Riga  - Latvia's Finance Minister Einars Repse was en route to Washington Wednesday as part of an effort to win revised terms for a 7.5-billion-euro (9.7-billion-dollar) bailout package brokered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Repse was due to visit the IMF and World Bank as part of an annual Spring meeting between the institutions taking place in the US capital on April 25-26.

Riga  - The Latvian government outlined a bleak scenario Tuesday of spending cuts even more stringent than those already announced as the embattled Baltic state struggles to meet economic criteria laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking after a lengthy extraordinary meeting of the cabinet, Finance Minister Einars Repse said the situation "forces us to look into expenses we promised to leave untouched earlier."

Those expenses are likely to include politically sensitive items such as pensions and healthcare, which had been partially shielded during earlier rounds of cutbacks.

Riga - A priest was arrested in the Latvian capital Riga on Monday for allegedly helping to smuggle a mobile phone hidden inside a traditional Russian Easter cake into prison, the Baltic News Service reported.

The prison chaplain reportedly passed the celebratory "Kulich" pastry to an inmate at Riga Central Prison along with six eggs and an Easter card on behalf of a relative of the convict, according to information released by the Baltic state's prison service.

Riga- Authorities in Latvia have launched a novel incentive scheme for police in a bid to tackle the annual scourge of burning grass.

Officers who apprehend a fire starter will be entitled to an extra day's paid holiday, Interior Minister Linda Murniece told reporters Thursday.

"We are unable to pay bonuses, but we have promised a paid day off in addition to the holiday allowance for each officer who catches a burner of old grass," the minister said.

Riga  - Ratings agency Fitch slapped a fresh round of downgrades on banks in the Baltic states Thursday in the wake of its downgrade of the entire region a day earlier.

The Latvian subsidiaries of Swedish banks SEB and Swedbank saw their Support Ratings downgraded to '2' from '1'.

Riga  - Annual inflation in Latvia dipped from 9.6 per cent in February to 8.2 per cent in March, according to figures released Wednesday by the Latvian national statistics office.

Despite the drop Latvia retains the highest inflation rate in the European Union, hampering efforts by the government of Valdis Dombrovskis to balance the books in the recession-hit Baltic state where GDP is expected to contract by 13 per cent in 2009.