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Latvian Shipping (LK) has been given back by the state to Ventspils Nafta [Latvian oil enterprise] and unknown clients of Hansabanka [bank] and Latvijas Krajbanka [Latvian Savings Bank] cheaper than the cost of its three new tankers. Last autumn LK paid 76m lats for the three tankers, yet the controlling package in the shipping enterprise has just been sold by the state for the price of one and a half ships - 36m lats, while all the 83 per cent shareholding that has been privatized went for not quite the price of two ships, 46m lats. The shipping fleet has 40 tankers. Just as [Aivars Lembergs] wished, shipping has passed, for little money, into the hands of Latvia's \"national bourgeoisie\". The division of privatized shares shows that there aren't very many \"national bourgeois\", but there are two big winners - the same number that discussed the business environment. Namely, the biggest shareholder (31 per cent) is Ventspils Nafta, and the next biggest (19.7 per cent) a shareholder hiding behind the Estonian Hansapank. Another 13 per cent of shares have been bought for certificates on behalf of two clients of the local Hansabanka and Latvijas Krajbanka - most likely the same ones that bought shares for money. If that is true, then the two largest shareholders control about 78 per cent of LK shares. And the aim that Lembergs put before the public - to promote the flow of capital into Latvian hands, so that they do not become \"beggars\" and \"a nation of servants\" - has turned into a whimper. Apart from those two, the rest have got nothing out of the privatization of LK. Quite the contrary - the public's gain from the LK privatization, namely budget income that could be spent on resolving important issues to society, the building of the National Library or rural development - is minimal.

Ventspils, 19 March: The new deputies of the Ventspils Town Council unanimously elected deputy Aivars Lembergs, who had been elected to the town council from the ticket of For Latvia and Ventspils, as chairman of the Ventspils Town Council in a closed ballot today. Janis Vitolins was re-elected deputy chairman of the town council and Guntis Blumbergs - Vitolins's deputy, also unanimously.

Ventspils, Latvia, 12 March: Preliminary election results in the western Latvian town of Ventspils show ten seats on Ventspils town council could be held by the political union of current Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs, For Latvia and Ventspils, while the Social Democrats could get one seat. None of Lembergs' rivals was claiming victory, though, and they were guided by a motive - it will be a lot if we get a seat on the town council at all. The Social Democrats and FF/LNNK announced in advance that Lembergs would be the best head for the town while Latvia's Way was the only one trying to bring about some kind of an opposition, for which it got sharp criticism from the local media.

Ventspils, 9 February: During his meeting with the local electorate yesterday, the chairman of the political organization For Latvia and Ventspils, Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs compared the current situation in the government to an orchestra in which everybody plays what they like, but the conductor desperately tries to create a unified sound from it all.

[Aivars Lembergs] as president of the Latvian Transit Business Association, participated in a conference in China along with major producers and consumers of mineral fertilizer. According to Lembergs, while Latvian politicians fail to set state interests above all instead of their own interests, the investment climate in Latvia will be unfavourable and no serious investors will enter Latvia. \"In these 10 years, all efforts were made to hamper the normal course of economic development. Joint ventures were established contrary to world practice.

[Report and interview with Ventpils Mayor Aivars Lembergs by Polina Elksne and Andrei Vidyakin [Andrejs Vidjakins in Latvian press]: \"Prime Minister's Chair of Defendants' Bench?\"] Lembergs is like that bird of happiness from a fairy tale, whose leg has finally been caught in a snare. And now, despite everything, neither Lembergs nor ZZS can give up on the idea that they have been working on for six months, devoting all their resources to it. [Lembergs] Today, as ZZS' meeting on the prime minister's candidate was in progress, the Prosecutor's Office came up with this statement about its interpretation of events that happened in the early nineteen-nineties. Besides, the statement concerned events that the Prosecutor's Office has already looked at once, in 2000. They did not find sufficient grounds to open a case then. There is nothing new in the current statement; these are blatant lies that every journalist can check. For example, they claim that Lembergs is a shareholder of some Dutch company or Kalija parks. Prove it! All this shows that the Prosecutor's Office has become a political tool, just like in the Soviet days. Besides, on Monday [ 17 July] the prosecutor called me, and I asked him what my status is going to be in this case, the suspect or the accused (I was convinced that they were going to arrest me). And he replied, \"No, you are only a suspect.\" On Thursday [ 20 July], my status changed.

In addition, [Valdis Zatlers] in his weakness has started looking for a scapegoat. He has reproached the mass media for \"advertising people with dubious reputation.\" The hint was quite naturally addressed to [Aivars Lembergs]. This is also silly considering that we have democracy and freedom of speech. He also said that Lembergs should rather debate with prosecutor general. It is witty but we also have presumption of innocence, and while the final verdict on Ventspils mayor has not been announced, he is an ordinary citizen like everybody else. Yes, to tell the truth, he has not been involved in any episodes of receiving envelopes with money. Thus, Zatlers should think before opening his mouth. Let us say that he is not crystal clean either. And such details as \"a secret set\" worth 44,000 lats or a vase given by the Spanish queen and hurriedly \"written off\" the official gift list, should they not be taken into consideration?

Today is the last day in the term of office of Prosecutor-General Janis Maizitis. Tomorrow, his job will be taken over on a temporary basis by the senior prosecutor of the Criminal Cases Department of the Prosecutor-General's Office, Arvids Kalnins. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Ivars Bickovics, says that he will keep looking for a new candidate for the post of prosecutor-general. At least in words, he has not excluded the possibility of nominating Maizitis for the job once again, but those are probably just words which Bickovics is using for purposes of maneuvering. It is absolutely clear that Maizitis has no hope of gaining the support of a majority in the Saeima [Parliament]. The TP [People's Party], which claimed to support Maizitis in April, is now openly declaring that if he is nominated again, the party will vote against him. A similar view has been expressed by Ainars Slesers, leader of the LPP/LC [First Party of Latvia/Latvia's Way]. MPs from his faction had a free vote in April. The fact that Andris Skele's TP and Slesers' LPP/LC are now openly opposing the reelection of Maizitis makes it clear that the man has no chance anymore. That is despite the fact that more than 3,000 people, including former President Guntis Ulmanis and former President Vaira Vike-Freiberga signed a petition calling for the reelection of Maizitis. And it is even despite the fact that more than one-half of the country's prosecutors have said that Maizitis should be allowed to stay on the job.

In the next six months Latvia is set to join both NATO and the EU. When it does, the financial largesse of Western Europe and the United States will rain down, to the tune of more than $500 for each man, woman and child in this country of 2.5 million. Where that money ends up and how it is spent is part of the Corruption Bureau's work--and right now it's focused squarely on the port city of Ventspils, a one-man fiefdom of ex-communist Mayor Aivars Lembergs. His income last year: more than $1 million. His official city salary: $7,112. He's never been convicted of any wrongdoing. But if one believes the clamor in the Latvian capital of Riga, that day may not be far off. Either way, the Corruption Bureau's investigation in Ventspils will be a bellwether for most of the young democracies being embraced by the EU. Significantly, none of this seems to spill into daily life, according to Inese Voika, Transparency's rep in Latvia. For all the alleged hidden hanky-panky in Lembergs's city hall, she says, Ventspils is relatively free of the more ordinary forms of corruption that plague many post-communist societies. The petty official venality of traffic police and housing clerks is nearly absent. Elections are generally free and fair. That's why the people of Ventspils \"don't feel the lack of democracy,\" says Voika.