Riga - Latvia's ex-president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, nicknamed the "Baltic Iron Lady" during her eight-year term, has released a music album, local media reported on Wednesday.

Vike-Freiberga, the country's first woman president, served from 1999 to 2007.

The CD entitled Vaira's Songs features songs by folk duo Ruta and Valdis Muktupavelis, Vike-Freiberga's husband, Imants, and son, Karlis, as well as her former presidential press secretary Aiva Rozenberga.

Riga - Authorities in a Latvian town are encouraging residents to strip naked and run across a downtown bridge as the Baltic nation prepares to celebrate summer solstice.

The western town of Kuldiga - population 13,500 - will host the eighth annual naked run across the 18th-century, 150-metre bridge at 3 am (0000 GMT) on June 24, marking Latvia's most popular holiday, Jani.

In another part of the country of 2.3 million people, at the Pedvale Open Air Museum near the town of Sabile, a group of men plans to gather at 4 am for a traditional naked run.

Riga - Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis sustained

Riga - The Baltic nation of Latvia established diplomatic ties with Kosovo, the nation's Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Riga  - Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis appeared Tuesday to back a controversial plan by his defence minister to buy 25 horses for an honour guard to welcome visiting dignitaries.

"I cannot agree it is a waste of money," Goodmanis said of the horse project that would cost 120,000 lats (250,000 dollars) from a defence budget of 304 million lats, plus
70,000 lats annual upkeep.

The horse guard would revive a tradition and could also be used in sporting events such as the modern pentathlon, said the premier, who originally questioned the idea.

Riga - Latvia's annual inflation rate reached 17.9 per cent in May, up from 17.5 per cent in April, as the Baltic nation's economy slows down, the Central Statistical Bureau said Monday.