IZMIR, Turkey — Lithuania’s national basketball team has two victories under its belt thus far in the 2010 FIBA World Championship, making quick work of New Zealand on Saturday and edging by Canada on Sunday. The Tall Blacks kept it close in the first quarter with Lithuania but faltered in the second as Lithuania pulled [...]

RIGA — Latvian retail companies continue to struggle with stagnant turnover after last year’s massive plunge as the economic crisis hit full tilt. Tweets about “hotel industry news” While Latvia’s gross domestic product is stabilizing, retail is showing little signs of recovering to anywhere near its pre-crisis levels during the “Baltic Tiger” boom, which saw [...]

RIGA — Despite calls for further austerity from the International Monetary Fund, Latvia’s approved the elimination of the excise tax on natural gas for the next year. The move is anticipated to cost the national government only 3 million to 5 million lats (€4.2 million to €7 million) in revenue. The bill easily passed the [...]

RIGA — After increasing ticket prices by 25 percent late last year to make up for the elimination of government subsidies, Riga’s public transportation will now be available for free for unemployed pensioners. On Tuesday the Riga City Council approved the measure on Tuesday, and it is estimated to cost the already strapped Rīgas Satiksme [...]

RIGA — The revolving door of the Diena editor position is spinning again, with photographer Ilmārs Znotiņš being hired for the Latvian newspaper’s top spot on Tuesday. The newspaper’s editor Sergejs Ancupovs and Diena.lv website editor Gunita Ogriņa were both dismissed on Aug. 5, the same day 51 percent of the newspaper’s parent company Dienas [...]

RIGA — Should Harmony Center win Latvia’s fall parliamentary election as polls are indicating it might, who would it form a coalition with? Given that no party is projected to come close to winning half the Saeima’s 100 seats, a coalition government is a forgone conclusion. During an interview Monday on the LNT morning news [...]

RIGA — Parex Bank, which nationalized in 2008 to prevent it from going belly-up in light of the financial crisis, is promising to return 400 million lats (€565 million) to the Latvian government over the next seven years. The money will be made from the sale of government shares of Citadele Bank, the solvent portion [...]

CINCINATTI, U.S. — Both Baltic tennis stars Ernests Gulbis and Kaia Kanepi have been eliminated from their respective tournaments this week. Gulbis reached the top 16 in the Cincinnati Masters to put up a solid effort against no. 4 Andy Murray. However, after winning the first set 4-6 the drawback of the Latvian’s usual aggressive [...]

RIGA — Latvian national airline airBaltic and Riga International Airport, both state-owned entities, agreed Tuesday to drop their lawsuits against each other and proceed cooperatively. Despite both being under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport, the airline and airport got in a nasty dispute about ground handling fees and tariffs. In July the airBaltic [...]

MONTREAL — Budding Estonian tennis star Kaia Kanepi showed No. 14 ranked Shahar Peer a thing or two in Wimbledon, taking the Israeli down 6-3, 6-3 and continuing her hot streak. Kanepi has been playing the best tennis of her young career this summer, becoming the first Estonian to win a WTA singles tourny when [...]