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The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the fifth review of Hungary's economic performance under a program supported by a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA). The completion of the review makes available SDR 725 million (about €825 million or US$1,100 million), but the authorities do not intend to draw this amount.

New York: Bangladesh has become the first South Asian country to ratify the pact that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) and gave it a mandate for trying people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

New York: Violence against women and girls in El Salvador remains prevalent and pervasive, with the number of murders on the rise and kidnappings, sexual assaults and sexual harassment all too frequent, an independent United Nations human rights expert has warned.

Sierra Leone's macroeconomic performance in 2009 weakened due to the global economic slowdown. Real GDP is estimated to have slowed to 4 percent in 2009 from 5.5 percent in 2008. While lower fuel and domestic food prices eased inflationary pressures in the first half of 2009, the depreciation of the leone in the latter part of the year contributed to a rebound in inflation to 10.8 percent in December. In February 2010, inflation jumped to 17 percent, reflecting largely the challenges in implementing the new Goods and Services Tax in January, and higher domestic fuel prices. International reserves remained above 6 months of import cover.

Good progress was made in Ethiopia in the first half of 2009/10 in macroeconomic stabilization. Macroeconomic conditions continued to improve while broad-based growth momentum has been maintained. Overall, inflation decelerated sharply to 7.1% at end-2009 following very high inflation in 2008 and early 2009. But non-food inflation remains close to 20% and has been rising in recent months.

New York: Increasing numbers of journalists are being killed worldwide, mostly in countries that are at peace, the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) says in a new report, calling for an end to impunity in the murders of media professionals.

New York: Significant advances have been made in the fight against tuberculosis, with nearly 6 million people saved in the past 15 years, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said, calling for the momentum to be maintained in the fight against the deadly disease.

KOLKATA: The tabling of the Assam Public Health Bill in the State Assembly earlier this month is a major step forward to make health care easily affordable to the people. While introducing it, State Health Minister Himanata Biswa Sarma claimed it would “revolutionaize the health sector and make health care a right rather than charity.”

NEW DELHI: The continuous rise in the level of inflation, especially affecting the prices of essential commodities, has unnerved the ruling party leadership, and the Government has been urged to take priority measures to bring the prices down before the beginning of the new financial year. Earlier, the Finance Ministry had the feeling that the inflation will start easing by the middle of March but things have worsened further leading the Reserve Bank of India to revise upward the repo rates last week.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Experts on public-private partnerships (PPP) have agreed that more PPPs will be needed to meet demand for infrastructure finance estimated at $300 billion a year in Asia, and $93 billion in sub-Saharan Africa.