Estonians erect statue and give home to beloved stray dog

December 17, 2020

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Zorik was never the tail-wagging or hand-licking type. But that didn't stop the free-spirited vagabond dog from winning many hearts. When the black-and-white mutt, long a presence in a Tallinn neighborhood, was taken from the Estonian capital to the countryside earlier this year to live out his days in the safe and restful surroundings of a family's back yard, he was missed so much that the residents immortalized him with a statue.

“People donated for the monument. They wanted it and they still follow his fate even though he is already old and frail,” said Heiki Valner, an animal rescue volunteer who thought up the idea of the statue of Zorik and organized the fundraising.

Donations were collected and a local artist was commissioned to create the likeness of Zorik, with his upright ears and shaggy hair around his muzzle, along with a cat nestled against him. The statue, now standing in front of a shopping center, is meant as a tribute both to Zorik and his animal companions, and to all strays. Zorik once had a dog companion who was killed in a car accident. He then took up with stray cats and was seen with them often, even while sleeping.

Residents say that Zorik first appeared as a pup about 12 years ago in a coal storage area in a nearby port, and had been a fixture ever since in Kalamaja, a working-class district that is transforming into a magnet for hipsters.

In a society where the divide between ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians is acutely felt, Zorik managed to bridge the divide, winning over Russian-speaking old women who fed him, as well as Estonian hipsters, including a group now opening a cafe named “Zorik.”

“Zorik was a dog who was able to disappear, he was a dog whom everyone in Kalamaja knew, he touched everyone — young and old, Estonians and Russians,” Valner said. "He was a point of social integration.”

He was so well-liked that residents would sometimes feed him the best cuts of beef. But nobody could ever catch and domesticate him. “When people tried to regulate or restrict him, he just escaped,” Valner said. "He was just a free spirit.”

Viktoria Ger, who has given Zorik a new home, in an enclosure with a doghouse behind her own family home, describes him as a “peculiar dog.” “He doesn’t want to be close to people so he doesn’t like to be petted," she said. Nearby Zorik sat and shivered as a light dusting of snow covered the ground and pine trees dotting the yard.

"Probably he has been hurt by people during his life, so he doesn’t trust people,” she said. Valner said Zorik eventually had to be removed from the city for his own safety. “In the end he was so senile that he would just fall asleep on the railway or tram tracks or just here on the road, so that cars had to drive around him," Valner said, pointing to the area in Kalamaja that was long home to the dog. "We received several calls a day when he was on the road, so finally we had to get him away from the streets in his own interest.”

Initially he tried to escape and return to his old roaming territory, but now his frailty has finally won out over his free spirit. As is to be expected, there were also those over the years who did not want the dog around.

“This was a contest of good and evil," Valner said. "There were those who demanded he be captured and eliminated and others who protected and fed him. This time, kindness won.”

One Good Thing” is a series that highlights individuals whose actions provide glimmers of joy in hard times — stories of people who find a way to make a difference, no matter how small.

High-tech Estonia votes online for European Parliament

May 20, 2019

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia was crippled by cyberattacks on government networks during a dispute with Russia in 2007. Today the tiny tech-savvy nation is so certain of its cyber defenses that it is the only country in the world to allow internet voting for the entire electorate, in every election, and thousands have already done so in the European Parliament elections.

Internet voting — or i-voting —has been available since 2005 in the nation that gave the world Skype, and the percentage of voters using the internet to cast ballots has increased with each election, reaching 44% of voters in national election in March.

Linda Lainvoo was one of the first Estonians to vote in the European Parliament election, which she did from a cafe before heading to work Thursday morning. The 32-year-old civil servant has voted online since she was first eligible to vote.

"I couldn't imagine my life any different," Lainvoo said after logging into a secure online portal with her ID card and a PIN code. "I do everything online so I don't have to stand in queues and do things on paper."

After downloading an app and identifying herself, she viewed the electoral lists inside a virtual "voting booth" and selected her candidate. The elections are taking place from May 23-26 across the 28-member bloc to fill 751-seat European Parliament, where Estonia, a nation of just 1.3 million, has six representatives.

It took Lainvoo about 30 seconds to vote and by the time she had finished, around 2,000 others in Estonia had also voted. Estonia's i-voting system runs from the 10th until the fourth day before the election and allows people to cast multiple ballots, with only the last vote counting. This aims to prevent voter coercion.

Young, tech-savvy males made up the bulk of i-voters in the first few elections, according to the head of Estonia's Electoral Office, Priit Vinkel. But after four elections it "diffused in the electorate and we can't say who the i-voter is. Any eligible voter can be an i-voter."

The electoral commission's research shows internet voting significantly increases turnout for Estonians abroad and for people living more than 30 minutes away from a polling station. While it's hard to quantify the impact of i-voting on the overall turnout numbers, Vinkel says it's a "sticky voting method" that has "stopped alienation," meaning a majority of people who have voted online at least once keep voting electronically and are more likely than average voters to keep voting at all.

When Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union and declared its independence nearly three decades ago it embarked on a modernization program that including going digital early on. The country has introduced a high-tech national ID system in which physical ID cards are linked to digital signatures that citizens use not only to vote, but to pay taxes and access health and school records.

But there have been vulnerabilities. In 2007, a massive cyberattack crippled the country's networks following a dispute with Russia over Estonia's removal of a Soviet-era war memorial in Tallinn. The unprecedented scale of the attack forced governments worldwide to reconsider the importance of network security and defense.

Estonia, which borders Russia, took time to build security and privacy into its model. It created a platform that supports electronic authentication and digital signatures to enable paperless communications, in contrast with failed efforts by private companies to provide secure online voting systems in the United States, for example.

The architect of Estonia's i-voting system, Arne Ansper, compares it to postal voting. An external envelope verifies the identity of the voter — a digital signature for internet voting — which is then stripped from the ballot, leaving an anonymous internal envelope guaranteeing the secrecy of the vote. This envelope is then decrypted at the end of the election.

Transparency and security have been built into the system by allowing people to verify that their vote has been tallied correctly, while a third-party system creates logs that are compared to the results of the ballot boxes and which would reveal any discrepancies.

The role played by social media and fake accounts used to spread fake news in the 2016 U.S. election has also forced governments to reassess electoral interference. "Trust is the paramount factor in making sure that Internet-based voting actually takes place," said Tonu Tammer from the government agency in charge of the security of Estonia's computer networks.

Tammer says his organization is continuously monitoring and adapting to possible threats to the system, but says there are greater risks than an internet attack. "The biggest concern when it comes to trust is the dissemination of false news," he said, explaining that it's easier to erode trust by claiming electoral fraud than actually carrying out a successful attack.

On Friday, the European Commission criticized social media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter for not doing enough to fight disinformation ahead of the EU elections. But with more than 82,500 people having already voted online by Monday, it seems trust is still strong.

Back in the Tallinn cafe, Lainvoo closes her laptop and prepares to leave for the office. "I'm not an IT person, but I trust their expertise, and I also trust my state," she said.

Presidents of Russia, Estonia meet after nearly a decade

April 18, 2019

MOSCOW (AP) — The presidents of Russia and Estonia held talks at the Kremlin for the first time in nearly a decade Thursday, a step toward reversing an absence of high-level contacts that Russian President Vladimir Putin described as "not a normal situation."

In his opening remarks, Putin told Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid their neighboring countries have a lot of concerns in common, including environmental issues surrounding the Baltic Sea and security.

Kaljulaid said after the meeting that despite Estonia observing European Union sanctions on Russia, the two countries could make progress on bilateral issues such as developing transportation infrastructure and taxation.

Estonia, which borders Russia's northwest and is home to a large Russian-speaking minority population, was spooked by Russia's annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 in a move that Ukraine and almost all of the world views as illegal.

Estonia has since hosted scores of NATO military drills that were aimed at deterring potential Russian aggression.

Animal saved from icy Estonian river turns out to be a wolf

February 24, 2019

HELSINKI (AP) — Estonian construction workers got the shock of their lives when they found out the animal they saved from an icy river was not a dog but a wolf. Rando Kartsepp, Robin Sillamae and Erki Vali told the Postimees newspaper they were working at the Sindi dam on the frozen Parnu River in southwestern Estonia when they saw an animal frantically swimming in a maze of ice.

They rescued the ice-coated animal and took it to a shelter. A hunter told them it was about a one-year old male wolf suffering from shock and hypothermia. The young wolf recovered after a day and was released back into the wild with a GPS collar.

Estonia has an estimated 200 wolves. The grey wolf was voted Estonia's national animal by nature organizations in 2018.

US ambassador to Estonia resigns over Trump comments

June 30, 2018

HELSINKI (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Estonia has resigned over frustrations with President Donald Trump's comments about the European Union and his treatment of Washington's European allies. In a private Facebook message posted Friday, James D. Melville wrote: "For the President to say EU was 'set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,' or that 'NATO is as bad as NAFTA' is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it's time to go."

Melville was referring to Trump's recent comments at news conferences and on social media. Melville stressed that a U.S. foreign service officer's "DNA is programmed to support policy and we're schooled right from the start, that if there ever comes a point where one can no longer do so, particularly if one is in a position of leadership, the honorable course is to resign."

Melville is a senior U.S. career diplomat who has served as the American ambassador in the Baltic nation and NATO member of Estonia since 2015. He has served at U.S. Embassies in Berlin, London and Moscow, among other postings.

"Having served under six presidents and 11 secretaries of state, I never really thought it would reach that point for me," he wrote, referring to a career with the State Department that started in the mid-1980s.

The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday that Melville "announced his intent to retire from the Foreign Service effective July 29 after 33 years of public service." It did not elaborate.

Foreign Policy magazine said Melville is one of the many senior U.S. diplomats who have resigned because of Trump's policies.

Estonians join paramilitary forces to face Russia fears

By Anne Kauranen
Narva, Estonia (AFP)
Jan 18, 2017

A machine guns rattles as pale and exhausted teams of Estonian weekend warriors struggle to climb a final obstacle: the wall of Narva Castle facing their country's powerful neighbor Russia.

The bullets fired on the snowy banks of the Narva river separating Estonia from Russia are blanks, but the steely determination of volunteers participating in Utria Assault, the NATO member's biggest annual military competition, is palpable.

Ruth Maadla, a waitress who spends her weekends as a paramilitary volunteer, told AFP she would give her all to help defend the small Baltic nation of 1.3 million people "if anything ever happened".

Sporting white winter camouflage gear, a headlamp and a huge backpack, the 29-year-old who has just finished a brutal 90-kilometer (56-mile) marching race in bone-chilling subzero temperatures is in high-spirits, despite being caked in mud and nursing painful blisters on her heels.

Like other east Europeans, Estonians were deeply disturbed by Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its subsequent support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

US President-elect Donald Trump then raised more concerns with his campaign threat to think twice about defending NATO's eastern allies.

These factors coupled with Kremlin sabre rattling in the Baltic region -- especially in its heavily militarized Kaliningrad exclave -- have triggered a paramilitary revival in eastern European states that were under Moscow's thumb during the Soviet era.

Part of the USSR until 1991, Estonia has seen its Kaitseliit volunteer paramilitary force expand by 10 percent over the last two years.

- 'Citizens with strong will' -

With 16,000 members -- up to 25,600 including units for women and children -- the organisation is seen as a crucial extension of the EU member's modest military force comprising 6,500 peacetime personnel, half of them conscripts.

While some paramilitary volunteers play war games to hone skills like shooting or orienteering, others prefer more peaceful duty like wielding knitting needles to make socks for war victims in eastern Ukraine.

The Kaitseliit force has even attracted some volunteers who are ethnic Russian, part of Estonia's largest minority accounting for about a quarter of its population.

Kaitseliit commander, Brigadier General Meelis Kiili, describes the force he leads as "a very important element in deterrence" when facing Russia.

The role of "ordinary citizens with a strong will to defend" must not be underestimated, Kiili told AFP, as he congratulated a troupe of volunteers exhausted after the two sleepless nights they spent marching through snowy forests in the race.

Many are former military conscripts, but more and more ordinary Estonians and women, like Maadla or Sille Laks, are joining.

A 30-year-old cyber security expert from Tallinn, Laks told AFP that she has spent around 400 hours in Kaitseliit basic training over three months.

"It's about doing something for my country," said the athletic public servant as she braved the freezing cold before dawn to supervise one of the checkpoints in the competition.

While NATO's collective defense clause is the bottom-line guarantee of Estonia's security, analysts acknowledge that paramilitaries do have a role to play.

"In the worst case scenario, Russia could advance very swiftly to take all of Estonia, but with its own resistance, Estonia could buy more time" for help to arrive, said Kristi Raik, a senior Baltic security researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, stressing that any such attack was unlikely at the moment.

- Under NATO's wing -

Moscow upped the ante in the Baltic region late last year by deploying nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into its Kaliningrad outpost bordering NATO member Lithuania and Poland and sending two ships capable of launching warheads to the Baltic Sea.

The move came on the heels of NATO's decision to deploy four multinational battalions to eastern Europe, including a 1,100-strong rotational unit that will be stationed as of April at the Tapa military base, an hour's drive from the Estonian capital Tallinn.

Over the next few months, the United States will also deploy part of a 3,500-troop armored brigade to Estonia and Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania.

They have all eyed Trump's pro-Moscow rhetoric with mounting unease.

Ordered by the outgoing Obama administration to reinforce NATO's vulnerable eastern flank, the US brigade arrived in Poland last week as part of one of the largest deployment of US forces in Europe since the Cold War, an operation that Moscow angrily branded a security threat.

While the advent of a Trump presidency adds an element of uncertainty to future US commitment to defend vulnerable eastern European allies, Estonia's paramilitary chief remains confident about NATO's resolve.

"It's not only Trump we are talking about, NATO has 28 members," Kiili told AFP.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Estonians_join_paramilitary_forces_to_face_Russia_fears_999.html.

Estonia's first female president sworn in

October 10, 2016

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia's president-elect has been sworn in for a five-year term as the Baltic country's first female head of state and its fourth president since independence in 1991. The 46-year-old Kersti Kaljulaid arrived at Monday's inaugural ceremonies at the Riigikogu, or Parliament, together with outgoing president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who served two terms since 2006.

Political outsider Kaljulaid was elected as a consensus candidate by lawmakers on Oct. 3 after failed votes by the Parliament in August and a special electorate body in September.

3 Baltic nations request permanent NATO troop presence

May 14, 2015

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — The three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are asking NATO to permanently deploy ground troops to their nations as a deterrent against an increasingly assertive Russia.

The countries' defense chiefs requested a brigade-size unit of NATO troops — one battalion of 700-800 troops in each country — in a joint letter this week to the supreme allied commander in Europe, said Capt. Mindaugas Neimontas, a spokesman for Lithuania's chief of defense.

"It is necessary because of the security situation," Neimontas told The Associated Press on Thursday. "It's not getting better in our region, so it will be a deterrent." The Baltic countries — former Soviet republics that regained independence amid the collapse of the Soviet Union over two decades ago — have been alarmed by Moscow's intervention in Ukraine and the increasing activity of Russian forces in the Baltic Sea.

NATO forces, including from the U.S., have also stepped up military exercises in the Baltics and other Eastern European nations in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the request would be "assessed carefully," but gave no commitment beyond that.

Speaking to reporters at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, Turkey, Stoltenberg underlined that the alliance has already increased its military presence in the Baltic region and is in the process of establishing quick response forces that will make it easier to reinforce the Baltic states if needed.

"The main message is that NATO is ready. And NATO is prepared. And we will defend all allies against any threat," Stoltenberg said. Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the European Union, said the Baltic request was motivated by "local politics rather than a genuine security situation."

"Because nobody is threatening the Baltics — at least, nobody that I know of," he said.

Karl Ritter in Stockholm and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels contributed to this report.

Estonia's ruling pro-Western Reform Party wins election

March 02, 2015

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia's ruling Reform Party has emerged as the overall winner in the Baltic country's general election dominated by economic issues and security concerns over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

With all votes counted, Prime Minister Taavi Roivas declared victory early Monday. Polls had predicted a close race between the governing center-right coalition and the opposition Center Party, favored by ethnic Russians.

Roivas' pro-Western, liberal party won 28 percent of the votes to take 30 seats, three seats less than in the previous election but five more than the main opposition centrists. The ruling coalition now holds 45 seats in the 101-seat Parliament, down from 52 after the previous election in 2011, meaning reforms in the government composition are expected although mainstream policies likely will remain the same.

Even though Estonia is a NATO member, many are worried that Moscow will try to increase its influence in the former Soviet republic, where one-fourth of its 1.3 million residents are ethnic Russians. All main political parties strongly support defense spending and a continuation of the NATO presence in Estonia, which together with neighbors Latvia and Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union for nearly five decades.

"I think NATO's pledge to defend Estonia doesn't mean anything. We're located in a buffer zone and NATO just reacts too slowly," said Ivari Manni, a 51-year-old designer who voted at a Tallinn shopping center. "Estonia should adopt a Swiss-style home army model, where guns are kept at home."

The main electoral differences focused on economic questions, including tax reforms. Estonia has continued to show strong growth even as many of its European partners are struggling. All wage earners pay a flat 20 percent income tax, which opposition centrists want to change to a progressive tax system — a move supported by the minority government partner, the Social Democrats.

The Reform Party is opposed to abolishing the current tax system, focusing instead on job creation to improve the economy of Estonia, a member of the eurozone since 2011. Preliminary results showed a 63.7 percent turnout in the electorate of almost 1 million, up from 63.5 in 2011.

Some 176,000 votes were cast electronically, setting a record in the country, which pioneered online voting in 2005.

Tiny Estonia seeks strong support from Obama

September 02, 2014

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Spooked by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, Estonia is hoping for a strong signal of support from President Barack Obama when he arrives Wednesday in a country that two decades ago had Russian troops on its soil.

That Obama picked Estonia as his only stop before a NATO summit in Wales is reassuring to Estonia and Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, which, like Ukraine, were ruled by Moscow until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

"I always knew that America is our key and trusted ally," said Juozas Kairutis, a 69-year-old retired teacher in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. "Western Europe is too pragmatic. They do not understand what all this means and probably would turn away from Baltic states just like they did in 1940."

During World War II, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invaded Baltic countries over the years. The U.S. and many other Western countries never recognized the nearly five-decade Soviet occupation, during which tens of thousands of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians were deported to Siberia.

After the Soviet Union crumbled, the Baltic countries turned to the West and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, irritating Russia. To Baltic leaders, the Ukraine crisis has underscored why they joined the alliance in the first place. They're now calling on NATO to take a more high-profile role in their defense — something they hope Obama's visit will reinforce.

"It is a very strong message to the region that the United States is taking the security of its eastern European NATO allies seriously," Estonia armed forces commander Maj. Gen. Riho Terras told The Associated Press.

Baltic leaders want NATO to establish permanent bases in the region, but some allies have been wary of doing anything that might endanger a 1997 agreement with Moscow under which NATO pledged not to permanently station substantial numbers of soldiers in Eastern Europe.

The issue is likely to come up as Obama meets the Baltic presidents Wednesday in a 18th-century palace in Tallinn. "The current situation shows that the principle of collective territorial defense hasn't gone away — on the contrary," Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said Sunday, marking the 20th anniversary of the exit of the last Russian troops from Estonian territory.

The relations between the Baltic countries and Russia were chilly even before the Ukraine crisis. Moscow routinely accuses them of discriminating against their Russian-speaking minorities. About one-third of Estonia's 1.3 million residents have Russian as their mother tongue. Many of them feel detached from Estonian society and get their news from Kremlin-controlled Russian TV stations.

Ruben Airapetyan, a 19-year-old student at a vocational school in Tallinn, said he only speaks Russian and English — not Estonian. He didn't share the enthusiasm that many ethnic Estonians feel over Obama's visit.

"This visit seems a bit strange to me. Such a powerful man arriving in this small country," he said. "I don't have any hatred for Americans. The problem is I don't know what news to believe in."

Liudas Dapkus reported from Vilnius, Lithuania.

Estonia joins world space club with 2.2-pound satellite

Tallin, Estonia (UPI)
May 7, 2013

With a satellite launched Tuesday Estonia has joined a not-so-exclusive club, becoming the 41st nation in the world to own a man-made object orbiting in space.

The country's ESTCube-1 satellite was launched, along with two other satellites, atop a European Vega rocket from the Guiana Space Center on South America's northeast coast, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

Estonia's modest 2.2-pound satellite was joined in orbit by satellites deployed by Europe and Vietnam.

Estonia is now a "tiny space country," Estonian Speaker of Parliament Ene Ergma, an astrophysicist by training who was in French Guiana to observe the launch, said, but "it's really a big deal in my opinion."

University students in Estonia had been developing the ESTCube-1 nano-satellite since 2008 to carry out innovative solar wind experiments.

"I am very proud to be seeing all these students here who are watching their handiwork of five years," project senior researcher Mart Noorma said.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Estonia_joins_world_space_club_with_22-pound_satellite_999.html.