Latvija in brief - 2011-03-10

  • 2011-03-09

Thirty-seven percent of Latvia’s households lived on social transfers in 2009, according to the Central Statistical Bureau’s survey of household incomes in 2009, reports Nozare.lv. In 2008, 27 percent of households lived on social transfers - pensions and benefits, state alimony, scholarships, benefits and compensation covered by social insurance. Due to the job losses of the economically active household members, the share of the households’ main source of subsistence, wages and salaries, reduced from 66 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009. Compared to 2008, household income in 2009 decreased by 16 percent, or by 40 lats (57 euros) per month calculating per household member and dropped below the income level of 2007. More significant reductions of household income were recorded in Riga and its surroundings.  These regions were earlier noted for their noticeably higher than average income level in the country.

On March 3, the Latvian-Russian Border Demarcation Commission adopted an action plan, providing for the demarcation procedure to be completed by 2015, reports The Latvian Institute.  The first task to be done is aerial photography of the border. The photographs will be processed to prepare a demarcation map project, and then temporary border signs can be installed on site.  Russia has given permission to Latvia to fly over the Latvian-Russian border to take photographs after the Russian Vice Prime Minister has signed relevant documents, expected by mid-March. According to Foreign Ministry estimates, the demarcation process will require 388,446 euros this year. On March 1, the ministry requested the government to assign the needed amount from emergency funds, for the demarcation process is an event of national importance. 

The prosecutor’s office demands that all three men charged with murdering businessmen Genadijs Peredelskis, Gatis Aispurs and Aigars Lusis, as well as with an attempt on the life of Vladimirs Vaskevics, former deputy director of the Finance Ministry’s Tax and Customs Administrative Policy Department, be sentenced to life imprisonment, reports LETA. During a court hearing on March 7, the prosecutor demanded life sentences and confiscation of property for Latvian citizen Martins Putnins and two Lithuanian citizens - Sergei Markevicius and Edgar Krogert. Putnins has been charged with plotting these murders, whereas Markevicius and Krogert were the ones to fire the shots. On Feb. 7, 2007, 47-year-old Genadijs Peredelskis was shot dead near an apartment house on Slokas Street in the Imanta neighborhood of Riga. The murder of Gatis Aispurs took place on the morning of Sept. 26, 2007 in Jekabpils. Aigars Lusis was shot dead on Jan. 10, 2008 at his home in Garkalne County, Riga District. The assassination attempt against Vaskevics took place in May 2007 on Eksporta Street in Riga.