President Alar Karis’ first meeting with two heads of state has been canceled after Latvian President Egils Levits tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, while Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is isolating. Latvian national broadcaster LSM reported Levits gave a positive antigen rapid test last night after returning from Sweden. HeContinue Reading
Autumn holiday travellers should think twice before booking a trip to the Baltics, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) warns. Case numbers have been rising in the area exponentially; the incidence rate in Estonia alone has shot up to 1,200 cases a day. Viking Line’s communications director JohannaContinue Reading
In Latvia, every citizen and permanent resident has to have the right to open a bank account, otherwise one of a person’s democratic freedoms is not respected, says Saeima opposition legislator Jānis Urbanovičs. According to him, since the Latvian financial sector control institutions and procedures have experienced a far-reaching reformContinue Reading
As Latvia prepares to introduce a bottle deposit system in 2022, the first five bottle deposit return machines have been erected in five shops in Riga and Ventspils. This week, the company SIA Tomra Collection Latvia has begun setting up bottle deposit return machines called ‘taromāts’ in Latvian in theContinue Reading
Russian-speaking people in Estonia and Latvia live in the Russian world, writer and social anthropologist Erika Fatland writes in Norway’s largest daily Aftenposten. In an article entitled “Trapped in the Kremlin’s long shadows” (“Fanget i Kremls lange skygger”), Fatland says that thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union,Continue Reading
At the end of the protest «against compulsory vaccination» outside the government building in Riga, some protesters exhibited provocative behaviour. One police officer was attacked. Police have commenced a criminal procedure. At first protesters started gathering at the Freedom Monument at around 19:00 p.m. Around 20:00 p.m. protesters made theirContinue Reading
To ensure students are able to return to schools normally for the 2021/2022 academic year, they will need to have a valid Covid-19 vaccination/recovery certificate or negative Covid-19 test result, as decided by Latvian Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday, 10 August. That’s Latvia. Just remind you that in Lithuania protestersContinue Reading
Compared to July 2020, the average level of consumer prices was mainly influenced by the rise in prices of goods and services related to transport, goods and services related to housing, food and non-alcoholic beverages, clothing and footwear, health care, alcoholic beverages and tobacco products in July 2021, according toContinue Reading
The Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian defense ministers have agreed to coordinate their response to the migrant crisis, calling it Belarus’s “hybrid attack” against the Baltic countries, the EU and NATO. The three Baltic ministers held a video conference on Wednesday to discuss the worsening security situation in the region amidContinue Reading
The National Alliance’s Saeima faction is concerned that by making Covid-19 vaccination compulsory, teachers may decide to leave their posts, which would negatively affect the quality of education, said NA board chairman and parliamentary deputy Raivis Dzintars. On Monday, 26 July, members of the National Alliance’s Saeima faction met withContinue Reading