Latvija in brief - 2011-11-10

Last week, the registered unemployment rate in Latvia remained at 11.5 percent, according to the State Employment Agency’ data, reports LETA. Currently 130,525 people are registered as unemployed with the Employment Agency’s branches.  The agency’s database contains information on 3,369 job vacancies. In the first week of November, the unemployment level increased 0.1 percent in Jurmala, Daugavpils, Rezekne and Valmiera, but remained unchanged in other cities. Rezekne still has the highest unemployment rate of 18 percent, whilst the lowest - in Riga - is at 8.1 percent, followed by Jelgava and Ventspils - 8.8 percent each. Last week, the unemployment rate rose 0.1 percent in Latgale Province, but dropped 0.1 percent in Kurzeme Province. The highest unemployment rate is still in Latgale Province - 19.7 percent, whilst the lowest - in Riga Region - 8.5 percent. The unemployment rate in Vidzeme Province is 12.9 percent, in Zemgale Province - 12.5 percent, and in Kurzeme Province - 11.9 percent.

Latvia-born Dutch citizen Roberts Mikelsons will be tried for sexually abusing 67 children and making underage pornography, reports Dutch radio. Mikelsons, 27, has confessed to sexual abuse of 87 children. All Mikelsons’ victims, boys and girls, were up to twelve years old. However, due to lack of evidence and at the request of some parents, the prosecutor dropped twenty cases. Charges were brought against Mikelsons and his spouse, Richard van Olffen, in Amsterdam this past March. Mikelsons was detained Dec. 7 last year. He worked in several Amsterdam kindergartens from February 2007 to January 2010 and also hired himself out as a babysitter, thus gaining access to his victims. Mikelsons chose young children because they were not able to tell anyone about his crimes. In many cases, Mikelsons abused the children together with other pedophiles. Whenever Mikelsons had to baby-sit the children, he always took a camera and lubricant with him. The child molester became a Dutch citizen when he married van Olffen in 2004.