News from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Baltic Times.

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

KLAIPEDA - When on a trip last November to the U.S., a chatty girl sitting next to me on the New York-bound plane from Miami started a conversation and asked me where I was from, I told her I am fr...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Readers of this newspaper may recall that a few Asian countries were engulfed in a financial crisis, beginning in the second half of 1997, gripping a significant part of Asia to varying degrees. Th...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

On May 8, Boris Berezovsky, the flamboyant and controversial former Russian oligarch, was buried in his place of exile in London. In the second half of the 1990s, he was the most influential advise...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Sixty-seven-year-old Gotfridas Tapinas, the agile and spry chairman of the Latvian association Atputa in the Klaipeda region, today is a whole lot more than simply vexed. “I got this impressi...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The American political theorist Mark Lilla once wrote a perceptive review essay on the New Right in France, which he entitled “The Strange Birth of Liberal France” (The Wilson Quarterly...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

CELLE - It’s been nine years since Latvia became a member of the European Union, the event that opened the local people’s vision to a broader horizon and plenty of new opportunities. As...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Director: JJ Abrams Many modern day movie franchises are based upon TV shows and characters with a long (and often convoluted) history. In his first Star Trek film, JJ Abrams cleverly had his ...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

TALLINN - The Goethe Institute, in cooperation with the BMW Group and Kumu Art Museum, is bringing four works of art from the extraordinary BMW Art Car Collection to Estonia. Since April, within th...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

KAUNAS - Celebrating 50 years as a professional musician, Eric Clapton announced a limited number of 2013 European concerts including shows in Kaunas and Riga, on June 4-5. After signing with the Y...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Toto Cutugno May 16 Arena Riga Tarja Turunen & Mike Terrana May 20 Nokia Concert Hall, Tallinn Eric Clapton June 4 Zalgiris Arena, Kaunas June 5 Arena Riga Lana Del Ray June...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

PARIS - Undeclared economic activity, the so-called ‘black economy,’ in Europe shrank last year to 19 percent of declared output from 19.3 percent in 2011, a study for the Visa credit c...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

TALLINN - Estonia’s economy slowed more than economists estimated in the first quarter, to the weakest pace in three years as the construction industry stumbled, reports Bloomberg. Gross do...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

RIGA - Rising levels of non-residential deposits within the Latvian banking system are credit negative, Moody’s Investors Service warns in a comment published on May 2. The agency says that t...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - With Latvia on track to adopt the euro on Jan. 1, that leaves Lithuania, among the Baltic countries, still waiting to join the club. Lithuania has real possibilities to introduce the euro...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - Kinze Manufacturing Inc., an Iowa-based maker of farm machinery, will open it’s first factory outside the U.S. in Lithuania this year to support expansion in Central and Eastern Eur...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

TALLINN - Up to 40 new books have arrived at Estonian bookstores in 2012, evidence that in times when the Western European book industry is stalling, Estonia’s business is flourishing, report...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

TALLINN - Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, who was on a visit in Mexico together with Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb and an Estonian-Finnish business delegation last week, ...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - A survey performed by the Bank of Lithuania shows that commercial banks, for the second half-year in a row, have eased credit conditions for small- and medium-size businesses, and in the ...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

TALLINN - Swedbank claims that Estonia’s export volume per capita is very close to the same indicator of Finland and next year could pass Finland, reports Aripaev Online. “While last ...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

RIGA - Latvia’s Transport Ministry will have a month and a half to inform the government about the possibilities of purchasing new trains and modernizing existing rolling stock, Prime Ministe...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

TALLINN - Estonian Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas considers Rail Baltica the most serious of the many transport projects currently counting on European Union funds support, reports Public Broad...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The European Commission demands that new cash injections into the Estonian national carrier Estonian Air be stopped since it thinks that they are illegal, reports Eesti Paevaleht. “The Commis...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

RIGA - It is necessary to wait for recommendations from World Bank experts before reforming the Latvian port management system, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said in an interview with the LNT m...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - Lithuania has proposed creating a joint venture with Latvia and Estonia, which would then make a final decision on whether or not to go forward with the Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant proj...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

RIGA - On April 25 Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis handed out diplomas to high-profile ministry executives, CEOs and board members of the largest state-owned enterprises as a conclusion t...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

RIGA - The Liepajas metalurgs shareholder expressions of goodwill to cooperate with the Latvian government in order to rescue the company from bankruptcy has been shown to be hollow by their recent...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - The development of shale gas in Europe could help the continent obtain better deals from its current key supplier, the Russian giant Gazprom, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger sai...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

ECOVIS Miškinis, Kvainauskas ir partneriai advokatų kontora The rules for coordination of national social security systems fall within the framework of free movement of persons and shou...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - A fifth of all of Lithuania’s residents last year had illegal income, reports Kauno Diena. Though the shadow labor market has been shrinking over the last years, it still remains ve...

- The Baltic Times

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

VILNIUS - The government is going to start heating sector reform valued at 1 billion litas (289.6 million euros) in an effort to modernize the system, reports ELTA. “The government is tak...