Latvija in brief - 2010-08-05

The Cabinet was on Aug. 3 to make a decision on the reallocation of funding for the new ‘Palace of Light’ building for the Latvian National Library, reports LETA. To ensure completion of the structure by 2012, the Culture Ministry suggests increasing the amount of emergency funds already in the 2010 state budget by 13,562,417 lats (19.3 million euros). The Culture Ministry is expected to specify the long-term commitments to be requested from the state budget over the coming years, considering that funding for the Latvian National Library project will amount to 36,685,421 lats in 2011, 44,073,081 lats in 2012, and 11,552,335 lats in 2013. The Finance Ministry in cooperation with the Culture Ministry will correspondingly be asked to adjust expenditure from the state budget for the project, with an increase of 10,130,383 lats for 2011, and a reduction to 35,245,135 lats for 2012.
 
Police have detained a man who had taken a taxi from Warsaw to Latvia’s Plavinas but left the car without paying for the trip, reports LETA. On July 29 the police received information from a taxi-driver about a man, born in 1985, who had not paid him for the long-distance taxi drive. The Polish taxi had taken the man all the way from Warsaw to Latvia. There the man got out and fled without paying the 450 lats (642 euros) fare. The police immediately launched a search operation; the man has been detained and is a resident of Latvia. Additionally, the man is wanted for fraud in Latvia. A criminal procedure was started where the applicable sentence is deprivation of liberty for a term not exceeding three years, or custodial arrest, or community service, or a fine not exceeding sixty times the minimum monthly wage.

The Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) has received the first requests for temporary residence permits in Latvia based on the recent amendments to the Immigration Law, reports LETA. Andrejs Rjabcevs, a spokesman for the OCMA, said that all three requests have been received from citizens of the Russian Federation. Two of the three applicants have acquired property in large Latvian cities, with a value of at least 100,000 lats (142,800 euros), while the third has invested at least 25,000 lats in the share capital of a Latvian company. Rjabcevs notes that the person in question had invested the said funds before the amendments to the Immigration Law came into force on July 1. One of the applicants has already been issued a temporary residence permit, while the documents of the other two are still being examined. Such applications are usually assessed within a 30-day time period.