AFP - Buckingham Palace has announced the schedule for state visits by Queen Elizabeth II to the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in mid-October.

Latvia gives a Belarus diplomat 24 hours to leave the country after declaring him persona non grata. The country says the first secretary of the Belarus embassy in Riga is being kicked out for actions "incompatible with the status of diplomat."...

AFP - Around 60 people were arrested in the Latvian capital Riga as police thwarted a bid by extremists to hijack Legionnaire's Day, when veterans of Latvia's Waffen SS remember fallen comrades.

Reuters - You say euro, we say eiro -- Latvia is thumbing its nose at the European Central Bank and insisting on using a different spelling for the European single currency.