Latvia Financial News

Bitcoin’s spirit animal is the honey badger. Bitcoin evangelist turned Bitcoin Cash promoter Roger Ver first popularized the meme in 2013 when he paid $1,500 a month for a billboard in California to display “Bitcoin is the Honey Badger of Money.” 

Wales will meet South Korea in a friendly match on Thursday evening. Rob Page's men will take on Latvia in their first match in the qualifying round of the EURO 2024 tournament. Earlier, they held Croatia to a draw in their opening qualifier before beating Latvia at the Cardiff City Stadium in March and they are fourth on the table in Group D after four games. But they lost to Armenia 4-2 and to Turkey 2-0.

Jelena Ostapenko's «nothing to lose» mindset delivered the biggest upset of the US Open on Sunday as the hard-hitting Latvian sent defending champion Iga Swiatek crashing out. The 26-year-old 20th seed had never lost to Swiatek in three previous meetings and made it four-out-of-four with a brilliant 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory on the Arthur Ashe Stadium. The shock result sends Ostapenko into a quarter-final date with American sixth seed Coco Gauff on Tuesday, while Swiatek was left wondering where it all went wrong. The defeat also ensures that Aryna Sabalenka will end Swiatek's 75-week reign as world number one at the end of the tournament. Ostapenko had been the butt of jokes earlier in the tournament after making 80 unforced errors in a fitful second round win. But the Latvian had the last laugh with Sunday's win, saying she had been inspired by the packed 23,000-capacity arena. «I just honestly love to play on big courts with full stadiums and a lot of crowd,» Ostapenko said. «It's really the thing that we are working for and playing for. »I had nothing to lose today. I knew it was going to be a tough match.

An international law-enforcement operation has dismantled a network of hundreds of thousands of computers that criminals used to launch cyberattacks against critical industries worldwide, U.S. authorities said Tuesday. Investigators in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Latvia took aim at a notorious strain of malware known as Qakbot that had infected more than 700,000 computers, took control of them and enabled them to be leased out to criminal gangs to facilitate more cyberattacks.

FIBA Basketball World Cup, the USA have registered two initial wins, cruised past Greece, and have clinched the group round. Canada defeated France, who were eliminated on Sunday after yet another defeat at the hands of Latvia. Steve Kerr has coached Team USA and led by Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Mikal Bridges led them. The US finished seventh in 2019 and they hope for a better result this year.

By Shashwat Chauhan

Fenerbahce SK defeated FC Twente in the UEFA Europa Conference League play-off round by 5-1. The Turkish club has won all of their last seven matches. Fenerbahce beat Samsunspor 2-0 in their Super Liga campaign on Monday. Earlier on August 13, they thrashed the Gaziantep team 2-1 at the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium.

transgender women from official women's events. The Switzerland-based federation FIDE said the decision, set to take place Monday, would stay in effect until the federation does an assessment of the issue. Critics, including advocacy groups and some European players and federations, have derided what they call an unnecessary and discriminatory policy that appears to foster «trans panic,» with one former British women's champion calling for the world federation to reverse its decision.

The number of people buying crypto assets in Latvia is declining, Latvijas Banka said in its 2023 “Financial Stability Report."

The prime ministers of the three Baltic countries agreed Thursday to speed up their nations’ disconnection from Russia’s power grid by nearly one year and connect with the continental European energy network by February 2025

The prime ministers of the three Baltic countries agreed Thursday to speed up their nations’ disconnection from Russia’s power grid by nearly one year and connect with the continental European energy network by February 2025

Ministry of Defence said it began live-fire naval exercises in the Baltic Sea on Wednesday, ratcheting up tensions with nearby European nations that are already high over NATO and Ukraine. Russia last carried out mass military exercises in the Baltic Sea in June, two months after Finland became NATO's newest member.

Google is celebrating the Fifa Women's World Cup with a special doodle released on Sunday. Google's latest doodle will only be available in select countries including Canada, Iceland, Cuba, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Armenia, Zambia, Nigeria, Japan, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. The search giant had announced a special multiplayer game to commemorate the opening day of the FIFA Women's World Cup on July 20.

According to Andrey Kartapolov, a Russian politician and former army officer, the relocation of the Wagner group to Belarus positions Russia in a favourable position to swiftly target NATO assets near Poland and Lithuania. Kartapolov mentioned in a statement to Russian state television that the private military company has the capability to strike the border region of Poland and Lithuania within a short span of "a matter of hours" from its newly established base.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released a report on global investments for the year 2022. According to the report, the net inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) to Central biggest state Kazakhstan amounted to $6.1 billion, the highest figure in the past 5 years and 83% higher than in 2021. This is the highest indicator among the post-Soviet countries.

The Delhi High Court on Monday set aside an order issued by the Indian Embassy to Sweden and Latvia revoking the Overseas Indian Citizen status of Ashok Swain. Noting that the February 8, 2022, order stated nothing other than that it was being issued exercising the powers of Section 7(D)(e) of the Citizenship Act, a single-judge bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad set it aside and directed the MHA, MEA and the Embassy to pass a detailed order explaining the reasons for exercising its power under the said section.

By Andrius Sytas

European Union leaders are set on Friday to commit to reducing the bloc's dependence on China and debate how to strike the balance between "de-risking" and engaging in areas such as climate change. «This is the million euro question,» Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins told reporters on his arrival at the two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday. «We need to de-risk and that means being able to step back to some degree because geopolitically the apparently growing relationship between China and Russia is a potential problem for all of us,» he said.

Annual inflation across the eurozone fell back to the single-digit territory and stood at 9.2% at the end of December, according to a flash estimate released by Eurostat on Friday morning.

Consumption of natural gas in the European Union dropped by a fifth in the months leading to winter compared to the same period over the previous five years, according to Eurostat.

Statements made by the independent Russian TV station Dozhd raised suspicions it was helping Moscow troops taking part in the Ukraine war and triggered a probe by Latvia's state security service on Friday.