New York-based Standard & Poor’s, one of the leading services used by investors to gauge the degree of risk, has increased its short- and long-term credit rating of Latvia, the company announced May 2.

The agency raised its evaluation to BBB-/A-3 from BB+/B, marking the first time Latvia has returned to investment grade since February 2009.

“The ratings on Latvia,” the agency announced in a press release, “balance our view of the government’s proven political commitment to fiscal discipline, the economy’s considerable flexibility, and the material increase in exports as a share of GDP, against the constraints of large (albeit decreasing) external debt, relatively moderate GDP per capita, and a lack of monetary policy flexibility.”

International investment ratings agencies—including Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service—in 2008 and 2009 lowered Latvia’s rating as the country struggled with the effects of an overheated economy and the global recession.

Latvia’s finance minister, Andris Vilks, reacted with pleasure to the news.

“Latvia at the moment is in a truly unique situation,” he said in an announcement posted on the Finance Ministry’s website, “because at time when the economic activity in the European Union is falling and the credit rating of a majority of member states is being decreased, in our country it is being increased.”

Two men in England have been arrested on suspicion of murder in the death last year of a 17-year-old girl from Latvia, a spokesperson for the Norfolk Constabulatory announced May 1.

The men, ages 28 and 31, were arrested in King’s Lynn, which about 160 kilometers north of London. They were being held as suspects in the murder of Alisa Dmitrijeva, whose body was discovered Jan. 1 on the British royal family’s Sandringham Estate at West Norfolk, northeast of London. However, later in the day they were released on bail, police said.

Dmitrijeva disappeared at the end of August and was reported missing on Sept. 6, police said. A person walking their dog on New Year’s Day found the body in a wooded area of the estate.

Police used a DNA profile and a palm print to identify the remains as those of Dmitrijeva, police spokesperson Lisa McGrann said in a news release.

The car in which she was believed to be last seen was found at the end of January in a scrapyard, police announced in March. As part of their investigation, police have examined soil and debris samples found in the car, as well as closed-circuit video footage.

Dmitrijeva and her family moved to Great Britain in 2009.

(Update 2 MAY 2012 with information about the suspects being released on bail.)

The Very Rev. Dean Emeritus Vilis Vārsbergs, former president of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Latviešu ev. lut. baznīca Amerika, or LELBA) and former head of the theology program at the University of Latvia, died April 22 in Chicago, according to the church’s website.

Vārsbergs, 82, was born in 1929 in Prauliena, near the city of Madona in eastern Latvia.

He was ordained in 1957 in Michigan and for many years served the Chicago area as pastor of the Zion Latvian Lutheran Church and then of St. Peter’s Latvian Church.

Vārsbergs in 2002 received the Order of Three Stars, Latvia’s highest civilian honor.

A collection of his sermons, Drošākais krasts, was published late last year.

Visitation is scheduled form 5-8 p.m. April 26 at St. Peter’s Latvian Church, 450 Forest Preserve Drive, Wood Dale, Ill. Lying-in-state is scheduled from 2 p.m. April 27 until the 3 p.m. funeral service in the church.

According to LELBA, the Vārsbergs family has requested that memorial donations be made to the Latvian Center Gaŗezers near Three Rivers, Mich., or to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Rīga.