European City of Culture 2000

Baltic Business School

Each year since 1985 one city has been selected by the European Union as a cultural capital. To celebrate the turn of the century in 2000 the European Union designated 9 cultural cities. These cities will collaborate on various levels and work closely on a number of joint projects. This cultural cooperation between European cities is unique and will create an unprecedented synergia between 3 cities in the north, 3 cities in the centre and 3 cities in the south of Europe. The cities are Avignon, Bergen, Brussels, Bologna, Helsinki, Kraków, Prague, Reykjavik and Santiago de Compostela.
The City of Bergen has established the "Foundation Bergen 2000" to organise the year of culture. The foundation will create the content and program together with the cultural institutions and organisations of western Norway.
This is Norway's first European city of culture. For the first time Norway will be strengthening and focusing on our rich traditions and the openness of new artistic tendencies in a pan-European context. For Norway this is an exciting meeting between nine European regional and urban cultures.
Bergen, as an European city of culture, is to be a partnership with the regions cultural life. The foundation has received more than 700 proposals for collaborative projects. 180 projects will be supported by the Foundation Bergen 2000, another 100 will be included in the programme.
A preliminary programme will be presented the 28th of April, the main programme before Christmas, this year.
The foundation "Bergen 2000" has signed several sponsorship agreements with major Norwegian corporations, and is working closely with the tourist trade.
On February the 17th. 2000 the cultural year opens. The year has 3 programme seasons; "Dreams" in the spring, "Roaming" in the summer and "Spaces" in the autumn. Each season will contain both profiled art projects and spectacular folk-festivals. A focus on Bergen is planned in the spring and autumn, during the summer the focus will cover all of the western fjord region of Norway.

The University of Kalmar, will during the year 2000, start the Baltic Business School. The school is to be a knowledge and competence centre for trade and tourism in the Baltic Sea region, and is as such a bridge between west and east.
The Baltic Business School will offer three four-year degree programmes: Business Economics, Tourism Management and Systems analysis and design. Within the scope of these there will be room for individual specialisation during the two final years. During the education, students will be working with research and be placed in real life 

situations. Students will in this way become attractive to all the national, as well as international enterprises, which are operating in the region.
Lecturers from the business community, host companies, project work, real cases, IT, student exchange, student responsibilities, rhetoric training, reflection, current affairs debates -are some of the recipes we will use for creating a reflective and active student.

Big Accident in Pärnu!

A minibus and a tank lorry collided at the Via Baltica 25 kilometres south of Pärnu, Estonia September 13 th 1999. The minibus caught fire, and two persons were instantly killed. In an attempt to avoid the crash, a bus instead crashed with a jeep. About ten persons were killed, and around 20 were injured, many severely. The first rescue teams arrived at the scene within ten minutes, and soon teams from the fire brigade, police, ambulance service and other authorities were busy saving lives, closely monitored by a team of experts from Norrköping as well as various authorities in Estonia.
The whole accident was the final event of the cooperation project "Via Baltica Accident Management" between Pärnu and Norrköping. UBC was involved in the project preparation stage, which gave also UBC the opportunity to be an observer at the event. Besides 

mutual study visits and the accident management exercise, the project also consisted of material improvement of various rescue equipment. The project will also result is a book describing how to carry out accident exercises.
Parnu is located at the Via Baltica, which is one of the strategic development projects of the EU. However, also cities will be affected by the upgrading of Via Baltica when traffic grows, among others because of accidents which engages the rescue and accident preparedness in cities.
The accident exercise shoved that the preparedness in Pärnu is rather good, but improvements are needed, specially concerning organisation and management routines at the accident site.