Eesti in brief - 2011-08-04

  • 2011-08-03

Estonia will grant loans and loan guarantees worth a maximum of 283.4 million euros to Greece in the framework of the second aid package of the euro area, while the real sum will most likely be below that, reports Delfi. Finance Ministry deputy chancellor Tanel Ross said that the exact conditions of the second aid package to Greece are today no clearer than a week ago, when the aid package was approved. He said that the statement of heads of state stipulates that the size of the whole aid package is 109 billion euros. This will be distributed between euro area states and the IMF. It isn’t known how big a share will be supplied by the IMF, and it is not certain yet whether the aid goes to Greece by bilateral loan agreements or via EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility). Estonia’s share in EFSF is 0.26 percent. If the whole second Greek aid package sum went via EFSF, Estonia would guarantee 283.4 million euros’ worth of EFSF loans that the latter will lend to Greece. “In reality the sum will definitely be smaller,” said Ross.

The Tallinn stage of the world’s biggest poker festival, European Poker Tour (EPT), that takes place this week in Tallinn will bring in international media along with hundreds of poker players from all over the world to compete for millions of euros in winnings, reports Ohtuleht. The opening stage of the 8th season of EPT takes place in Tallinn from Tuesday to Sunday this week. Nearly twenty Estonian players are expected to participate at the main tournament, which has a participation fee of 4,250 euros, along with several hundred poker stars from around the world. The EPT poker festival took place in Tallinn for the first time last year, when 420 players from 26 states, 14 of them from Estonia, participated in the main tournament.

A musical tribute to the first ever Estonian composer, Cyrillus Kreek, to write a Requiem, was to take place in Oregon on Aug. 3, reports the Estonian Free Press. Conductor Lonnie Cline will lead a combined choir of over 100 singers and an orchestra in a performance of the Estonian Requiem. This Requiem was written by Kreek between 1925 and 1927 and will be performed at St Mary’s Academy. Cline, the director of Vocal Activities at Clackamas Community College, has gathered together singers from Clackamas Community College Chamber Choir, Unistus Chamber Choir, members of Estonian mixed choirs from the West Coast and from Ontario, Canada, along with members of the Portland Symphonic Choir, Oregon Repertory Singers, Bach Cantata Choir, and the Oregon City High School Singers. They will perform with a 32-member orchestra that includes musicians from the Portland Opera and the Oregon Ballet Theater in a night which is said to be highly anticipated.