A loan package worth EUR 7.5 billion (USD 10.5 billion), aimed at helping Latvia stabilize its economy, has been announced by the International Monetary Fund.

The agreement between the IMF and Latvian authorities still needs the approval of the fund’s executive board, but that is expected before the end of the year.

The Dec. 19 announcement by the IMF comes a week after the Saeima approved a tighter 2009 budget that includes big cuts in government spending and higher taxes.

The loan package includes:

• EUR 3.1 billion from the European Union
• EUR 1.8 billion from Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
• EUR 1.7 billion from the IMF.
• EUR 400 million from the World Bank.
• EUR 200 million from the Czech Republic.
• EUR 100 million each from Estonia, Poland and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

“We will continue assisting the Latvian authorities in their courageous efforts to adjust in the midst of the global financial turmoil and we will work closely with them and other stakeholders as the program unfolds,” IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a press release.

A World Bank spokesperson said the organization welcomes the agreement.

“This is a fragile period,” said Shigeo Katsu, the World Bank’s vice president for Europe and Central Asia, said in a press release, “so we must do everything we can to prevent the financial crisis from becoming a human crisis. As part of the international effort, the World Bank stands ready to do its part to provide financing and help tackle long-term structural problems.”

The U.S. embassy in Rīga is one of 18 American diplomatic missions to which a suspicious white powder was found in envelopes mailed earlier this month, the State Department and FBI have confirmed. The powder was not toxic.

The envelopes began to arrive at the embassies on Dec. 15, a State Department spokesman said Dec. 18.

In a Dec. 18 press briefing in Washington, D.C., State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed envelopes also were received at diplomatic missions in Berlin, Bern, Brussels, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Dublin, the Hague, Luxembourg, Madrid, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Reykjavik, Rome, Stockholm, Tallinn and Tokyo.

Each envelope, according to a FBI press release, was mailed from Texas and contained “a similar typewritten letter and a white powder substance.” Letters also were sent to 40 different governors’ offices around the U.S. In each case, field testing found the powder to be harmless. However, the FBI said, mailing such envelopes still is a federal crime and the matter remains under investigation.

More than 200 people dressed as Santa Claus ran or walked through the streets of Rīga’s Old Town on Dec. 14 to raise money for a mobile medical center for children.

The Santas Fun Run & Walk was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Rīga International to raise funds to help bring a Ronald McDonald House Charity Care Mobile to Latvia.

The mobile center, estimated to cost more than EUR 400,000, would provide free care for children in Latvia’s rural areas. It would be the 32nd of its kind in the world and the second in Europe, according to the Web site of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Latvija. The center is expected to begin operation in March.

Latvians Online readers and staff also participated in the event. The Web site’s technical director, Arnis Gross, suited up for the event as did reader Vanda Dauksts, who has relocated from Chicago to her new home in Rīga.

Thirty-five readers helped out with online donations totaling USD 1,818.