Kalish ordered that the goal is to double GDP, a dangerous “mercury bomb”: editors recommend holiday reading

Latvia is one of those countries where various processes often start to gain momentum when social network users take an active interest in them. For example, the Public Electronic Media Committee (SEPLP) announced a competition to find five board members for the future VSIA “Latvia”. Public Media”, but the fact that the board members were to receive bonuses of more than 9,000 euros per month was somehow overlooked until people started talking about it. Not only did “Delphi” follow the game closely, it also decided to see what was inside the wallets of public media bosses.

Moreover, this week Latvia experienced, one could even say, the end of an era, as long-time prime ministers, ministers and deputies left active politics. ChrisJanice Kalish (Joint venture). He has neither a lack of critics nor a lack of supporters, but his imprint on the Latvian political agenda cannot be overestimated. Delphi looks back at who Kalish really was, where he came from and what he left behind.

I could only sigh, “Oh wow!” I could not see for a second that the inevitable was about to happen – the BMW Jeep would hit the Renault at high speed. The huge inertial force threw the Renault into the air like a cardboard box, and the car flipped several times, falling flat and landing on its roof. It seemed that almost everything in the car was destroyed, except the driver’s seat – if he had brought another passenger that day, I am afraid this trip would have turned into a tragedy.

Fortunately, I shouldn’t have called 911 at that point, because after an action-movie spectacle that had me suddenly swerving back to reality, I wasn’t sure my strained nerves could handle what the “quick” dispatcher said next. But I heard the conversation. Neither the turn toward Cedar nor the specifically named intersection of two roads was enough to explain it, and the conversation with the dispatcher dragged on and on. I looked at the bleeding driver, who had managed to climb out of the crushed wreckage of his car with his own strength and the help of eyewitnesses, and listened to the conversation with the ambulance dispatcher. “What if his life is in danger now?” I thought, hearing the conversation that just seemed to never end. Apparently, I also expressed my thoughts, because someone answered me: “Well, he’ll die here, too.”

My colleague Laine Fedotova explained how it is possible to call 112 and have no one answer, while the conversation with the emergency medical services dispatcher drags on.

This week, Delfi also launched a new series of articles, “Soft Power”, which describes various refined ways to Kremlin Still trying to maintain some residual influence in our country through its cross-border cultural space. In the first article, journalist Arturs Skutelis reports on occasional concert opportunities in Latvia for musicians friendly to the Russian government or “neutral silent”. Usually, these plans fall through after journalists and activists raise the alarm on social media, but the question remains why such things are allowed to happen. Yes, one cannot help but notice that there are several very specific stages where these musicians are particularly popular.

Although you may not want to admit it, sometimes you want to count the money in someone else’s pocket. Especially if this money arrives through the state budget, which we create through taxes. Therefore, I think that the most watched “Delfi TV” program this week has two episodes of “Spried with Delfi” – about the future salaries of the directors of United Public Media and how the State Tax Service will check those who “happen” to have credited to their accounts more million euros than they declared to the state.

Speaking of money, one incident this week reminded me of the old TV series “Rich People Cry Too.” It’s rare to hear about law enforcement officers detaining a real billionaire, but it happened this week — Pavel Durov, a Russian-born billionaire who currently holds citizenship in many countries and can “stick to the wall” with his passport, was detained in one of his “homelands” — France. Durov is known as the creator of “Telegram.” It turns out that “Telegram” is popular with pedophiles, drug dealers, and Russian soldiers. As someone who doesn’t use the app, I found it very interesting to listen to the episode of “Command Center” where we delve into this topic.

In April this year, the Latvian Ministry of Economy released a report stating that between 2023 and 2035, nominal gross domestic product (GDP) will double from 40.3 billion euros in 2023 to 83 billion euros in 2035. Mortens Hansen, head of the Economics Department at the Riga University of Economics, expressed doubts about the achievement of this goal. Delfi Bizness also interviewed other economists to find out whether the emerging market plan is realistic or just an ambitious dream.

On Tuesday, the “Labietis” brewery celebrated its 11th birthday. The past two and a half years have seen signs of change. As Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, company manager Reinis Pļaviņas had no doubts about the need to stop buying bottles from Russia. However, supermarkets refused to sell “Labieša” products for months. Looking to the future, the brewer hopes that the new law on the flag of the producing country on the product packaging will arouse patriotic feelings among buyers and encourage them to choose beer produced in Latvia.

“It is better to leave the permafrost as it is – frozen”, concludes Edzus Milssons, editor of Campus Delphi. Several studies have shown that a rapid melting of this layer of the Earth would bring a series of negative consequences, and a study just published warns of the possibility of a “mercury bomb” that, if it exploded, would endanger the lives of millions of people living in the Northern Hemisphere. Permafrost is not just made up of earth, rock and ice. There is also a huge amount of carbon – about 1,500 gigatons, or 15 trillion tons. That’s twice as much as is currently in the atmosphere. It goes without saying why it would be better if the carbon didn’t end up there.

If you want to spend the weekend actively, the area around Pieriga also offers a lot of opportunities. Journalist Agnija Reiniece proved this by participating in a number of activities within a 50-kilometer radius of Riga over two intensive days. Water skiing trips, riding a “fat bike”, swimming in the wilderness and then eating delicious pancakes in good company – these are just a few options for a meaningful break.

Journalist Anita Sedliņa highlights a problem in the fashion world: if women’s clothes have pockets at all, they’re too small and too narrow! It turns out that women have been complaining about this inequality for centuries. “Women don’t have pockets enough to hold a handkerchief,” activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in her 1899 essay on equality in fashion. Who’s to blame for women’s clothes often being pocketless, too narrow and impractical?

Look what you want, boss. hockey There is a seasonal sport in Latvia. Yes, of course, kids and amateurs rage from autumn to summer, local league clubs also play for relatives and friends, but ordinary sports fans lazily pay attention to how far our best export is doing – in North America, but also in Europe. However, most of the time there is only one flash (but – someone!) – a few weeks in spring when the Latvian national team prepares for the World Skating Championships. May is the real hockey month for you, not the foliage month! August? Well, get it done – some hockey … and then it should be played beach volleyball or 3×3 basketball!

However, every four years, this algorithm works – because the end of summer is the time when the participants of the next Olympic Games in ice hockey are traditionally determined. Latvians love to organize things so much that they regularly hold these qualifiers in the country, and then the domestic fans are also forced to reset their biological clocks. And it’s really worth it – because unlike in the spring, when some of the best players can’t put on the red and white jersey due to the busyness of the club or health problems accumulated during the season, usually all the strongest ice hockey players are prohibited from putting on the red and white jersey. There is also. This week we also used it – invited two of the best current players in Latvia for a longer conversation, whom we did not see in the spring national team: Kristians Rubinas, the decisive goal scorer of the bronze spring team, and Rudolf Balcells, the best sniper in the national team’s offense in recent years. Neither of them participated in the Olympics, but this is a strong professional motivation and even a dream for them, which is fully reflected in their answers, judgments and reflections.

The skinhead movement in Latvia is at least ten years old, but in recent years it has changed along with the entire Latvian society. Now the extreme militants have new victims: for example, black couriers or students at the University of Riga. Journalist Diāna Čučkova talks about modern Latvian skinheads and looks back at their history – from the desecration of graves to street attacks.

Journalist Lev Kadiks has spent a lot of time reconstructing the biography of Pavel Durov, the owner of the messaging app “Telegram”. Durov was arrested in France last week and has now been charged with 10 crimes. Durov, a Russian-turned-international “tech genius”, a mysterious free speech fighter and biological father of 100 children, lives a thriller in itself. This is all the more interesting because after the Russian attack on Ukraine, “Telegram” became one of the main channels for information (and disinformation) about the war – both from Ukraine and Russia. What will happen next for the platform?