THE MORE I see of Estonia, the more I worry for Latvia.

Needing to go to Tallinn last week to interview economy minister Juhan Parts, I decided to go by a roundabout route instead of plugging the main Riga-Tallinn highway for the umpteenth time. I chose to pass through Valka/Valga, the 2-for-the-price-of-1 city that straddles the border, continue up to Tartu and cross a large swathe of country I’d never seen, approaching Tallinn from the east instead of the south.

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MANY long faces in Riga today after the government ‘won’ the referendum vote on Saturday and thus remains in power. The victory is entirely pyrrhic, however: when your main political weapon is reliance upon the apathy of the electorate, your days are numbered.

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IT TAKES a very special sort of petty criminal to steal from old ladies, young mothers and little kids, but that’s the distinction that can be claimed by a group of thieves who have stolen all the benches from Arkadijas Park.

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