Organizers have canceled the planned three-day LatRock6 tour of England by the popular country group Apvedceļš from Latvia. The band was to play in Bradford, Wisbech and the Straumēni rest home in Catthorpe from April 18-20.

Ticket sales were slower than expected and organizers could not risk a financial loss, Pēteris Pētersons told Latvians Online in an April 13 e-mail. LatRock6 was to follow LatRock5, a three-day tour of England during March by the rock band Dzelzs Vilks. Advance ticket sales for the Dzelzs Vilks tour also were slow, Pētersons said.

LatRock began in 2004 and featured Latvian-British bands Arvīds un Mūrsitēji and Cietie Rieksti, as well as Latvian band Logo. Other LatRock concerts have featured Dzelzs Vilks, Mielavs un Parcēlāji and Līvi, as well as Latvian-British bands Alva and Krona.

Irish police have identified the victim of an April 10 one-vehicle road accident as 36-year-old Aleksandrs Alajevs, a Latvian national living in Corbally, a small town near Limerick in southeastern Ireland.

Alajevs died when his car crashed at a narrow bridge about 7 a.m. April 10 near Birr in central Ireland’s County Offaly, the Garda Press Office said. Alajevs was pronounced dead at Tullamore General Hospital.

Police revealed the victim’s identity on April 13.

Alajevs is yet another Latvian national killed in road accidents in the past several years in Ireland.

For example, in December a man from Latvia and another from Lithuania died when their car plunged off a pier at Rossaveal in western Ireland. A third man managed to escape through the car’s sun roof.

In another tragic accident, four people from Latvia died February 2006 near Buncrana in northwest Ireland. In June 2004, three men from Latvia were killed in County Donegal, also in northwest Ireland.

More than 200,000 signatures have been gathered in support of an iniative that could lead to citizens calling for dissolution of the Latvian parliament, the Central Election Commission in Rīga announced April 11.

That means proposed amendments to the Latvian constitution must now be considered by the Saeima. If the parliament accepts the amendments, it would allow voters to initiate a recall of the legislative body. If parliament does not approve the amendments, a national referendum must be called.

Provisional results show 213,751 voters in Latvia signed on to the initiative from March 12 to April 10, a commission spokeswoman said. At least 149,064 signatures, or 10 percent of the voters in the last parliamentary election, were required. The last two days of the signature drive saw a spike in interest among voters. Almost 70,000 signatures were added to the rolls from April 8 to April 10, according to election commission statistics.

Data for the number of signatures collected abroad at Latvian embassies, general consulates and consulates were not announced by the election commission.

Once the signatures are certified, which should be in about three weeks, the amendments to the Latvian constitution proposed by the Free Trade Union Confederation of Latvia (Latvijas Brīvo arodbiedrību savienība) will be presented to the Saeima.