{"id":1761,"date":"2008-10-19T00:52:41","date_gmt":"2008-10-19T07:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=1761"},"modified":"2008-10-19T00:52:41","modified_gmt":"2008-10-19T07:52:41","slug":"news-from-estonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/19\/news-from-estonia\/","title":{"rendered":"News from Estonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

1) Estonia\u2019s minds key, says president<\/a>, Wales Online, October 16 2008:<\/p>\n

[Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves] does not believe the collapse of Icelandic banks has doomed the concept of small, \u201cclever\u201d countries.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIn terms of small countries, it\u2019s basically how you do things. The financial sector in Estonia represents 4% of GDP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe financial sector in Iceland represented 25% of GDP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boasting of Estonia\u2019s economic progress, he said: \u201cWe started out with a GDP of about $800 a year, and the last we measured was $21,600, which is basically the same as Portugal \u2013 that\u2019s since independence to 2006.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe\u2019re less corrupt than half of the EU. We had to impose tariffs to join the EU.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2) Estonia\u2019s Let-It-Be Economy Is Rattled by Worldwide Distress<\/a>, The New York Times, October 10 2008:<\/p>\n

The government cut the state budget by 1 percent of gross domestic product to avoid running a deficit this year, even though Estonia has hefty fiscal reserves invested outside the country.<\/p>\n

Fiscal stimulus and specified assistance, Estonian officials said, would only delay the inevitable.<\/p>\n

In that, the Estonian response to economic distress contrasts sharply with the United States, where Washington is borrowing freely and desperately trying to prevent the housing bust from wreaking havoc across the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economy needs to adjust,\u201d said M\u00e4rten Ross, deputy governor of the Bank of Estonia. \u201cThere is no sense in policies that try to keep construction workers in construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever the approach, both business executives and government officials agree that Estonia needs to become much more export-oriented \u2014 though right now being unburdened with foreign debt has saved it from being another Iceland. With 1.3 million people and a G.D.P. of $29.4 billion, only about 18 percent of the country\u2019s companies export anything at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3) Bush: South Korea, six others get visa waiver<\/a>, AFP, October 18 2008:<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AFP) \u2014 US President George W. Bush announced Friday that citizens of South Korea and six other US allies would enjoy visa-free travel to the United States beginning about one month from now.<\/p>\n

The other countries are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia, all of which have reached agreements with the United States, which has broadened security measures in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4) Estonia\u2019s Cyber Security Policy<\/a>, Cyber Law Update, October 17 2008<\/p>\n

A year-and-a-half after the coordinated denial-of-service attacks against its government and commercial computer systems, Estonia has released a national cyber security strategy<\/a> that includes details about the attacks and offers recommendations for preventing attacks in the future and for a global stance toward cyber security. The report identifies four \u201cpolicy fronts\u201d:<\/p>\n

1) application of a graduated system of security measures in Estonia;<\/p>\n

2) development of Estonia\u2019s expertise in and high awareness of information security to the highest standard of excellence;<\/p>\n

3) development of an appropriate regulatory and legal framework to support the secure and seamless operability of information systems;<\/p>\n

4) and promoting international cooperation aimed at strengthening global cyber security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1) Estonia\u2019s minds key, says president, Wales Online, October 16 2008: [Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves] does not believe the collapse of Icelandic banks has doomed the concept of small, \u201cclever\u201d countries. He said: \u201cIn terms of small countries, it\u2019s basically how you do things. The financial sector in Estonia represents 4% of GDP. \u201cThe financial sector in Iceland represented 25% of GDP.\u201d Boasting of Estonia\u2019s economic progress, he said: \u201cWe started out with a GDP of about $800 a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-estonia","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-sp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}