The media is not particurlarly sensational about the riots, for what can I tell from far. As a first reaction, TV news gave Riga events brief time. Among official demonstration organizers there are worker unions ant the left party "Frontas", but they are not particurlarly pressed for responsibility about riots. There is some dialog between the government and the unions. But the simplistic noise of right-wing commentators is pretty annoying. They seem all Lithuanian troubles in not erridicating the Soviet past.

A couple of interesting aspects: Vilnius is supposed to be the European Cultural Capital 2009, on the occation of 1000 years of first mentioning of Lithuania in mediavial writings. But the project is practically doomed, as the new government stopped financing it.

Besides, the "FlyLAL Lithuanian Airlines" went bankrupt last month... so it became tricky to get to the Cultural Capital at all. The bankrupcy was pretty ugly: just before Christmas they offered 50% of their shares to the government for free - but deep in 27 million euro debt; then they negotiated with a Swiss group; after that failed - "sudden" bankrupcy. A few thousand of passengers were left stranded, with little chance of compensation. Their main creditors: the "FlyLAL" group itself. Their charter or ttechnical service sections are doing quite fine. What a buisiness model: a lot of managing, little expertise, evil outsourcing...