"Pakistan braced for more flooding in the south as officials began talks in Washington on Monday with the International Monetary Fund on how to shore up the battered economy to maintain stability. The IMF said it would review Pakistan's budget and economic prospects due to the magnitude of a disaster that has ravaged crops and infrastructure, left more than 4 million homeless and raised concerns that Islamist militants may exploit the chaos.

IMF help may come in the form of lowering some of the fiscal targets of the loan program or allowing the government to abandon it and take IMF emergency funding for countries hit by natural disasters. At least half a million people are living in schools in flood-hit areas. The cramped, unhygienic conditions, combined with food shortages and intense heat, raise the specter of potentially fatal disease outbreaks, such as cholera."

"ASEAN officials have vowed to cooperate more closely on logistics integration in the region, as officials estimate that government barriers account for 30 percent of the cost of moving goods between the 10 member states, including Cambodia. Members of the bloc launched a road map two years ago aimed at streamlining a number of business activities including supply, distribution and monitoring the movements of goods.

The road map encourages four paths of action -- lowering tariffs to increase the flow of goods, trade and investment liberalisation to improve investment in the logistics sector, enhancing the capacity of the sector and improving human resources capacity. Procedural delays on shipments are due to be reduced under the terms of the road map."

"Bangladesh has witnessed a changing pattern of regional inequality in terms of income and poverty between eastern, western and southwestern parts. A recent poverty assessment study said the eastern region integrated with growth poles of Dhaka and Chittagong has increasingly benefited in terms development compared to west and southwestern parts -- Rajshahi, Barisal and Khulna.

The regional inequality factor contributes to stagnant incomes in the lagging regions due to lack of remittance income, inadequate public infrastructure like electricity, roads to markets, lack of growth poles and deficiencies in assets. The western and northwestern regions have become more isolated compared to eastern ones, the study said. Improving the pace of poverty reduction and human development, addressing constrains remains enduring challenges for the economically lagging west and southwestern regions."

"A United Nations meeting which wrapped up in Bangkok on Sunday has encouraged businesses to embrace the rights and concerns of persons with disabilities, highlighting the untapped consumer power represented by an estimated 400 million people in the Asia-Pacific region. The meeting adopted a statement urging leadership development of persons with disabilities and the promotion of socially inclusive business development as priorities for the next regional decade on disability.

The Second Asia-Pacific Decade for Disabled Persons will conclude in 2012, and the Bangkok meeting recommended that governments in the region proclaim a new regional decade on disability starting from 2013. Many of the 400 million or so persons with disabilities in the region live in rural and isolated areas in conditions of abject poverty, encountering deep and persistent barriers."

"With one arm, China is pouring cold water on property speculators. With the other, it is tossing a life buoy to the real estate sector via increased spending on affordable housing. It is a tricky balancing act, and the stakes are high. The government must rein in housing prices before a bubble forms, while ensuring that investment in property, a cornerstone of the economy, remains robust.

There are only enough affordable homes in China now for about 6 percent of the urban population. It is estimated that the country needs to build 50 million more units to increase the coverage to 30 percent, and that could take another 30 years. In the past, promises to build more affordable housing amounted to little. Not enough was built, and much of what was built went to families who did not need subsidized homes."

"Authorities in the Marshall Islands are pushing a United Nations initiative to streamline funding and create an action plan to access funding to combat climate change. The country's UN Ambassador Mr. Muller is worried that billions of dollars pledged by donors to combat climate change and sea level rise may not reach the countries that need it.

At last December's global meeting on climate change in Copenhagen countries across the globe pledged $45 billion. Developed countries pledged to raise $30 billion from 2010 to 2012, as well as a goal of $100 billion by 2020 to help developing and low-emitting nations. But Mr. Muller says very little of this money has flown to the Marshall Islands and other developing nations that need it."

"News that the government plans to introduce nuclear power plants to Cambodia should be welcomed as a long-term boost for economic activity in the country, even if concerns over safety always plague the production of nuclear energy. Cambodia's woefully inadequate supply and transmission of electricity remains one of the main structural problems afflicting the economy, prompting high energy costs for the country's key industry, garment manufacture.

The only problem is that nuclear energy production is unlikely for many years, probably not until 2020. Still, at least the announcement shows the government is trying to solve the issue and is thinking long term while considering sensible answers to the energy problem."

"Many factors are working as disincentives to higher education in Bangladesh. Opportunities here for higher education have progressively decreased over the years. Hundreds of aspirants vie for a single seat in any of the departments of the Dhaka University. The scene is more or less the same in all other public institutions of higher learning in the country.

Many students with potential for higher education are finding themselves excluded from the opportunity of such education mainly because the number of general public universities and specialised universities has not increased. Furthermore, the capacities in such institutions have not expanded to make it possible for them to admit more students. The private universities that have cropped up, normally charge high fees that cannot be afforded by many otherwise good students."

"In some way, diplomacy could be analogous to someone who wants to travel from one place to another. In order to reach their destination at the right time and to make the journey comfortable, it is necessary to have a road map. China has effectively utilized the road between Beijing and Jakarta to establish a number of intersections through which the country has become well connected and has wider access to other countries and diplomatic forums in Southeast Asia.

By utilizing numerous diplomatic intersections it has built with the region, it is more likely that China will do its best to convince Jakarta that the more open the diplomatic road between Jakarta and Beijing, the larger the opportunity for Indonesia to get funding resources from China for building power plants, bridges and roads. A more realistic option for Indonesia would be to persuade China to accelerate noneconomic cooperation, with the objective that it could be carried out as fast as implementation in the economic field."

"The overwhelming success of SKS Microfinance's $342 million initial public offering marks a turning point not just for India's largest micro lender but for the most dynamic sector of the country's financial services industry. Although micro-credit organisations aren't strictly banks (in India, for-profit microfinance institutions or MFIs are barred from accepting retail deposits), they operate like banks in that they borrow money and lend it at a significant spread to the poor.

The SKS Microfinance IPO was a test case in more ways than one. In recent years many have come to view the MFI business as risky, if not as an outright bubble. Near 100% loan growth year after year is unsustainable, they said. Breakneck expansion was coming at the cost of prudence and valuations had gone through the roof. Some criticised the for-profit MFI for betraying microfinance's original purpose of helping the poor get access to credit."

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