stability, BNS reported. "I
won't give any hope to anyone perhaps wishing the president to become so
deep embroiled in a dispute with the Fatherland and Freedom [party] that
the government collapses," he said. Two days earlier, Ulmanis had vetoed a
controversial amendment to the labor code, proposed by Fatherland and
Freedom and Latvia's Way, whereby an employee could be dismissed for
insufficient knowledge of the Latvian language (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 12
February 1998). JC
POLISH AMBASSADOR TO BELARUS RESIGNS. Ewa Spychalska has resigned as the
Polish ambassador in Minsk. According to an RFE/RL correspondent in Warsaw
on 14 February, Spychalska, who had been criticized by Polish Foreign
Minister Bronislaw Geremek, submitted her resignation in order not to
complicate relations between Geremek and President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Spychalska's replacement has not been named. In other news, a 63-year-old
woman died in a Warsawhospital of Creutzfeldt-Jakob-Disease, the human
variant of "mad cow" disease. Poland banned all imports of gelatin last
week. Cow byproducts are used in the production of gelatin. PB
FORMER OFFICIAL FROM KLAUS'S PARTY DETAINED. Libor Novak, the former
executive deputy chairman of Vaclav Klaus's Civic Democratic Party (ODS),
was taken into custody on 14 February, CTK reported. Novak is accused of
evading the payment of taxes totaling 500,000 million crowns ($14,500) in
connection with donations given to the ODS. The Financial Office filed a
lawsuit against him earlier this month. MS
RIFT GROWS WITHIN CZECH COALITION PARTY. Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA)
chairman Jiri Skalicky told journalists on 14 February that he will not run
in the upcoming parliamentary elections but will remain ODA chairman.
Skalicky said the decision not to run for the parliament is not connected
with his demand that