Riga - While politicians in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania concentrate on tackling the economic crisis with austerity plans, lending restrictions and even IMF loans, they may be neglecting another threat to their economic well-being which could eventually be just as damaging.

Figures released this week by the European Union's statistics office, Eurostat, showed populations in the Baltics are shrinking fast, with many more Balts dying each year than are being born.

While Estonia recorded the fourth-largest birth rate in the EU, with 12.2 births per 1,000 inhabitants, it is still losing people faster than it can replace them, with a death rate at 12.8 per thousand.

Riga- An online petition in favour of a Swedish invasion of Latvia is proving a seasonal hit - among Latvians.

Fed up with a government that failed to prevent the Baltic state lurching into a serious recession and unimpressed by belated efforts to get out of it, Latvian Roberts Safonovs took the matter into his own hands and set up an online petition calling on Sweden to take over.

Stockholm/Copenhagen - The central banks of Denmark and Sweden on Tuesday said they have signed a swap agreement with the central bank of Latvia guaranteeing short-term loans of up to 500 million euros (675 million dollars).

The swap agreement allows Latvijas Banka to borrow euro against Latvian lats "when and if the need arises," the statement said.

The Swedish Riksbank said its share was 375 million euros.

Riga - Parex Banka, the Latvian bank recently nationalized by the government of the Baltic state, stepped up its attempts to balance its books Monday by issuing an appeal to bondholders to negotiate new terms for their investments.

After running into liquidity problems, Parex is already trying to renegotiate terms on two large syndicated loans worth 984 million dollars that fall due next year.

Riga - The Latvian parliament completed an extraordinary 20- hour sitting Friday morning as part of its bid to win approval from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic assistance package thought to be worth up to 6 billion dollars.

The parliament commenced its sitting at 9 am on Thursday and finally broke up at 5 am Friday morning.

According to the legislation passed by parliament, Latvia will save around 1 billion lats (1.85 billion dollars) by cutting spending and increasing revenues in 2009, a sum equivalent to 7 per cent of the small Baltic state's gross domestic product.

Riga - Latvian members of parliament embarked on a lengthy debate Thursday over government proposals to slash the national budget in order to win approval from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an economic assistance package thought to be worth up to 6 billion dollars.