Riga - Students in the Baltic state of Latvia joined a long list of unhappy groups in the troubled EU member Thursday when they staged a series of protests against big cuts in funding for education.

Following earlier demonstrations by farmers, teachers, nurses and police in recent weeks, a few dozen students gathered outside the entrances to university campuses across the Latvian capital, Riga, to set up imaginative pickets.

Riga - Swedbank, the Swedish bank which is the largest financial institution operating in the Baltic states, announced losses of 106 million euros (138 million dollars) across the recession-hit region Thursday for the first quarter of 2009. Swedbank's losses amounted to 52 million euros in Latvia, 47 million euros in Lithuania and 7 million euros in Estonia, according to figures released by the bank.

Erkki Raasuke, Swedbank's chief financial officer in Latvia said the losses would not make the bank pack its bags and leave the region.

Riga - Belarus' foreign minister denied on Wednesday that his country held any political prisoners, as the country prepared to attend next month's European Union "Eastern Partnership" summit.

Belarus was described by the previous US administration of George W Bush as the "last dictatorship in Europe", and has faced diplomatic isolation, but is scheduled to attend the May 7 summit in Prague.

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.