Marcus Mabry, the international business editor of The New York Times, discusses how governments are approaching budget deficits, Eastern Europe’s fall and the economic outlook for the rest of 2009.

Riga’s central market. Photo: Sally Garner

Rooftops in Riga’s old town section. Photo: Sally Garner

Worldfocus producer Sally Garner is in Riga, Latvia, reporting on the country’s floundering economy. She writes about how the financial crisis has impacted daily life in Latvia.

The headlines read: “Europe’s Sickest Country,” “Latvia’s Government Collapses,” “Europe’s Most Extreme, Dramatic Economy” — but walk around Riga, Latvia’s capital city, and you’ll see people heading to work, stores full of shoppers and banks open for business. It’s a recession. It’s Eastern Europe. And Latvians are holding their breath.

Unemployment is growing. The economy is now shrinking faster than in any other European country, but in the central market we found people choosing from the mountains of fruit and vegetables, checking out tables full of cookies and candy, buying bunches of flowers and even picking out sweaters and coats. They’re worried, but they say they remember harder times under Soviet rule.

This is a country proud of its 18 years of independence from the Soviet Union and willing to fight to save itself in the current economic crisis.

As we walked around Riga’s old town with its cobblestone streets and “pedestrian only” signs, we saw “for rent” signs — and while many people didn’t want to talk about the economy, most say they know someone who’s lost a job in just the last few months.

We’ve only been here two days, but we’ve heard bankers, small business owners, students and engineers all tell us that Latvia is in trouble. They just want us to know it’s trouble they share with the rest of the world, not theirs alone.

We’ll be back in Latvia next week. Tomorrow we head to neighboring Estonia, and later to Lithuania where we’ll see for ourselves what the headline “Once leaders, Baltic countries in deep slump” means in the countries that were dubbed the “Baltic Tigers” when money was flowing and times were good.

- Sally Garner

Watch for Worldfocus’ upcoming series exploring the Baltics in the coming weeks. 

Warning that a new economic “iron curtain” could descend across the continent, leaders from Eastern Europe came to Brussels asking for nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars to bail them out. The European Union rejected such a bailout.

Roben Farzad, a senior writer and columnist for BusinessWeek magazine, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss the rapidly deteriorating economic situation in Eastern Europe. They discuss what people in Eastern Europe will face in coming months as well as the broader implications for Western Europe and the world.

In Ukraine, today’s political realities and yesterday’s revolutionary dreams may not be in line, and progress has come slowly.

In Poland, the anti-Soviet Polish Solidarity movement has reinvented itself in a democratic and economically strong Poland.

In the Czech Republic, the younger generation knows little about the Russian invasion and subsequent demonstrations that took place 40 years ago, and the country has problems discussing its past.

In Hungary, people still commemorate 1956 revolution — when approximately 200,000 Hungarians gathered in front of the country’s Parliament to demand an end to Soviet rule. Even as they move forward, Hungarians never quite leave the past behind.

Correspondent Dave Marash reports in a Worldfocus signature series: After the Fall.

Today, the younger generation of Czech citizens know little about the invasion and subsequent demonstrations. It poses a problem for schools and families to talk about their country’s political past.

Worldfocus correspondent Dave Marash reports on the forgotten history of the 1960s in present-day Czech Republic.