It's complicated, let me try to explain it.
Those countries bought billions of CDOs or SIVs or subprimes loans with coupon HIGH interest rate, held by Lehman, Morgan Stantly, Bear Stearns and the likes. When those CDO, or SIVs became due, those Institutions could not pay at maturity date caused by the declining home values and homeowners unable to pay their mortgages. It caused literally "run on bank" like its 1929 all over but on a global scale. In order to add liquidity and add confidence throughout the financial market, all the Central Banks around the world added Billions of dollars more to avoid the "run on the bank" into their system before it becomes even worse. That is why you see all this bail out from the feds.
There are more to come on CDOs and SIVs that will be due in "maturity", like the 3 year arm, 5 year arm, 7, 10 year, interest only loan in the next few months or years UNLESS Feds or the Congress do something about it. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
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