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The nomination committee for the competition for board member positions at AS Latvijas valsts meži (LVM) has evaluated the candidates who were moved to the second round, advancing 12 candidates to the third round of the competition.

 

In 2023, the State Forest Service, while administering timber resource extraction in forests, issued permits for economic activity covering an area of 129,600 hectares.

The closure of the Lieģi and Rucava post offices already caused great dissatisfaction among the residents of South Kurzeme municipality last year. But this year, the remaining post offices in the municipality will also cease operations because they are reportedly causing losses for Latvijas Pasts. The Cīrava post office will open its doors to the public for the last time this Thursday.

 

 

State-owned Latvijas Pasts, not without political influence, is closing or changing more than 100 branches throughout Latvia; in the largest municipality, South Kurzeme, there will be none left at all, because they are not profitable. Schools are being closed because they are not profitable. You cannot see a doctor because the quotas have run out. A human is unprofitable, and even the news that you are unprofitable will be delivered with a profitability calculation, and the tariffs of VAS Latvijas pasts are being increased constantly.

 

 

We close small schools because they are unprofitable. We also close small post offices because they are unprofitable. We eliminate small municipalities because they are unprofitable. Perhaps we should also close the state administration because it is unprofitable? No? Everything else is possible, but not the state administration? Why? Because it has functions that are important for the state? Right.

 

 

Recently, there have been repeated concerns on social networks that birds have disappeared from feeding stations in many places. Various guesses were made, and one theory suggested that they had frozen to death. However, birdwatchers later reported that the birds had returned after all. Is there reason to rejoice that the birds successfully survived the cold? There is no clear answer, because it is unknown whether these are the same birds that were frequenting the feeders before.

 

The breeding bird monitoring programmes implemented by the Latvian Ornithological Society provide information on more than half of the bird species nesting in Latvia. The latest monitoring results show that in the long term – since 2005 – the populations of 27 bird species have decreased. Negative trends are visible among both farmland and forest birds.

 

On 23 January, the annual elections of the Environmental Advisory Council took place at the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, where the new composition of the council was elected.

 

As part of administrative offence proceedings, the State Forest Service has examined the compliance of the illegal red deer hunt that took place in Saldus municipality on 09.12.2023 with the requirements of the Hunting Law and Hunting Regulations. The maximum penalty stipulated in the Hunting Law has been imposed on the shooter of the red deer.

 

Due to the increasing wild boar population, new regulations for hunting management in the territory of Riga have been developed, regarding which every resident is invited to express their opinion during a public consultation until 5 February, the capital's municipality reported.

 

A survey conducted with a random sample of more than 7,000 Europeans from five different countries indicates that the majority of European Union citizens support hunting. Only 23% of those surveyed indicate that they do not support the preservation of animal trophies, and therefore do not support trophy hunting as such.

 

 

On 23 January, a thematic committee meeting of EU fund ministers took place at the Ministry of Finance (FM) to discuss the implementation status of EU funds, the identified implementation risks and possible solutions.

 

From 2024, large enterprises and their groups whose consolidated revenue has been 750 million euros or more in at least two of the previous four years will have to pay a minimum of 15% corporate income tax (CIT) on their profits. Latvia is postponing the implementation of this CIT directive until 2030, but companies meeting the criteria must begin keeping appropriate accounting records.

 

 

The Supreme Court has left unchanged the judgment of the Administrative Regional Court, which recognised as well-founded the prohibited agreement identified by the Competition Council between two building material manufacturers and four traders regarding the long-term price fixing of building materials, the court reported.

 

 

He indicated that in the first three weeks of January alone, 26 A-level defects have been identified in the new electric trains, due to which further operation of the trains is not permissible; however, before the electric trains were placed on the market, the certifying institution had confirmed their compliance with the requirements.

 

The council will perform its duties until new members of the company's council are selected in an open competition. The ministry plans to announce the competition for the positions of members of the Pasažieru vilciens council in the near future.

 

Due to train delays at Riga Central Railway Station, passengers are dissatisfied and many are looking for other ways to reach their destination.

 

...there have been problems with ensuring train services for several weeks. Initially, they affected individual journeys, but in the last few days, the problems have worsened; for example, on Monday, a larger number of passenger trains were delayed on almost all lines.

 

Competent sources report that there are three main reasons for the new trains' woes – electrical systems installed in the trains that do not comply with Latvian standards, AS Pasažieru vilciens’s reluctance to train its staff in train maintenance, and the lack of heated train depots where repair work can be carried out during frosty weather.

 

...the problems with the sorry state of the railway passenger infrastructure lie in its financing mechanism. Namely, every year, a specific sum is allocated from the state budget for passenger subsidies, which is distributed by the Road Transport Administration under the auspices of the Ministry of Transport. And everything is combined there – money intended for both bus and railway passenger subsidies.

 

Twenty years of work on the restoration of Kuldīga's old town as a centre of the former Duchy of Courland and Semigallia has not turned it into a museum. Although real estate prices in Kuldīga have risen since the city was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List, not all locals are in a rush to sell their properties at a profit, but are doing even more to make the city more beautiful.

 

 

Passengers can get to Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava, Jūrmala, Rēzekne, Ogre, Valmiera and Jēkabpils by train any day, but at present only freight trains run to Ventspils. Passenger traffic was discontinued in February 2010.