How to read AFP stories

Here are few tips how to read AFP stories about the Baltic States as well as the stories from other states where from AFP reports periodically. You have to contact AFP (click the headline to get to the website and search for your regional office) to get the access to the AFP wire/archive in case you are not working at the institution that already has arranged the access.

I only add a very small selection of my features to my blog and cordially advice you to either search net to get links to the stories available at other sites or do as advised above if you wish to read more. We write stories about all kind of topics - politics, culture, economy - everything that seems important enough to be shared with readers. And it is far not only "nice" reporting about soft issues, but among other things also about corruption or that kind of behavior of those few officials who sometimes seem not up to what their job requests the most - dignity in everything.

Agence France Presse has journalists in 165 countries, 5 regional headquarters.and is the world's oldest established news agency, founded in 1835 by Charles-Louis Havas, the father of global journalism. AFP produces each day 400,000 - 600,000 words in text, 2 to 3,000 photos and 80 news graphics, 30 video clips per day.

The AFP articles go to wire in six different languages - English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Only few news stories and features are translated into all these languages, from the Baltic and Nordic States for example the stories go out to the world media mainly in English and French, sometimes also in other languages.

P.S. In case you feel confused why I have double name - my family name in Estonian that I got from one of my grandfathers contains that bit weird letter which - as far as I know - only two nations have. The "E" instead of that letter was written already to my first Soviet foreign passport in 1988 and kept appearing later to many other IDs too and at some point in early 90s I find myself having two family names. The real mess with my Estonian version of family name started when net era arrived bcs in emails my Estonian version of name started to change into endless versions of signs and letters. Just one example - R=C3=B5igas - thats how it looked in email from Raul Kuutma, the long time chair of Estonians who fought in Finnish Army during WWII when he asked few years ago about me having slightly different names. My friend Koit Ojamaa, master in Finno-Ugric philology, who worked most of is life at US Congress Library told me already in 1990 "e" is phonetically closest letter to my Estonian confusing letter, so I use it in foreign media.