CANCELLED - Euro-Atlantic Community in the 21st Century: Prospects and Challenges. Latvia' s Prospective

Her Excellency Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the current Latvian president, will be speaking about Latvia's past, present, and future.

Her Excellency was born in Riga, the Latvian capital, in December 1937, when Europe found itself on the edge of conflict.

As World War II ravaged Europe, Latvia found itself occupied by the Soviet Union, then by Nazi Germany, then, again, by the USSR. Ms Vike-Freiberga spent her childhood living in difficult conditions in refugee camps in Germany. Together with her family, she later moved to French Morocco, before settling in Canada at the age of 16.

There, she embarked on a distinguished academic career, becoming a professor of psychology specialising in the relationship between thought and language. Earning awards from academic and Latvian organisations worldwide, she was a prodigious author, renowned for, among other works, her collections of Latvian folk songs.

In 1998, Ms Vike-Freiberga received an invitation she couldn't refuse - to head the new Latvian Institute, established to raise the profile of Latvia and the Latvians around the world. She returned to a country facing many problems in its efforts to build a Western-style democracy and market economy. In a meteoric rise in her new career as a politician, Ms Vike-Freiberga was elected president within a year. She is now on her second, four-year term as head of state.