Authorities are still undecided about whether to grant Mikhail Yelfimov, vice-president of Russia's embattled oil giant Yukos, political asylum. Latvia has not yet refused to grant him refugee status and has extended its term for making the decision. By law, authorities must decide on granting asylum within three months after receiving the request, but if necessary, the term can be extended to one year. Yelfimov, whose business partner, former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving a lengthy jail term in Russia, appealed for political asylum in November 2005.
Parliament's foreign committee chairwoman, Vaira Paegle, will send a letter to Russian Ambassador to Latvia Viktor Kalyuzhny, urging Russia to submit a draft agreement on a Latvian-Russian intergovernmental commission. Paegle told the Baltic News Service that, contrary to earlier promises by the ambassador, the parliamentarian committee still has not received a draft agreement. "I was promised a proposal for forming an intergovernmental commission, and I am definitely going to remind the ambassador about it by sending him a friendly letter," she said.
The state-owned Valsts Nekustamie Ipasumi (National Real Estate) company is planning to spend 25 million lats (35.5 million euros) to renovate the presidential residence, the Riga Castle, by 2014, the Culture Ministry reported. The renovation is part of the Heritage-2018 project and will be overseen by the State Inspectorate for the Protection of Cultural Monuments. The newly remodeled Riga Castle should be completed by 2014. The first phase, which should be finished in 2009, will cost 760,000 lats.
Human rights experts have proposed amendments to Latvia's law on meetings, street processions and pickets in order to simplify registration and organization procedures. Proposals have been worked out in a study entitled "Legal regulation of the freedom of assembly, problems of its application in Latvia," which was carried out by the Latvian National Human Rights Office. "In recent years, there has been a tendency to set more restrictions on the freedom of meetings," said spokesman Arturs Kucs. Besides, restrictions are often approved in haste after events that cause wide public response. Janis Pleps, the author of the study, said that to a large extent "we are living in a time of a human rights crisis."
The government wants to reclaim Dzintarkrasts sanatorium in Latvia's seaside resort city Jurmala, which is currently registered as Russian property. After the Prosecutor's Office found that Russia obtained the rehabilitation complex illegally, the government agreed that it could file a claim to recover the property. Justice Minister Solvita Aboltina told reporters that, although the land on which the complex is built is registered as property of the Latvian Finance Ministry, the building was supposed to be transferred to the Welfare Ministry. "Competent institutions will investigate how this could have happened," the minister said.
