Germany, France and Italy plan to sign up for China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, joining the UK in a project that is raising concern in Washington.

The Asian Development Bank is cutting its economic growth forecast for developing Asia because of weakness in China and India and jitters over plans to scale back US stimulus.

Ireland is the newest member of the Asian Development Bank and despite austerity and hardship last year contributed $27m (€20m) to help fund facilities in developing countries.

Engineering, architecture and project management company PM Group has been awarded a series of new project management and design contractswith a capital value of over €151m by clients in south-east Asia.

Islamist terrorists may exploit the chaos and misery caused by the floods in Pakistan to gain new recruits, the country’s president said today.

THE PM Group has beaten off stiff competition to win €10 million in EU-funded consultancy projects in the Balkans.

Rice-exporting nations plan to discuss a proposed cartel to control the price of the staple food today, a day after a regional development bank called for sharper fiscal policies to help a billion poor people in Asia cope with skyrocketing food prices.

IRELAND has become the 66th international member of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) — the organisation aimed at improving the welfare of poorest people in Asia and the south Pacific region.

IRELAND’S entry into membership of the Asian Development Bank was the topic of a seminar to raise awareness of business opportunities presented by Enterprise Ireland and IBEC.

Scores more foreign soldiers today landed in East Timor to bolster a force struggling to stop mob violence in the capital.

International rescue workers today rushed to get medical care, water and shelter to some 650,000 people displaced by Indonesia’s earthquake, aided by the reopening of the airport closest to the disaster zone.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan beseeched the world's governments and private donors yesterday to give more generously to help millions of Pakistanis rebuild lives and homes destroyed by last month's earthquake.

Health authorities today launched a two-week campaign to immunise 800,000 children among quake victims in divided Kashmir following concerns that infectious disease could thrive in the crowded and sometimes squalid tent camps for survivors.

The estimated death toll in South Asia’s earthquake jumped to more than 87,000 today, the one-month anniversary of the disaster, as survivors prepared for the region’s savage Himalayan winter.

The death toll in South Asia’s huge October 8 quake jumped today to 87,350 following a new assessment of Pakistan’s casualties, officials announced.

THREE Indonesian children are feared to be the latest victims of bird flu as the Asian Development Bank warned the disease could trigger a global recession if a pandemic breaks out.

Pacific Rim finance officials have warned that sustained high energy prices risk economic growth.

Diarrhoea blamed on late monsoon floods has killed one child and stricken hundreds of others in south-western Bangladesh, relief officials said today.

Despite the impact of the deadly Sars virus, Asia’s 41 developing economies will still outperform the rest of the world with 5.3% growth this year, down from 5.7% in 2002, the Asian Development Bank said in its annual forecast today.

The international community was today discussing plans for the recovery and rebuilding of Afghanistan, which the United Nations likens to the five-year reconstruction of war-ravaged Mozambique that cost $6.5bn (£4bn).

The death and damage estimates from the earthquake that ravaged the western Indian state of Gujarat in January have been dramatically scaled down - and local officials now say they don’t need £377m in emergency loans.

Experts from across the world are set to be asked for their opinions on protecting the Taj Mahal.

A top Chinese official has said he believes his country and the United States have resolved their dispute over the downed US spy plane, and agreed to hold China’s highest level meeting with the Bush administration since the crisis began.

British rescue workers believe they can find more survivors of the Indian earthquake which has already claimed more than 6,000 lives.