December 28, 2006	Thursday	Zilhaj 06, 1427

KARACHI, Dec 27: The United National Development Programme (UNDP), IBM and Oracle on Wednesday signed a joint research initiative to help Asia-Pacific countries share and create strategies, blueprints, and policies for adopting the right blend of open standards and technology services. The goal will be for more countries to develop universally compatible applications and networks to make internal and external government services and transactions more automatic, affordable and efficient, says a press release.