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Washington, D.C. — Housing finance is prospering in emerging markets despite the economic slowdown and the mortgage crisis in many developed economies, finds a team working on housing finance at the World Bank Group.

PARIS — The World Bank Group and the Government of Switzerland have called for concerted action against plundering of developing countries. Much of the money stolen from them finds safe haven in international financial centers. Failing to stem and reverse these criminal flows contributes to the impoverishment of the world's poorest countries.

New York: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged governments and citizens across the global to acknowledge the enormous value of the world's oceans to humanity and ensure that pollution of the bodies of water by human activity is brought under control.

New York: The United Nations refugee agency has voiced its concern at reports that the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom are arranging deportations of Iraqi citizens back to Baghdad, Kirkuk and other violence-prone areas later this week.

New Delhi: The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has asked all the States particularly those affected by the Left Wing Extremism to ensure proper implementation of PESA Guidelines in their areas so that the PRIs could be made stronger enough. In a letter written to all Chief Secretaries of States to States the Ministry has urged them to take all necessary steps that are required to check the deepening and widening of extremism in PESA areas. The Ministry has also underlined the need to activate Gram Sabhas in a mission mode for resolving disputes, supervisining land acquition and assess the impact and delimitation of villages.

New Delhi: The Global Campaign on Making Cities Resilient was launched here today with the call to make South Asian cities ready to face challenges of urban risk management with effective governance and urban planning. The campaign will be run with the close coordination of United Nation and Governments of the region and urban local bodies of the major cities.

KOLKATA: In West Bengal, the ruling Left Front (LF) will need some time to present a detailed analysis of what went wrong at the recently concluded civic polls and explain the drubbing it received.

The CPI(M) is facing its worst crisis. The party, of course, has weathered other stormy periods. It split, for instance, within five years of its formation when the Naxalites left it in 1969. Three years later, it lost the West Bengal elections so heavily - because of rigging, according to it - that it decided to boycott the assembly for five years. In Kerala, too, it yielded ground to the CPI with Achutha Menon becoming the chief minister.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the first and second reviews under a three-year Extended Credit Facility arrangement with Tajikistan. The completion of the reviews enables the immediate disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 26.12 million (about US$38.2 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to an amount equivalent to SDR 52.22 million (about US$76.3 million).

New York: Survivors of the brutal conflict that has wracked northern Uganda for two decades, most of them young people, must be helped back on their feet by supporting their efforts to acquire skills that will help them reintegrate into society, a United Nations envoy has said after spending a week in the country.