The Prosecutor General's Office will bring bribe-taking charges against two female judges of the Riga Vidzeme District Court, Beatrise Talere and Irena Polikarpova, it announced on Feb. 26. The prosecutor's office said it has decided to charge Talere and Polikarpova with taking bribes, and Talere is also facing charges over passing illegitimate rulings or sentences with an aim to gain proceeds. An investigation established that one of the judges had several times accepted cash or gift certificates from claimants for making decisions in their favor. In October this year the same claimant gave bribes to both judges, who were detained immediately after accepting them. Neither of the judges has been remanded in custody.
Latvia ranks third among EU member states in terms of the risk of poverty among jobless, elderly and families with many children, a survey by the Latvian central statistics office has found. According to the survey "Community Income and Living Conditions Statistics" conducted in 2005, the poverty risk index is 19 percent in Latvia, while poverty risk among unemployed, people aged 65 and above and large families is much higher in Latvia than the EU average.
The number of Latvian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan could increase to 150 next year, the Defense Ministry said. The National Security Council decided this month to reduce the number of Latvian soldiers in Iraq, and plans to increase the number of servicemen in Afghanistan to 72 people, and to raise it further to 150 troops over the next year. There are currently 35 Latvian soldiers in Afghanistan. They serve with the ISAF Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif and Meymaneh.
In February, nearly six months after the country's elections, the Conservative People's Party can still claim to be the country's most popular, but its lead is slipping, according to the latest survey by pollster Latvijas Fakti. As many as 13.9 percent of Latvian citizens would vote for the party, down 1.1 percent from January, results of survey show. The Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS) ranked second in February with 12.9 percent of people ready to cast their votes in its favor, 3.3 percent less than in January. The leftist Harmony Center with 11.3 percent of supporters ranked third.
The Military Intelligence Service is short of trained specialists, according to senior officials of the Military Intelligence Service. On Feb. 26 they admitted the shortage of staff during a Monday meeting with the parliament's national security committee, head of committee Dzintars Jaundzeikars said, but so far the shortage has not yet reached such a level that would prevent the service from carrying out its functions properly. He said candidates for the job do not meet the requirements 's good knowledge of a foreign language, good education and security clearance.
