Budapest - The European Central Bank has agreed to lend Hungary up to 5 billion euros (6.8 billion dollars) to help ease credit conditions, the ECB said Thursday.

The accord will help Hungary's central bank provide extra euro liquidity in the East European nation, the Frankfurt-based ECB said in a joint statement with the Hungarian Central Bank.

Euro-denominated loans are a key source of finance in Hungary, which joined the European Union in 2004 but has not switched to the euro.

Hungary's currency, the forint, regained some of Wednesday's losses against the euro after the announcement.

Frankfurt - European shares plunged about 5 per cent in early trading Thursday after recession fears wiped out the big gains in stock prices run up earlier this week in New York and across Asia.

Europe's blue-chip Stoxx50 dived by 5.4 per cent to 2,129 shortly after opening as new gloomy US data helped fuel concerns about the prospects of a protracted and deep recession.

London's FTSE index slumped by 5.17 per cent as the trading got under way in Europe's premier stock market.

This was reflected across national bourses with Frankfurt's DAX index sinking 4.8 per cent and Paris' CAC dropping 5 per cent as the optimism earlier this week generated by global government action to address the crisis vanished.

Athens - Nearly half of all Greeks believe that there is nothing much people can do to reduce one's chances of contracting cancer, according to a recent study.

The study, carried out by the Athens Medical School and the Centre for Health Service Studies, found that nearly half of the 1,490 respondents interviewed were passive about cancer, saying there is nothing they can do to avert the threat of contracting cancer.

The findings, which were published in the Greek daily Kathimerini newspaper, came as researchers indicated a 25 per cent increase in the diagnosis of cancer over the past 10 years.

Rome - Climate change poses a health threat in Europe and central Asia, especially among the poor, experts from the United Nations and the European Union's food safety watchdog said Tuesday.

The warning came in a statement from a seminar in Rome on the health effects of climate change on food, water safety and nutrition.

Athens - A strong earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Ric

Berlin  - European industry is likely to seek government aid similar to that offered this week to banks, a European Union commissioner, Guenter Verheugen, said Monday.

Speaking on Deutschlandfunk public radio, Verheugen said, "The demands have already begun from the car industry."

The German commissioner said, "It won't be easy for politicians to explain to the workers why hundreds of billions of euros are available for the banking system, but not when an entire industry is in trouble."