Riga says it can handle expense of being EU Capital of Culture

Despite slashed budgets and economic woes, Latvia's capital, Riga, is confident of being able to raise the necessary funding for a series of cultural events in 2014, when it is due to become the European capital of culture, its mayor told this website.

"We are obviously affected by the economic crisis, our budget was slashed by 30 percent on the expenditure side and of course the cultural sector is under-financed. But we would like to use this event to gather money for the cultural inf...