Volume one of this major new resource for medical researchers was recently placed online by the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS). This premiere NRR volume contains information on over 28,000 NHS-funded research projects, "as well as entries from the Medical Research Council's Clinical Trials Register, and details on reviews in progress collected by the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination." Users can search or browse the entries to locate unpublished research, identify researchers pursuing related subjects, and avoid duplication. Information available includes lead researcher, research question, methodology, sample group, project status, outcome measures and research project contacts.

The CIA World Factbook is widely recognized as one of the finest online resources for quick country information and the 1998 edition is now available. Data is available for over 250 countries. For each country, map and flag, geographic, population, government, economic, communication, transportation, military, and transnational issue information is provided for the latest available year.

World Economic Outlook and International Capital Markets Interim Assessment -- IMF [.pdf]

A critical update to the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook, the World Economic Outlook (WEO) and International Capital Markets (ICM) Interim Assessment examines recent international financial developments and provides revised economic forecasts for emerging and mature economies. The report includes a chapter on "systemic issues" and the "policy requirements" needed to curtail further market turbulence, but ends on a positive note with a modest dip in 1999 projected growth for the world economy from 1998 estimates at 2.2 percent.

Published by the Institute for Developing Economies (IDE), the 1999 Economic Outlook for East Asia analyzes the East Asian countries in 1998 and presents forecasts for 1999 (in English and Japanese). According to IDE, Thailand and South Korea will begin to see signs of recovery in the coming year, as the impact of the new Miyazawa Initiative is felt, although Hong Kong will remain "afflicted" by recession. Malaysia and Singapore are also expected to recover as will the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan. As a whole, the growth rate for the East Asian economies is predicted to rise to 3.1 percent in 1999 from 0.1 percent, and general prices are forecast to "swing back" to a single-digit inflation rate of 6.6 percent.