on the search of. the radio the leader should be heard tunes shares in new delhi who took the money they'd be there to carry the load of clothes and. they. believe the solution medicine should come as the super charged cuts. back in which an arche line from moscow here's a look at the top stories colonel gadhafi regime probes diplomatic means to an accomplice in libya were fighting continues around rebel strongholds with casualties on the rise and tripoli amboy has held talks close talks in greens over a possible solution and will continue in turkey and all from. the embattled insurgence believe for the coalition to arm them to compensate for their own lack of discipline training and manpower rebel fighters are said to be tanja one biker

doctors lawyers. and a russian pilot is set to stand trial in a new york order for alleged drug trafficking but moscow maintains the man was sent away kidnapped by the u.s. . that was snatched in a sting operation by american agents in liberia last year. but it's only a matter of hours before three spacemen blast off into orbit to mark the fiftieth anniversary since you were the guards first wife. now once part of the soviet union labia became independent twenty years ago and it was special report coming up next we'll take a look at how the country has changed since gaining autonomy. it seems blanched used independence day its pomp and fanfare good chance of any other

public holiday in the country on this day the republic's top leaders gathered to lay flowers in the freedom monument in latvia's capsule riga. informal events like tools for sessions held in the evening of the same day people who see themselves as the country's true patriots marched through streets closed to traffic for the occasion the perceptions old guys by the radical nationalist posse known as all from latvia. however many people don't identify themselves with the festivities they are russian speaking residents who make up nearly forty percent of the country's population half of them have not yet received citizenship rights.

let me lindemann as a columnist for several latvian newspapers he also investigates cases of public interest and publishes reports on them but even though vladimir holds a laugh in pasco it is technically not a fully fledged citizen of his own country the new me it's not just the passport cover bears a unique inscription of that order written in latvia and it says your passport of a non-citizen was a reserve mark anywhere grows more on the minute here just in the english translation it reads alien space our last posts are sometimes we are called just that aliens like we are from another planet even further to the point of international law we are considered as such just is not present there are something like four hundred thousand such people in latvia which that of so-called such. mountfield became an independent state in one thousand nine hundred ninety one officer seeding from the soviet union. barely one month later the country's

parliament passed a resolution officially dividing the republic's population into citizens and so-called non-citizens. the latter were denied voting rights they could not be elected to bodies of state or thorazine or work in government departments. this applied to not only those who settled down in the country after nine hundred forty eight but their descendants. when your truth is i don't want to be a second class person i want to be a citizen of the country where live from leave. any known citizen is free to try to naturalize for van't they need to pass exams on the country's history and show the command of the state language and the national anthem. after submitting vanessa's harry papers applicants then need to wait for about a year before they get a cherished citizens passport. many people fail to go through the procedure that

the milliner meant for one was not even allowed to see those exams or provide. for the past five years and i spent three of them outside lot of the year why they didn't accept my papers but that excuse was absolutely unlawful was. my fight for citizenship rights and never. let even stage a sit in in this building i spent the day here and refused to leave after office hours when the police force me out of. there was a time when victor durgan off a nice that's just unveiled a sampler is a trauma surgeon who works in the same hospital. now sockless his latvia's president during an off is a member of lab fees and she fascists committee. was the possibility i can't bear to see the revival not as i'm in libya i can see it with the naked eye would upsets me most of all is that so-called democratic europe closes its eyes to the revival

not as a group of those ago it was. on march sixteenth nineteen forty three during the second world war the latvian legion was formed. thousands of volunteers in the country signed up to fight for the nazis. off independence every year on this date legion veterans have been officially committees to hold a parade in central riga. in two thousand and five big to juergen off and several other anti fascist clans in prison right stood in the way of marching legionnaires. the police dispersed all the anti-fascists and let the s.s. veterans put the flowers at the freedom monument. for us is the. we believe in a free country fascists and their followers have no right to bring flowers to

a symbol of the state if the state doesn't see itself as a nationalist want. to spoil our actions were in line with the united nations resolution calling for resistance to all forces that promote the waffen s.s. coupled. with. some fourteen thousand veterans living in latvia today forwards in the soviet army during. want to. give guinea convinced there was a paratrooper then. as he moves to the monument commemorating the soviet soldiers who lost their lives in the war to make sure the nobody sees his medals. a law passed back in one nine hundred ninety one pounds the public display of soviet symbols. of. the attitude to us is just a moment about. there was even a case where a uniformed veteran riding on

a bus on victory day had to leave because the driver stopped the bus and said he wouldn't budge unless the man said go to. the monument to soviet soldiers in riga was blown up in one thousand nine hundred eighty he was later restored the act had been masterminded by egos. he was sentenced to a brief german prison. now he's again free to walk about central riga together with his son and openly discuss the fate of the monument. it's a myth for some people this is a monument to me it's a disgrace to the latvian nation. the polish nothing that should be simply pulled down to symbolize that we are no longer occupied. in the year when a goodish in blew up the monument another event occurred that course the world's

attention. former soviet parses and vassili kononov had been brought before a latvian court to face criminal charges for his actions and world war two ended it over the years this is the order of lenin or they gave it to me for blowing up sixteen german trains when i was a partisan krishna traditional. in northern latvia he x. parties and was declared an enemy and spent almost two years behind bars for taking part in the killing of local volunteers that were helping the germans. kannan of was acting on of the situation taken by parties and tribunals in one nine hundred forty three. the. when radical nationalists came to power after the regime change their lackeys started a massive campaign against anti-fascists of people who had fought in the entire hitler coalition they were all to review the outcome of the war edition in order to

whitewash naziism and fascism as usual where she's a. ivers garder is leader of a political organization called the national front of latvia the front publishes a newspaper founded by him. that's weekends and during public holidays volunteers hand out free copies to anyone willing to read the paper. its name contains three deeds they stand for de occupation the colonize ation and the russification. for a long time dr goddard taught ethics at the academy of culture some of his former students are regular contributors to the newspaper. now under their chief and it's his guidance they spend no effort in a bid to oppose what they call russian dominance in latvia to be a simple ethnic lottery and make up fifty percent of the population of their own country back to the article fifty percent occupies backed by russian. police

it's necessary to create uncountable conditions for them gusta we need a situation where latvian society rejects occupiers moreover we need a law on the whole is asian we must say to each of them we give you a deadline to get out of here so it's. cameron north a british filmmaker decided to make a personal investigation into the into ethnic relations between russians and land fiends. he shot a documentary called latvia and hitler's footsteps way draws uncomfortable parallels between present day latvia and nazi germany. during. the must go.

but there must be a rather. i bought. some things it would like to say is nationalistic. the language is of the things worth of. the things about it have some rights and not if you're not a citizen and called some thirty six of the drops in the combination of things where you are discriminated against because you're in pure. beauty alex sanz mother is latvian but his father is russian he has a perfect command of both languages. he received an excellent education both as an engineer and as a journalist his son is a school people. papa tell me what the sentence means. is often at the loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in latvia. the internet translator says it means headline well yes that's

a possibility. a country schools were formed in the middle of the past decade. russian textbooks were hastily replaced with latvian ones. now more than half of the subjects in russian language schools are supposed to be taught in latvian. the oath grew whenever a russian teaches with a ball commander the levy language gordon teach such difficult subjects mathematics physics and chemistry were to russian schoolchildren it brings misery to both teachers and students with even with within you to new people. in the course of education reform nearly all the old textbooks were revised and many russian language schools closed down numerous protests tanks have no effect the decisions of life is education ministry will find out. so far inspectors haven't shown up in

many russian schools and all subjects are still taught in russian. math in language textbooks approved by the education ministry can be seen in full view but they are only for show. new show cough is the first russian mayor of riga since independence twenty years ago he too had to close schools down including schools for russian speaking students but it didn't lead to any actions of protest in that instance schools were shot soley for economic all round the demographic reasons half of the classrooms in one third of all schools had no people's. morgan finical many of the decisions taken by the previous mayor were largely politically motivated that was the basis for decisions about whether schools should be closed down walls because when we merge schools we make a great deal of effort to accommodate all the children in the new building of the

city we also do all we can to retain jobs for the teachers it was most but in the old days they just closed tools down and that was lapse. but maybe it's. the fact that the russian was elected mayor of the latvian capital in the summer of two thousand and nine surprise many politicians analysts put it down to the economic crisis. those who had felt it. severe impact we're not taking as much notice of the nationality of a politician as they used to. miss the move if in the early one nine hundred ninety s. they have not made the mistake of dividing the people into citizens of unknown citizens were the politicians would have been compelled to talk about the economy social issues and structural reforms instead of harping on the theme of latvians and russians every two or four years will be much and we would have been able to deal with pressing issues much earlier and much more efficiently or to still have to contend with economic issues corruption and many other things.

despite its small size there was schools of major industrial plants in soviet latvia. three of them which employ between ten and fifteen thousand workers each specialized in l.a. tronics. another one made minivans which were used as ambulances throughout the soviet union. today their production line stand idle. factory workers an engine is going to small business. plans vs highly skilled professionals have left the country in search of a job. cash or is that so much i wish right out of the year as u.s. president barack obama still an honorable recipient of the nobel peace prize free fair inherited two wars masoom in office hungry for the full story we've got

a first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers on our t.v. . under the soviets this factory provided jobs for twelve thousand workers it made radio sets radio cassette players and tape recorders to cater to the needs of people across the soviet union. by the late one nine hundred eighty s. several plans making radio an electronic equipment had been set up in latvia they were the soviet union's most advanced enterprises. you know of the goober in soviet times i worked in a similar oratory for about fifteen years but of course i only saw the break up of the soviet union in europe there were close to eight hundred employees in the design bureau where i myself was employed and where you have no you can see what's

left of its former splendor the only one design a working here though. when lanphier achieved independence the republic's government began closing down its industrial giants the new regime expected more than compact and mobile enterprises to replace the old sluggish and largely outdated soviet factories but they were never built in adequate numbers. during the first five years of independence many enterprises would turn to describe measure or levy as sold off cheap in lived off the money real estate and land were also soldiering this time which was the summer biggest source of funds during another five year period they were publicly reliant on lines just before the country join the european union and avalanche of capital and low interest credit came in here when they were not meant to develop production instead they were channeled into land in real estate as

a result wind up in this situation. similar process is going on in agriculture under the soviet government latvian collective farm supplied the republic with basic foodstuffs today half are imported. he is from spain is a matters of from the netherlands this is a piece of from spain with the cucumbers from the netherlands to. be hard to find to mystically produced vegetables here true the danger in sometimes don't grow here is that the least onions were already being grown in latvia when the netherlands did not yet exist. after the declaration of independence the land in government downsized angra culture and dated on individual farms land belonging to collective farms was given back to former owners all their

descendants under restitution plan. but most of them simply didn't bother to get into the difficult business of farming and instead preferred to sell off the newly acquired land more get it. in your little have been abandoned in the farm stands at the leveled ready abandoned about sixty percent of them as young people not keen to go back to the countryside here some get an education others find a job and school grant to make commitments of things that records. the village of congolese is in that. one of the country's poorest regions local peasants used to regard themselves almost as urban dwellers they lived in flats with all modern amenities and now one in every two flats is vacant. but the local oil house plants doesn't work the few people who still live here have to heat their

homes with firewood. sometimes i fetch firewood once a day sometimes i do it twice a day and then i don't do it for three or four days my grandchildren give me a helping hand when they were little i would bring firewood by cart. and he has five children none of them live in latvia now they are trying to make money in a western europe. i'm faeces spencer pension to feed her grandchildren she likes talking about her big family which is now scattered around the world that i work with this is my daughter to give me a that's. in the high yield so and here is his lama and. ideas that is my granddaughter. and i went to london to work there she left these little things in my care this boy was one year old and that one was in the third

grade. their dad for god knows where so i raised them on my own. people have no jobs in towns and villages are becoming deserted pig sties encountered so collapsing and the fields overgrown with weeds. this is how the morning began victoria more in those lines until two thousand and eight. flats in a nineteenth century building in the old parts of riga was once considered prestigious but where you are young people years on the move they paid back of course. after latvia declared independence old houses were given back to their former owners and their restitution plan. they were quick to realize that managing an apartment house was difficult. selling

a building itself was easy but dealing with tenants was the main hurdle. the standard solution was that the new owners simply made sure of the building fall into a state of total disrepair and then its tenants were evicted under a court ruling. today three years later there isn't any electricity in the house where victoria used to live she gave up and rented a small flat in a new building but i have to visit my old apartment regularly to see if everything isn't because the landlord has a habit of breaching and replacing the locks on the door. i also take some of my doom goods with me. but the tenants of the house have seen the landlord's only one since they filed a lawsuit against him in two thousand and six so far their attempts to win their case have been unsuccessful the landlord lives in germany he came to latvia for the first time to receive

a property certificate. thanks. the land in central riga is the most expensive in the country. this huge trading center is the private property of a norwegian building company. it buys the most profitable pieces of land in lanphier and builds hotels and supermarkets there. for us now is the best time to invest has been very profitable. for but they also have what they call the grey economy so that's not really showing up on this earth is that. often men field joining the european union in two thousand and four the economist started to warn of a new threat. they maintained that they were public might lose its economic sovereignty . about seventy percent of its farmland belongs to foreign investors the country's fiscal system depends on foreign banks. he would never have pitched good

a scandinavian capital controls some seventy or eighty percent of the country's banking capital this means it controls just as much of its financial system with what it clearly regrettably the nation has lost its ability to work in manufacturing things that used a lot of latvia was on the point of leaving the soviet union it was one of its most advanced territories with zero debts this winter when gold staged a picture is the oldest expression of broad look at a king. in january two thousand and nine mass protests sway the latvian capital. the world economic crises had a huge impact on the country's economy people demanded the resignation of the government when it could stabilize the situation. moreover pensions look cuts as well as salaries and social generations.

he says grucci to this crisis is the result of the country's split into twenty years ago people used to come here that's why half of the nation plays no part in the country's laws political or otherwise and this is one cause of the process we're going through with the group working. according to year against it's six land that is the poorest country in the european union today. as local nationalists look to blame russian speaking nonresidents people are leaving the country in large numbers in search of a better life. last year's population has shrunk on more than fifteen percent since independence according to latvia's foreign policy institute each year some twelve thousand people leave the country for good. the u.k. is their most popular destination. the british

filmmaker cameron north described the problem in his documentary. working with a lot of things coming to the u.k. . firstly one of the things is that economy not. in life not as much harder plec good living partly because of nationalism you mad about national some of them getting economy now the reason is that they get very good social rights in the u.k. . it's now been twenty years since last vienna geve sovereignty. but still independence day its most celebrated holiday and the freedom monument its main national icon aliens or heart of the country's population.