July opinion poll

From "Latvijas fakti". The headline: The popularity of all [major] parties slightly down. The numbers (and the change compared to June opinion poll):

Jaunais laiks 10.8% (-0.9%)
PCTVL 10.4% (-0.2%)
ZZS 9.8% (-0.9%)
Tautas Partija 9% (-1.1%)
TB/LNNK 8% (-0.2%)
Saskanas Centrs 5.3% (-0.5%)
LC/LPP 5.1% (-0.4%)

This translates to the following numbers of seats in parliament:
Jaunais laiks 19 (unchanged)
PCTVL 18 (+1)
ZZS 17 (unchanged)
Tautas Partija 15 (-1)
TB/LNNK 14 (+1)
Saskanas Centrs 9 (unchanged)
LC/LPP 8 (-1)

Almost nothing has changed.

Why do the journalists like the negative headlines so much?

Today's headline from Delfi:

Last year, the number of suicides in Latvia exceeded the number of deaths in traffic accidents

Scary, isn't it? I looked up the actual report by Central Statistics Office. Compared to five years ago, the number of suicides in Latvia has declined by 27% and the number of deaths in traffic accidents has declined by 30%.

Why do the journalists like the negative headlines so much?

UPDATE: I posted this and realized that both of my previous posts were about corruption. Well, maybe this weblogger also favors negative topics.

Lembergs

Yesterday, I saw two news stories on Aivars Lembergs, the mayor of Ventspils:

Politics section: Union of Farmers and Greens nominates Lembergs as their candidate for Prime Minister
Crime section: Prosecutor's office charges Aivars Lembergs with bribery and money laundering

Lembergs has been banned from leaving Latvia without prosecutor's permission and may have to pay a bail of 1 million lats (1.4 million euros). It's a huge bail but Lembergs' personal wealth is in tens of millions of lats.

The timing of events is quite interesting. Most of the charges are about events that took place from 1993 to 1995. Prosecutors were not in a hurry to charge Lembergs while he was a mayor of a mid-size town. But, with Lembergs having political ambitions on a national level and election coming up in 2.5 months, things changed and old allegations are now prosecuted vigorously.

Lembergs is dismissing the charges as politically motivated. Well, the charges may not be politically motivated but the decision to bring them up now (after not trying to charge him in previous 10 years) probably is.

"Everyone investigating everyone on corruption charges" remains the main theme for October 2006 elections.

New Era?

Jaunais Laiks (New Era Party) emerged in 2002, on a promise of fighting corruption. After 2002 election, New Era Party leader Einars Repse became the prime minister of Latvia. His coalition government only lasted for slightly more than a year but the New Era Party now leads municipal governments in several cities, including Riga.

This week, I saw two news stories on what the New Era Party has become:

The first story reveals interesting coincidences between decisions by national and city governments and large donations to the New Era Party. One example. "Ionica" company signs a 70,000 lat (100,000 euro) contract with city of Riga (whose mayor, Aigars Aksenoks belongs to the New Era Party) for creating an open-air skating rink. On the same day, the owner of the company donates 9,960 lats to the New Era Party. The article from "Diena" newspaper reveals several other stories similar to this one.

The second story involves the city government of Jurmala, a sea-side resort town. The city is lead by mayor Inese Aizstrauta who used to belong to New Era Party, until she was expelled from it a few days ago. The conflict between her and the party was over the city development plan which determines which parts of the city are open to new construction. Many parts of Jurmala are fairly prestigious places to live. Free land is scarce and a lot of it is protected for enviromental reasons. As a result, permits to build new buildings can be very valuable.

According to Aizstrauta, she was pressured by Dans Titavs (an influential New Era member who used to be one of two aides to New Era's prime minister Repse) to allow several construction projects to go ahead. Aizstrauta-lead city council voted for the development plan without Titavs-supported projects. In a few days, New Era party declared that the development plan was corrupt and expelled Aizstrauta, together with two other New Era city council members, from the party.

Meet the New Era. Same as Old Era?

Aizstrauta says that she joined the party hoping to change Latvia for better. But later, she discovered that there is "another New Era" of people who abuse popular trust in selfish interests. Besides Titavs, she named party's secretary-general Edgars Jaunups as one of those people.

For myself, I will be even more skeptical of political parties that promise an end to "politics as usual".

June opinion poll

According to Latvijas Fakti:

Jaunais laiks 11.7% (+1%)
ZZS 10.7% (+0.2%)
PCTVL 10.6% (+0.9%)
TP 10.1% (-0.2%)
TB/LNNK 8.2% (+0.3%)
Saskanas centrs 5.8% (+0.7%)
LC/LPP 5.5% (+1.7%)
Social Democrats 3.5% (+0.1%)

This translates to the following number of seats in the parliament:
Jaunais laiks 19
ZZS 17
PCTVL 17
TP 16
TB/LNNK 13
Saskanas Centrs 9
LC/LPP 9

Social Democrats are slightly short of 5% threshold. (Since the poll includes people who are undecided or will skip the election, 3.5% actually means 4.9% of those who have decided to vote for one of parties.)

Last month's poll is here.

Having a Latvian name may be a problem

...if running for public office in Los Angeles. Judge's Loss Stuns Experts: Election system and the jurist's Latvian name are cited is the headline in today's LA Times.

Dzintra Janavs, who has been a judge for 20 years, lost reelection to Lynn Diane Olson, a bagel store owner who almost has not practiced law in last 10 years. Janavs was rated "exceptionally well qualified" by Los Angeles County Bar Association (one of only 2 candidates with that ranking, out of 28 candidates for 18 judgeships), Olson was rated "not qualified". The legal community is in shock. Observers speculate that some voters may have preferred a candidate with a standard English name over the one with a non-English name of unknown origin.

Ouch. I thought Los Angeles was an enlightened multicultural city in which having or not having a common English name does not matter.

H/t: Volokh Conspiracy

Powerful speech

Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga gave a speech to US Congress today. It was truly impressive. From the speech:

Pirms piecpadsmit gadiem Latvija kopā ar kaimiņvalstim Igauniju un Lietuvu atguva savu neatkarību pēc piecdesmit Padomju okupācijas gadiem. Tas tika panākts nevardarbīgā ceļā caur Baltijas dziesmoto revolūciju, pateicoties vienīgi šo tautu drosmei un apņēmībai. Tās bija gatavas stāties pretī padomju šautenēm un tankiem tikai ar saviem neapbruņotajiem cilvēkiem un dziļu pārliecību par savām tiesībām, labi apzinoties, ka šīs šautenes un tanki viņus jebkurā brīdī var satriekt, kā tie bija satriekuši tik daudzus pirms tam.

Fifteen years ago Latvia, along with neighboring Estonia and Lithuania, regained its independence after fifty years of Soviet occupation. The Baltic Singing Revolution achieved this by non-violent means, by the sheer courage and determination of the peoples of these countries. They were ready to face Soviet guns and tanks with nothing but their unarmed bodies and the deep conviction of their rights, knowing full well that, at any moment, these guns and tanks might crush them as they had crushed so many before.

Full text: Latvian, English. There is more on Latvia and our history there. No one says it better than Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

I first read the reports in the Latvian media and wasn't impressed. Then, I found the text of the speech and it was much more impressive than the reports.

Vike-Freiberga also met with Condoleeza Rice and discussed, among other things, the possibility that Latvia may be added to countries whose citizens do not need visa to visit US. There is a pending amendment to US immigration law that would add Poland to that list. If Latvia would be there together with Poland, it would save a lot of time for Latvians travelling to US. US visa procedures can be quite time-consuming, as I have experienced myself.

In the news

"Latvijai un Venstpilij", the local party of Ventspils city (which has been consistently getting 70%+ of vote in the city council elections) has decided to participiate in the October parliamentary election together with the nationwide Union of Farmers and Greens (Zalo un Zemnieku Savieniba). This was quite widely expected for a while. The rumors are that Aivars Lembergs, the leader of "Latvijai un Ventspilij", 16-year mayor of Ventspils (and, probably, one of 10 wealthiest people in Latvia) is thinking about becoming the Prime Minister. Officially, Lembergs is not yet confirmed as a candidate. But his name appears in the news more often then the confirmed candidates, his opponents are investigating his career at full speed and two journalists have just published a book accusing him in criminally abusing his power.

In other news, Linda Murniece of the oppositionary Jaunais Laiks (New Era) party has become the chairwoman of Anti-corruption Committee of the Latvian parliament. This may mean even more investigations for the Union of Farmers and Greens, Lembergs and everyone else around the current coalition government. "Everyone investigating everyone on corruption charges" seems to be the theme for this election campaign.

May opinion poll

"Latvijas fakti" opinion poll for the month of May:
Jaunais Laiks 10.7%
Zalo un Zemnieku Savieniba (ZZS) 10.5%
Tautas Partija (TP) 10.3%
PCTVL 9.7%
Tevzemei un Brivibai/LNNK 7.9%
Saskanas Centrs 5.1%
Latvijas Cels/Pirma Partija 3.8%
Social Democrats 3.4%

This would translate to following numbers of seats in Parliament:
Jaunais Laiks 17
ZZS 17
TP 17
PCTVL 16
Tevzemei un Brivibai/LNNK 13
Saskanas Centrs 8
LC/LPP 6
Social Democrats 6

Disclaimer: Polls are provided for entertainment purposes only. The popularity of political parties may change significantly between now and the upcoming election in October 2006.

Eurovision

Today was the annual Eurovision song contest where almost every European country is represented by one song and TV viewers then select the best song by phone voting. Latvia was represented by a capella group Cosmos which finished 16th with 30 points:
8 points (representing 3rd place) from Lithuania
8 points (3rd place) from Monaco
4 point (7th place) from Ukraine
4 point (7th place) from Ireland
3 point (8th place) from Estonia
2 point (9th place) from UK
1 point (10th place) from Russia
Cosmos did not make top 10 in the other 30 participiating countries.

As usual, many viewers voted for their neighbouring countries. Latvia almost always gets votes from Lithuania and Estonia, regardless of how good the song is. Russia and Ukraine also supported us this year, probably, for the same reasons. Ireland has a large number of Latvian guest workers. Monaco's vote is the only mystery here.

Not all votes are decided by friendship between the countries. To win the contest, a song has to do well across the Europe. This year's winners, Mr. Lordi from Finland, collected 289 points from 33 countries.

Most of 600 million viewers probably complained how bad the songs were but, nevertheless, they will tune back for next year's contest. And, according to Wikipedia, NBC has purchased rights to create a similar show where songs from US states will compete one against another.

Ice Hockey World Championships 2006

2006 World Championships in Ice Hockey is almost over. Team Latvia finished 10th:

Latvia - Czech Republic 1:1
Latvia - Finland 0:5
Latvia - Slovenia 5:1
Latvia - Canada 0:11
Latvia - USA 2:4
Latvia - Norway 4:2

The results are about what one could reasonably expect. Latvia almost always finishes ahead of Norway and Slovenia and was expected to win those teams. The other 4 teams are all significantly better than Latvia. 1:1 tie against Czech Republic was a nice surprise and fuelled hopes that our team could make quarterfinals, playing on its home ice with arena full of Latvian fans. The next games dashed those hopes. 0:11 against Canada was particularly painful. Canada is expected to win Latvia in ice hockey, but not by 11 goals. (Well, a referee who was very strict against Latvian players and maybe too respectful of Canadians, was a part of that.)

The generation change on Latvian team was nearly complete this time. For long time, the team consisted of players who started playing for Latvia in 1992 (after Latvia regained independence and our team returned to international tournaments) and continued playing throughout 1990s and early 2000s. In this tournament, the only players left from that generation were Naumovs, Pantelejevs, Semjonovs and Tambijevs. 14 out of 24 players have started playing for the team in last 5 years. A few years ago, there was a bit of fear that the new generation might not be as good as the previous one. But it has turned out to be fine.

Unfortunately, the games are still hard to find on Internet. I watched part of the Latvia-Finland game on an Internet feed of a Russian TV channel. When I tried to watch the next game on the same site, the access was restricted to subscribers of the Internet provider which provided the broadcast. I would be willing to watch the games on pay-per-view basis, but there was no such option, either. One website was selling access to games of 2005 World Championships, but not 2006.

Analyzing terrorist networks

Newsweek has a a story on social network analysis:

To understand why the NSA wants to look at your phone bills, check out the work of Valdis Krebs, an expert on "social-network analysis." By mapping the connections of Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, two men that the CIA had suspected as Qaeda members back in 2000, Krebs established not only that they were dangerous—they had direct links to two people involved in the USS Cole bombing—but that someone named Muhammad Atta was at the center of their social web.

Nice to hear that a Latvian scientist is doing important work! Here is a podcast interview withValdis Krebs, from ITConversations website. I'll listen to it sometime (after I finish all the work that was due yesterday...sigh).

First post

After commenting on weblogs of other people for a while, I've decided to start my own. This will be primarily my opinions on Latvian politics, society and sports.