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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) have launched a new project to improve macroeconomic statistics in 23 African countries. DFID will provide US$7.5 million over the next five years to support the project.

NEW DELHI: The brain trust of the Union Finance Ministry seems quite sure that the time has come for the Government to initiate a public debate on the need for labour law reforms and break the resistance to the same from inside and outside the organised labour.

KOLKATA: Ever impulsive, Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has a penchant for making more history than she seems to have read. Except her diehard fans and the loyal MPs she leads (sorry, not Kabir Suman!), few approve of her mulish boycott of all West Bengal government official functions and programmes.

Tokyo - The developing countries of the East Asia & Pacific region - the first to recover from the global economic crisis - can grow rapidly in the next decade even in a weakened world, but only if they implement structural reforms with renewed vigor and cooperate further on regional economic integration and climate change.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors have approved an additional International Development Association (IDA) credit of US$25 million to Tanzania's Energy Development and Access Expansion Project (TEDAP). This adds to the IDA credit of US$105 million and the Global Environment Facility grant of US$6.5 million originally approved for this project in December 2007.

Washington - In affirmation of Vietnam's remarkable progress towards Middle Income Country status, the World Bank Board of Directors have approved a second loan for Vietnam from the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The loan for Vietnam's power sector reforms received the green light together with four other operations to support poverty alleviation, health care and critical infrastructure development in traditionally vulnerable areas of Northern Vietnam, the Red River Delta and rapidly urbanizing Ho Chi Minh City.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank has approved a EUR26 million (USD$36.3 million equivalent) loan to the Republic of Croatia aimed at further improving the efficiency of Croatia's justice system − a necessary process in Croatia's path towards successful European Union accession.

Washington - The World Bank has approved a $461 million in additional financing to the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in support of the Second Minas Gerais Partnership for Development, an innovative public sector reform that resulted in significant improvements in the services provided by the State.

WASHINGTON - The World Bank's Board of Directors approved a US$30 million loan today, aimed at reducing the number and seriousness of traffic accidents in Argentina's road system, a South American country that registers a death rate from traffic accidents of 18.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the region.

New York: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over reports that demonstrators in Kyrgyzstan had seized a Government building and urged them to show restraint and respect the rule of law.