Word: baltics
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Locals in Riga, the Latvian capital, have a favorite trivia question: what was the biggest city in the 17th century Swedish empire? (Hint: it wasn't Stockholm.) For centuries, the stately medieval port on the shores of the eastern Baltic Sea served as the bustling gateway between Russia and the West. Then, following World War II, it withered after the Iron Curtain fell across Eastern Europe, cutting it off from the outside world. But Riga is now experiencing a renaissance. It may not have re-established the prominence it enjoyed 400 years ago, but as any of its trivia-wielding...
Riga's revival is part of a broader expansion that has buoyed the Baltic Sea region, an area that comprises about 70 million people living in nine countries bordering the sea. Established players like Sweden and Finland are pairing up with emerging economies (and recent E.U. inductees) like Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to transform a region once better known for herring, bad weather and cold war naval maneuvers into a global economic dynamo. "It's a hot spot for growth," says Peter Egardt, a Swede who heads the Business Advisory Council at the intergovernmental Council of Baltic Sea States...
When the leaders of the G-8 countries descend on the Baltic seaside resort of Heiligendamm in eastern Germany on June 6-8 for their annual summit, they will be visiting a part of the world where eight of nine countries are growing faster than the E.U. average; where several, including Latvia, which last year expanded 11.9%, are topping the European table; and where trade is expected to soar 50% by 2020. The port at Hamburg, just west of Heiligendamm, has seen a 40% increase in cargo shipped through the Baltic Sea in each of the past three years...
CYBERWARFARE: When Estonian authorities decided to take down a Soviet war memorial, they might have expected a few protests from the Baltic country's ethnic Russian minority. An all-out cyberwar seemed less likely. Yet since the end of April, more than 100 separate attacks have hit Estonia's computer systems. Estonia, known as E-stonia because of its sophisticated use of the Internet, has accused Russia of orchestrating the strikes. The Kremlin has denied any involvement...
...shunning of George Bush, cultivated a close friendship with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president. He never criticized Russia’s brutal suppression of Chechnya and even negotiated an agreement between Russia and Germany to build a natural gas pipeline that punitively bypasses Poland—the Baltic gas pipeline, placing Warsaw in a precarious economic and political position. But no one heard any complaints from Poland’s EU partners about this frosty Baltic revenge, since they are all anxious customers of Russian natural...