An official from the Davao del Sur town of Matanao lauded Wednesday the success of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in securing their hinterlands as various tourism sites are now sprouting in their municipality. Clover Jane Sabornido, Matanao tourism office head, recalled in an interview with the Philippine News Agency how their town was once infiltrated by New People’s Army (NPA) before becoming peaceful and ripe for tourism. “Matanao is a red zone for NPA before, but now we have opened various tourism sites and the people can visit anytime,” she said. For instance,

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is closely engaged with Ukraine on how to apply the best crisis management measures to prevent its economic collapse, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday. “I would say that money is important, but support in how to keep the financial system functioning is equally important,” Georgieva said in a live discussion held by US news publication Foreign Policy. “The devastation of the Ukrainian economy breaks my heart. We are likely to see shrinkage that could be a third of what it was before the war. Imagine how that translates into hardship on people,” she said.