This comes via Angus Robertson over at Research Recap:
Fitch Ratings forecasts that Emerging Europe (EE) will suffer its steepest fall in real GDP since the collapse of the Communist planned economic system in the early 1990s, reflecting the severity of the trade and financial shocks that have hit the region. However, the aggregate forecasts conceal [...]

If you want to know what a modern-day depression looks like, try Ukraine.
Growth in the ex-Soviet state, hit by shrinking markets for its steel and chemical exports, stood at 5.8 per cent of gross domestic product in the same period of 2008. ”We were ill-prepared to confront the crisis and its first blow was painful [...]

Standard and Poors had their hands full today cutting credit ratings.  They cut Ireland. But, they also cut Hungary, putting the country just above a junk credit rating.  I don’t think these will be the last sovereign debt ratings downgrades, especially in emerging markets — economies worldwide are deteriorating.
The Brown Brothers Harriman currency group has [...]

The remittanc income from Mexican and Central American immigrants working in the United States bck to their home nations is not the only huge remittance flow in the world. One of significant import is in Europe, where millions of indivuals from the former Eastern Bloc now work in Western Europe. However, as in the U.S. – Mexican connection, these remittances will be nosediving.

Below is an analysis from Morgan Stanley (with my boldng):

While most people have their attention tuned to the spectacle over at AIG, financial institutions in Europe are having their own difficulties. In the last day, I have seen news stories of European banks looking for ways to raise capital in order to shore up their weakening balance sheets. Let me focus on three stories in particular: Nordea, Bank Austria and HVB.

After Europe emerged from the worst war in human history, its cities lay in ruins. Its economy was in tatters. It was in this environment that an Iron Curtain fell over Europe dividing it into east and west, separating Europeans from each other for four decades. Now, another twenty years later, we risk another great divide in Europe, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko has warned.

About a week ago I reported on an Austrian story that the EU was gearing up for a bailout of any eurozone members which found themselves in difficulty (see my post, “EU planning 200 billion euro package for Eastern Europe“. This report is now being confirmed by multiple sources including Joaquin Almunia, the economics commissioner of the European Union.

The following article comes from Absolute Return Partners’ Niels Jensen. Absolute Return Partners LLP is a London based private partnership which provides independent asset management and investment advisory services globally to institutional as well as private investors, charities, foundations and trusts. Visit www.arpllp.com to learn more about them.

Yesterday, Latvia was downgraded to junk. Despite its diminutive size, this is a big deal. Fist, it is a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of Eastern Europe. But, more importantly it is a signal that Western European banks lending in the former Soviet Bloc are overexposed and threatened by large loan losses. In a global economy in which European banks lend at home, but also have significant U.S. mortgage debt and Eastern European loan exposure, events in Latvia will have a snowball effect.

While the EU, IMF and World Bank are all busily drafting up crisis solutions, the videos below should give a little colour on what this means for the economy, credit and investing.

This comes from Austrian Daily Kurier:
A plan to stabilise the economies of Eastern Europe exists. What is missing is a united EU.
During and after the Eastern Europe tour by Austrian Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister Josef Pröll, the Ministry always profusely denied that there was a plan to support the new [EU] countries. The talk was [...]