Manila - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday announced a fresh 4-billion-peso (88.88-million-dollar) subsidy programme to help poor Filipinos cope with higher prices.

Arroyo said 1 billion pesos would help poor consumers pay their electricity bills while another 1 billion pesos would be used to fund microfinancing projects for wives of public transport workers.

The rest of the money would finance the upgrade of government hospitals to accommodate more indigent patients, a programme for senior citizens and the rehabilitation of typhoon-devastated areas, she said.

"We will continue to provide funds to help sectors who are severely affected by the rising oil prices," Arroyo said at a cabinet meeting where she ordered the allocation of the funds.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided on Tuesday to keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.5 per cent.

Wellington - New Zealand's annual inflation rate reached 4 per cent in the 12 months ending June 30, sharply up from 3.4 per cent in March, according to official figures on Tuesday.

Washington, July 14: A researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) believes that higher fuel prices may lead to a reduction in the deaths from road accidents.

Dr. Michael Morrisey, director of UAB''s Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, says that an analysis of yearly vehicle deaths compared to gas prices suggests that fatality rates drop significantly as people slow down and drive less.

In the study report, he writes that traffic deaths could drop by more than 1,000 per month nationwide if gas remains at four dollars a gallon or higher for a year or more.

Singapore - The major ASEAN economies are likely to deliver higher-than-expected growth this year, but the outlook for 2009 looks challenging, economists said in a published report on Saturday.

Morgan Stanley raised its 2008 growth forecast for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to 5.6 per cent from an earlier estimate of 5.5 per cent.

The investment bank kept intact its recently upgraded GDP growth projections for Malaysia at 5.7 per cent and Thailand at 5.6 per cent.

It jacked up the forecast for Indonesia by half a point to 6 per cent and cut Singapore's from 5.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent, said the breakdown in The Business Times.