Hungary has reached agreement with both the International Monetary Fund and the European Union on a broad economic rescue package, including substantial financing, to stabilize the Hungarian economy which besides being shaken by the global financial crisis now faces serious population-ageing related macro economic and structural problems moving forward."A substantial financing package in support of these strong policies will beannounced when the program is finalized in the next few days," IMF ManagingDirector Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement that did not indicate thesize of the package. Hungary (which is a member of the European Union but not the Eurozone), has been in talks with the IMF since early October in an attempt to sort out a package which will do something to restore confidence in falling markets.Hungary's government and the central bank have taken a series of measures to shore up the ...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaHungary announced on Sunday that it had reached agreement with both the International Monetary Fund and the European Union on a broad economic rescue package, which will include substantial financing, in a bid to stabilize a Hungarian economy which has been both shaken by the global financial crisis and faces long term macro economic and structural problems which make any easy solution to the situation hard to expect."A substantial financing package in support of these strong policies will be announced when the program is finalized in the next few days," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement that did not indicate the size of the package. Hungary announced the loan at more or less the same time as Ukraine received a USD16.5bn loan from the IMF. Under normal circumstances both these moves would be good news for Central and East European equity markets assets. This was not the case on this occassion, however, and Hungary's stock markets fell more than 10% on opening yesterday, suggesting that either investors are not convinced the packages will be sufficient, or that they fear there is more to come.

by Claus Vistesen: Lausanne

As I peer out my window over towards the Alps and the northern entrance to Le Vallé du Rhône I can't help asking myself whether some of those experiments which are habitually conducted a mere 40 kilometers from my current habitat haven't gone terribly wrong? With every passing day getting I find it more and more difficult to avoid associating all those worthy attempts to uncover that illusive Hick's Particle with the all-encompassing black hole into which our financial markets seem to be getting sucked with a disturbing velocity, despite the numerous efforts by the global financial authorities to invent some sort of monetary equivalent to "anti-matter".

But while the current crisis is pretty much a generalised global one, if there is one region where the crisis is making its presence more acutely than elsewhere, that place is Eastern Europe, and among the

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As I peer out my window towards the Alpes and the northern entry point to Le Vallé du Rhône I am wondering whether the experiments conducted only 40 kilometers from my current habitat haven't gone terribly wrong? Consequently, it is getting decidedly difficult not to link the initiation of experiments to uncover the illusive Hick's Particle with the all encompassing black hole that seems to be disturbing the workings of financial markets.

One place where the crisis is fast making its presence increasingly felt is Eastern Europe as well as the Baltics; the latter being the immediate focus of this piece. This is not so strange. On many occasions since the credit crisis went global back in the summer of 2007 many analysts including yours truly have been flagging the risks for a hard landing in Eastern Europe. This situation has by and large materialised at this

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