Latvija in brief - 2007-09-12

  • 2007-09-12
A drunken switchman at a railroad crossing in Sarkandaugava, a northern suburb of Riga, fell asleep while on the job on Sept 10, leading to major traffic congestion when he failed to raise the gate for traffic. The switchman's inattentiveness forced the municipal police to regulate traffic for nearly an hour while they waited for a representative of Latvijas Dzelzcels (Latvia's Railways) to come and take over for the inebriated man. Police say he will face punishment from his employer.

The body of a 10-year-old girl who went missing from the southern town of Dobele in mid-August was found in a swamp near the girl's home on Sept. 9. Police had earlier searched the area for clues surrounding the girl's disappearance, but to no avail. The body was eventually found by a group of local children. Police report that it was clear the girl was killed in a violent manner some time ago, but are still waiting for a full coroner's report detailing the time and place of death. This is the second case this year in which a missing girl has turned up dead.

Mushroom pickers in Latvia and Lithuania made two surprising discoveries on Sept. 7 and 9, respectively. On Sep. 7, a Latvian fungus fan made headlines by unearthing an expensive Maserati sports car hidden in the forest outside Riga. The $140,000 luxury car was hidden under a camouflage net and had its registration plates removed. Two days later, a Lithuanian man found a cache of 412 Soviet-era artillery shells while mushroom picking near Klaipeda. The two surprising finds come in the lead up to a mushroom picking championship scheduled to take place in the Ogre region of Latvia on Sept. 15.

In his speech at a major conference outlining the role of the press in Latvia on Sept. 8, President Valdis Zatlers compared journalists to horses at a race. He said that journalists tend to want to be the fastest to get the biggest news, but that their role should be to "find the reasons, explain the consequences, and offer solutions," in their stories.