The first columbarium (repository for human ashes) will open in April, with 288 units storing four urns each. Construction costs have spiraled to €175,000 from the planned €85,000 and the Rīga City Council proposes selling each spot for less than €1,000, reported Latvian Radio on February 16.
The African Swine Fever (ASF), a dangerous porcine disease, has spread to the Mērsrags region in Latvia's west as Latvia's Food and Veterinary Service has discovered 44 new cases of the plague, of which three were at the Mērsrags region.
On Friday the Jūrmala City Council voted Gatis Truksnis (Greens and Farmers Union) into office just weeks after he was toppled due to being named in anti-graft investigations.
On Tuesday the Rīga City Council greenlighted building a controversial tram line to the booming Skanste neighborhood, reported Latvian Radio.
The State Regional Development Agency (VRAA) is soon to conclude agreements worth €5.5m with IT firms ABC software and RIX Technologies for developing the Latvija.lv state portal. The agreement includes creating an official e-address for every Latvian resident, reported Latvian Radio Monday.
Following a row with the Prudentia consulting firm, Latvia's flag-carrier airline airBaltic has paid the firm for finding Ralf-Dieter Montag-Girmes as an investor, reported Latvian Radio Monday.
Jaroslavs Streļčenoks, head of the Latvian Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB), has fired Juris Jurašs, the head of the Division of Criminal Intelligence Process at the anti-graft force, effective August 15. Jurašs was one of the most vocal critics of Streļčenoks' leadership.
A rally of some fifty people was held Thursday by the Latvian parliament, urging MPs to support law amendments that would grant the Latvian Occupation Museum a National Interest Object status, reported Latvian Radio. Later in the day lawmakers adopted the amendments in the second - not final - reading.
The Rīga City Council decided Wednesday that the Rīga Card will be available to non-Rīgans as well... for the hefty price of €775 a year, which equals €64.5 a month, reported Latvian Radio Wednesday.
Latvian social media was sent aflutter Thursday after Mārtiņš Ķibilds, a TV host of a show dedicated to Latvia's architecture, posted an irate Facebook entry on the new railway station in Jūrmala which replaced the historic wooden building, to be moved to a nearby location as part of a modernizing effort by Latvian Railways.
Starting from April 1 the Passenger Rail company will start selling electric train tickets based on fare zones, reported Latvian Radio's Edgars Kupčs Tuesday.
Four social media experts, a new design for the City Council website, and more info for online channels - that's how the City Council of Rīga justifies spending a lavish €700,000 for bettering communication next year, reported Latvian Radio Thursday.
On July 13, a devil's dozen of wild boar, along with two sows were evicted from Riga to the forest of a nearby municipality. It seems that the boars have taken a liking to suburban life, as since then the porcine trespassers have been seen in a number of gardens and farms in the Ikšķile region, feeding on potatoes and rummaging furrows of precious agricultural produce, reported a story on Latvian Radio Friday.
AMO Plant's grandiose plans for building a bus assembly factory have toppled over after a Jelgava court declared the business bankrupt, leaving 60 people out of work. The decision came after over a year of bankruptcy protection.
Most complaints about Latvia's funeral homes are about the murky price policy, reported the Competition Council, The Consumer Protection Bureau and the State Revenue Service. The relatives of the deceased mostly choose the funeral home that's not close to their home but rather the hospital or the morgue. This seems to indicate that consumers' decisions are steered while they're by the deathbed or that there is limited choice.
The recent attempts to fire members of the governing council of the National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEMMC, abbreviated NEPLP in Latvian) have been reduced to discussions about individuals, particularly Chairman of the NEMMC Ainārs Dimants, not the council itself, reported a news analysis story on Latvian Radio. The arguments for sacking the NEMMC aren't substantiated, experts say, and indicate the politicians' will to direct the money flow to easily swayed commercial media and to control the media without the regulator standing in the way.
The Jūrmala City Council, like its counterpart in the nation’s capital, is trying to tackle the wild boar problem, which has now also landed on its own municipal agenda, reported Latvian Radio Tuesday.
The Rail Baltica II high-speed train line, still years from even breaking ground, continued to stir up negative public sentiments among residents in Rīga’s Āgenskalns neighborhood Friday, the capital’s southwestern suburb of Mārupe Saturday and the northeast suburb of Vangaži Monday at town hall meetings introducing the massive transportation project.
The mandated public discussions scheduled to hear the future development plans and implications upon local communities of the Rail Baltica high-speed line gathered residents by the hundreds, spilling out of town halls in Sēja district and Salaspils Monday. As Latvian public television and radio observed, residents’ interest in the project is clearly huge.
The eBay seller ‘itaska90’ claiming to be auctioning off a unique calligraphic folio of the swearings-in signatures of Latvia’s first presidents Jānis Čakste, Gustavs Zemgals and Alberts Kviesis, could at best be in custody of a “document of great artistic value, however very little historical value”, Latvian Radio learned from National Archive head Māra Sprūdža Friday.
It’s been a week since the national holiday, but local government buildings throughout Latvia’s southeastern Latgale province are in no hurry to take down the flags and festive national symbols.
