United Nations Development Group

BELGRADE - A mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be visiting Belgrade from April 29 until May 12, as part of the first revision of a three-year precautionary Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), the office of the IMF resident representative for Serbia released on Monday.

I was in Washington D.C. from April 13 to 19 for the 2015 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. I summarized my first impressions in my April 17 column. I now would like go through the whole nine yards.

The response of the European Central Bank would be key to the consequences of a missed payment by Greece to the International Monetary Fund, Fitch Ratings said on Friday.

?We still see a last-minute deal to secure fiscal funding from Greece?s creditors as the most likely outcome, but the risk of a missed payment cannot be discounted.?

[Reuters]

The United Nations welcomed on April 24 the European Union's plan to triple the size of its naval search mission in the Mediterranean, but said the key test was whether lives were saved and those fleeing war had a chance of gaining asylum.

Piraeus Bank will write off credit cards and retail loans up to 20,000 euros ($21,484) for Greeks who qualify for help under a law the leftist government passed to provide relief to poverty-stricken borrowers, it said on Thursday.

The United Nations and the Republic of Turkey officially launched the new Istanbul Regional Hub on April 23 in a move that made the intercontinental city "the second global diplomatic center after New York," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu said.

Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici said Wednesday at the Government House that Romania's arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission will be restarted in order to be closed late this year.

Photo credit: LIVIU SOVA / AGERPRES STREAM

Noted US-based Indian economist Ashoka Mody, the IMF's former chief of mission to Ireland during the latter's bailout, took his former employer to task for its Greek programme, essentially saying that the organization merely participated in a scheme to guarantee German and French banks' exposure in Greece onto institutional lenders.

A technical mission of the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission will be in Bucharest May 19 through 26, Public Finances minister Eugen Teodorovici announced on Tuesday at the Parliament Palace.

Photo credit: (c) Liviu SOVA / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Four UNICEF employees have been murdered during an attack in Somalia, as reported by the organization's local headquarters.

Their car has been attacked in the region of Garowe. Information on the incident is still incomplete, but accoridng to preliminary information, four other UNICEF emplopyees have been hurt and are in severe condition.