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| | Lennart Meri -- filmmaker, writer, president of Estonia |
 | | Lennart Meri, the first president of Estonia in the post-Soviet era and an internationally recognized filmmaker, travel writer and translator, died Tuesday in the capital, Tallinn. |
 | | The Baltic republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, a consequence of the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact the year before. |
 | | In contrast to the office of prime minister, Estonia's post-Soviet presidency was conceived as a largely ceremonial position. |
| www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/15/BAG4QHODCU1.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea (800 words) |
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