la démocratie, déferlement de mercenaires et de milices dans le pays, puis désintégration du pays. Scénario connu.