Finance & Economics | WPN World People News

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first review of Albania’s economic performance under a program supported by an arrangement under the Extended-Fund Facility (EFF).

As fans enjoy football’s (soccer’s) month-long World Cup, Brazilian authorities are pleased over the boost they say the tournament is giving the country's economy. However, independent analysts who study such mega-events are less enthusiastic.

The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors approved a US$100 million credit for the Floods Emergency Recovery Project for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), to meet critical needs and restore the functionality of infrastructure essential for public services and economic recovery in affected areas in the aftermath of the worst flooding to hit the country in documented history.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the sixth and seventh reviews of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) economic performance under a program supported by a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA). The Executive Board also approved an augmentation of the SBA by SDR 84.55 million (about €95.7million) to meet the country’s urgent balance of payments need caused by severe floods in May 2014. The completion of the reviews and the augmentation enables a total disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 169.1 million (about €191.4 million), which will bring total disbursements under the arrangement to SDR 422.75 million (about €478.5 million).

The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved a total US$73.05 million in ongoing support for Burkina Faso’s program to boost the productivity of agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry activities to ensure food security for the country’s rural poor.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the third review of Pakistan’s economic performance under a three-year program supported by an arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The completion of the review enables an immediate disbursement of an amount equivalent to SDR 360 million (about US$555.9 million).

More than 56,000 families (approximately 200,000 people) will benefit from a US$ 150 million loan approved by the World Bank Board of Directors. The Bahia Sustainable Rural Development Project will provide assistance for small rural producers to increase their outputs and access markets. It will also support the economic integration of traditionally marginalized groups such as households headed by single women, indigenous communities and quilombola communities of afro-descendants.

In a decision written by Aristotelian idiot Justice Antonin Scalia, the United States Supreme Court on June 16 sided with the bloodiest of vulture funds, NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management, in their effort to use American courts to gain discovery of all Argentine financial movements worldwide, in order to seize that country’s assets in payment for defaulted bonds. The Supreme Court simultaneously upheld a lower court ruling by Federal Judge Thomas Griesa, that Argentina had to immediately pay $1.5 billion to NML Capital and other “holdouts” against Argentina’s 2005 sovereign debt restructuring, and that Argentine assets anywhere in the world could be seized to execute that payment—including the $900 million that Argentina must pay on June 30 to its other creditors who renegotiated in good faith.

In Europe and Central Asia, countries such as Albania, Croatia, Moldova and Romania are making strong headway in minimizing waste of public funds and improving social protection systems’ performance.

Percentage of spending on higher education R&D that is financed by industry