The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in March issued international financial reporting standards (IFRS) 3, Business Combinations; 4, Insurance Contracts; and 5, Non-current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations (http://shop.iasb.org.uk/cmt/0001.asp).

* The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in March issued international financial reporting standards (IFRS) 3, Business Combinations; 4, Insurance Contracts; and 5, Non-current Assets Held for Sale and Discontinued Operations (http://shop.lasb.org. uk/cmt/0001.asp). In conjunction with its issuance of IFRS 3, the IASB also revised international accounting standards (IAS) 36, Impairment of Assets, and 38, Intangible Assets; together they require, among other things, that all business combinations within the scope of IFRS 3 be accounted for using the purchase method and that the pooling-of-interests method no longer be used. IFRS 4 provides the first international guidance on insurance contracts, and IFRS 5 is the initial standard resulting from the IASB's joint project with the Financial Accounting Standards Board to reduce differences between IFRSs and GAAP. The standards will take effect when individual jurisdictions adopt them. To date several of these authorities--including Australia, the European Union and Russia--have said they would require observance of international standards on or before January 1, 2005.