Over this period, the number of territories in Latvia occupied by this rare bird has more than doubled. Last year, a total of 240 territories were surveyed as part of the monitoring programme, and occupied nests were recorded in more than half of them.

 

Intensive grassland mowing and fodder preparation will soon begin in Latvia, so the Ministry of Agriculture urges people to remember the many wild animal species living in grasslands, which from mid-May onwards are at the greatest risk of being caught in mowing machinery.

 

Although most smokers know and agree that cigarette butts are waste that pollutes the environment, only a fifth (21%) care about where butts are thrown.

 

Almost all local authorities currently have a rule that grass may not grow taller than 20 centimetres.

 

The Latvian state and its people together are more likely to be unable than able to find the 200 million euros that, at current prices, it would cost to remove one million tonnes of slate from the roofs of Latvian houses and to collect many other asbestos-containing building components – let alone the fact that the roofs removed would have to be replaced with new ones.

 

 

 

Inna Šteinbuka, chair of the Fiscal Discipline Council and professor at the University of Latvia, recalled that recommendations to reduce bureaucracy in Latvia can also be found in the latest recommendations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD.

 

 

For fifty years, Russian was the language of occupation in Latvia, a language used in attempts to break, subjugate and Russify; and for the past thirty years it has been the chief symbol and form of protest for those who resent our country's independence and despise its only state language – Latvian.

 

With reference to Latvian Television's action plan for the European Parliament elections, which provides for debates in Russian on 3, 4, 5 and 6 June 2024, the State Language Centre considers such an intention to be inherently at odds with the status of the state language enshrined in the Constitution and its role in the integration of society. We stress that any unmotivated use of a foreign language in the media takes place solely and exclusively at the expense of a narrowing use of Latvian.

 

 

 

The debate on amendments to the Law on the Circulation of Alcoholic Beverages held at the Saeima's sitting on 9 May could be divided, in terms of content, into several blocks. The first, to which this text is devoted, is the authorities' undying conviction that regulation can arrange society's life so that it turns out the right way.

 

There are currently more than 500 recovery plants operating in Europe, providing users with competitive energy prices and reducing the volume of waste sent to landfill.

 

Farmers' protests in Europe grew to an unprecedented scale, and with each successive protest they became ever more numerous and more radical. And yet these actions, which by rights should have reached some sort of climax, suddenly simply vanished.

 

Could the Green Deal be repealed during the next term of the European Parliament? Many are asking this question ahead of the elections due in June. Climate activists warn that the rise to power of Eurosceptic and far-right politicians could put the achievements made so far at risk.