World Bank Blinded by 'Surging Capital Flows' - Quantity Not Quality Exalted in
Bank's New Global Development Finance Report
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the United Nations
NEW YORK, May 30 --
Foreign investment as a shorthand for progress: that is the subtext of a new
World Bank report, "2006 Global Development Finance," embargoed until minutes
before this report. The report, which should now be available
online,
uncritically presents what it calls "surging capital flows" as positive. The
report denounces "regulatory burdens" and praising any "simplifying... of
capital controls." It's a Manichean World (Bank) -- anything that might slow
such surges down is bad, any increase is good. But for whom?
Inner
City Press questioned the report's lead author, Mansoor Dailami, and his trendy
colleague Hans Timmer at the United Nations on May 25. It was a full five days
before anything could be written. One journalist remarked that while a heads-up
is nice, a five day embargo conveys an over-development sense of this
development report's importance. On May 25 in the basement of UN headquarters,
the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII) was meeting. Bolivia's new
foreign minister had explained his government's nationalization of the natural
gas industry, to combat foreign producers rip-off of his country. Inner City
Press asked about this, but the World Bank authors' faith in free markets was
unshaken. They referred to a need to periodically re-divide the rent -- but
foreign investment and ownership of a poor nation's infrastructure was the only
way to go, they implied.
Inner
City Press asked about the recent case in which the U.S.-based hedge fund Lone
Star is paying $100 million for misdeeds during its buying and selling of Korea
Exchange Bank (KEB). Citigroup faces even more serious challenges in Korea to
its acquisition of KorAm Bank, including workers' strikes and charges of
predatory lending. The World Bankers shrugged and referred to "specific cases,"
as in, "actually results may different" or "past events do not guarantee future
performance." The World Bank web site contains
another report, reciting
that "Citigroup acquired KorAM Bank. Similarly,
acquisitions of Korea Exchange Bank and LG Card, are expected to be major
determinants of direct investment inflows for 2006."
With Paul Wolfowitz
slated to
visit Seoul on May 30-31, perhaps he'll take the time to see the other side of
Citigroup's and Lone Star's moves in South Korea.
Wolfowitz@UN
Back at the UN,
Inner City Press asked for a response to the PFII's critique of the World Bank's
decision, on projects it funds, to consult with but not seek the consent of
impacted indigenous communities. The report's authors could not answer, but soon
appearing in the Delegates' Lounge was Oscar A. Avalle of the World Bank Office
of the Special Representative to the United Nations. "Consultation is very
meaningful," he said. But as the PFII meeting closed on May 26, the same
dissatisfaction with the World Bank was voiced. Plus ca change...
On
Congo, Cognitive Dissonance at the UN, While UK Calls for Crackdown on LRA's
Joseph Kony
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
26 -- "The election will be credible," responded France's Permanent
Representative to the UN Jean-Marc de La Sabliere to questions Friday on Congo,
to which he and nine other Permanent Representatives will travel next month
after Sudan.
Inner City Press
had asked about reports of mass displacement in Ituri, and about
most observers' skepticism about
current president Kabila's claims that an opponent has attempted a coup with
foreign mercenaries. Amb. de La Sabliere did not answer about the purported coup
attempt, but spoke at length, as the UN's Ross Mountain has, about the number of
polling places and the 25 million people who have registered to vote. "I cannot
answer as to each village, in Ituri or Kivu," he said, "the DRC forced back by
MONUC have done a good job."
Earlier
on Friday at the UN, at a briefing on
children's right to HIV and AIDS treatment,
the president of World Vision International Dean Hirsch had answered a question
from Inner City Press about the lack of AIDS treatment in Congo by stating that
"the DRC is the greatest tragedy on earth," comparing it to Darfur.
The two
statements, made three hours apart from the briefing podium in Room 226 of UN
Headquarters, lead to cognitive dissonance. Does the continuing level of
violence and underdevelopment in the Democratic Republic of Congo make it the
world's worst tragedy? Or is everything looking up, at Amb. de La Sabliere and
Ross Mountain have it, in light of an election scheduled for July 31, into which
the UN is clearly invested? At what point does wanting the election to go well
become whitewashing the world's world humanitarian crisis? And how can a
Security Council member or mission declare, in advance of their visit as well as
of the election, that an election "will be credible"?
"Ituri Explorer" / MONUC
At the Security
Council briefing, UK Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry responded to Inner City Press'
question regarding the Lord's Resistance Army that the LRA has "wrecked havoc"
leading to (among other things) one and a half displaced people; he reiterated
that Kony has been indicted by the ICC and that the indictment should "be
implemented" and Kony should "face justice." The spokesman for the Secretary
General, who the previous day had said he'd inquire and get a response, provided
one late Friday, quoted here in full:
"Northern Uganda
continues to experience an enormous humanitarian crisis with 1.7 million
Internally Displaced Persons resulting from more than 20-year old conflict. The
Lord's Resistance Army activity is one of the most violent and vicious ever seen
and it is in everybody's interest to implement the International Criminal Court
indictments against its leaders. We are aware of contacts mediated by Sudanese
VP Salva Kiir to arrange for a political solution to the LRA. The Ugandan
Government insists its amnesty applies to all LRA elements with the exception of
its two top leaders Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti. Although recognizing the LRA
phenomena has to be addressed from a comprehensive military as well as
humanitarian, political, social and economic perspective the overall focus
should be on protection of the innocent, respect of human rights and fight
against impunity."
There it
is. In other UN news, David Balton, with the long-winded title Chair of the
Review Conference on the Agreement for the Conservation and Management of
Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, predicted that Japan will be
signing on to the agreement "in a week or two," but that outside the agreement
remain large fishing counties such as China, Indonesia, Philippines and South
Korea. He indicated his awareness of reports of the rogue trawlers Isabella,
Carmen, Rosita, Eva and Juanita being serviced in Germany, Lithuania and Poland;
his co-briefer Fernando Curcio responded that the European Commission is acting
on this, and promised to provide documents in a week or so.
Asked by
Inner City Press if any fishing industry participants are members of the UN
Global Compact, and if the Global Compact has had or could have any role in
rooting out illegal, unreported and unregulated (UII) fishing, Mr. Balton said
not to date, but that it might be worth asking the Global Compact.
Speaking
still of global, in the future tense, at Friday's Global Movement for Children
briefing, UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman also answered on Congo,
stating that she'd been to DRC this year and speaking passionately about the
rape of children there. Responding to a question from Inner City Press about the
more than 50 member states which have not provided any response to UNAIDS'
survey, Ms. Veneman
encouraged attendance
next Tuesday at a May 30 UNAIDS press conference. Watch this site.
Conflict Cocoa in Cote D'Ivoire But Maybe No Election; In Security Council, Late
Night on Timor L'Este; In Kosovo, UN Uses Tear Gas Though the Spin
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee at the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, May
25 -- In Cote D'Ivoire, thirty percent of cocoa production leaves the country
through informal channels, according to the UN's Abdoulaye Mar Dieye. This
constitutes, among other things, tax evasion. Inner City Press inquired at
Thursday's
briefing into the use of child labor in cocoa production, an issue on which
Nestle and ADM have been sued. Abdoulaye Mar Dieye responded by referring to a
study that's about to come out. In a subsequent interview he suggested that
cocoa production might need something akin to the Kimberly process on conflict
diamonds. (Click
here for
information on the Kimberly process).
Abdoulaye Mar
Dieye reiterated the recent
statements of
Gerard Stoudmann that elections by the October 31, 2006, deadline are "still
technically feasible," although they would require bending if not breaking some
procedural rules; he acknowledged that the deadline might not be met. Abdoulaye
Mar Dieye stated that there are 700,000 internally displaced people in Cote
D'Ivoire (OCHA's
web site put
the figure at 500,000.)
Guiglo per UNHCR
On another
displacing issue further east in Africa, with the government in South Sudan
offering to mediate between Uganda and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army,
Inner City Press asked Kofi Annan's spokesman if the Secretary-General, now in
Bangkok, has a position on whether South Sudan should arrest Kony, who has been
indicted by the International Criminal Court.
It was
said that a response will be forthcoming.
What are the
odds? A day after the UN's Soren Jessen-Petersen
denounced as misinformation
reports of attacks on Serbs in Kosovo, in the village of Krushe e Vogel / Mala
Krusa stones were thrown at two Serb defense lawyers. he UN Police responded
with tear gas. The previous day's
press release had
"analyzed 1,408
Kosovo Serb convoys that were escorted by the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) during
January to early May this year. It was found that there had been six incidents
of stone throwing at these convoys and police had made five arrests in those
cases."
That is, less than
four-tenths of one percent of convoys were attacked. So what were the odds of it
happening the very next day? TInner City Press raised the incident at the
noon briefing; the questions, both unasked and unanswered, is why the UN attempt
to spin in some areas while remaining silent on many others, for example on the
"clandestine" violator of the arms embargo in Somalia and the metering of oil in
Iraq.
As the
meeting of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues winds down, a briefing was
held and these numbers presented: 1200 indigenous representatives attended along
with 55 member states. Three of the states, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand,
openly spoke out against the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, not only against the notion of requiring the consent of indigenous
people to projects on their land but also the reference in Article 3 to the
right to self-determination. Inner City Press inquired into Indonesia's
position on self-determination for indigenous people, in light of West Papua.
The chairwoman responded that Indonesia was not involved in the drafting process
in Geneva, nor in this Permanent Forum meeting. Asked about the issues of
missionaries, conversions and adoptions, under the rubric of loss of culture,
Forum member Wilton Littlechild said the matter is not only in the draft, but
also before the Commission on the Rights of the Child. In a separate interview
in the basement outside Conference Room 2, Mr. Littlechild described several
class actions in Canada on these issues, alleging cultural genocide. Since the
treatment by courts of claims of cultural genocide is an open question, one
wonders if the Declaration -- in one its 19 perambulatory paragraphs or 45
articles -- shouldn't address the need in nations' laws for just such a cause of
action.
Finally,
on Timor L'Este, events in Dili were murkily described at the Security Council
stake-out at 5:40 p.m. by the UN's head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno.
"Often we leave too early," he said. Inner City Press asked if events in Timor
L'Este might cause a rethinking of fast UN pullouts from such locations at
Burundi. "Generally," Mr. Guehenno answered, "one should not be penny-wise and
pound-foolish." He added that before leaving, one should make sure that the
majority and the minority get along in a democratic fashion. Yes, one should...
The Security
Council was to re-convene at 10 p.m.. Knowledgeable correspondents ascribed this
to the need for the Chinese delegation to get word from Beijing; drained
correspondents awaited the recently-dancing Chinese press attache, past
deadline.
In the lull at the
Security Council stakeout, informed / uniformed sources opined that next month
World Cup soccer games will be broadcast in the lounge outside the Security
Council, but not outside ("If it was still Mr. Lavrov [as Russian envoy to the
UN] and it was up to him, it would be on TV in the Council too," one said).
At 9:56 p.m., a
spokesman for China passing through the stakeout explained they had to call
their Ministry, and didn't want to wake people up. "Now it's 10 a.m. in Beijing,
we've gotten our instructions, it should all go quickly now." -Filed 9:58
p.m. Eastern
At 10:10 p.m., a
passing spokesman disclosed that, with the word "warmly" dropped, it is being
passed. -Filed 10:11 p.m.
All this for
six minutes (in Real).
At 10:23 p.m.,
Japan's envoy expressed hope that the UN will not have to reconstitute a
peacekeeping force, but stated that when Ian Martin reports back, this too may
be considered. There was much joking about returning to dinner, with references
to Chinese takeout, and Japanese tea. Some looked for stronger fare. -Final
filing
10:25 p.m. Eastern
A sample earlier
report, from Brussels --
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee, in Brussels
BRUSSELS, April 28 --
Ears ringing with the talk of waste within the UN system, an Inner City Press
reporter yesterday visited the consolidated, scaled back and renamed UN Regional
Information Center (UNRIC) in Brussels, to see how an early attempt at
cost-saving is working out.
On
narrow, car-filled Rue de la Loi, just passed the European Commission, the UNRIC
is tucked in on the 7th and 8th floors of a stately building in the Residence
Palace compound. Outside are construction zones, the city literally torn-up to
build office space for the ten new EU members. Inside UNRIC it is spacious, with
hardwood floors and uncaptioned photos of each Secretary-General. The UNRIC's
deputy director is an engaging Dane who is among other things the answer to the
UN system Jeopardy question: who was the spokesman for the president of the
General Assembly when the World Trade Towers were demolished by hijacked plane?
Who is... Jan Fischer. Mr. Fischer also served the UN in Iraq in 1993, along
with a stint in Australia. He knows the System, and the context of the
cost-cutting he's witnessed at the UNRIC.
The
travel budget the more than half-dozen country desk officers based in Brussels
is $16,000 for six months. This has resulted in fewer trips to the countries
covered by each desk officer, and even to them staying with family and friend on
such trips. There's a striking correlation between surname and country covered:
Carlos Jimenez for Spain, Fabio Graziosi for Italy, Dimitrios Fatouros for
Greece and so forth. The desk officers were once "national information
officers," which required this consonance. Now that they've had to move to
Brussels, they've been "professionalized," in the parlance of the UN civil
service. Still some stay with friends and family on their UN trips back home.
In
Brussels some 15,000 journalists cover the doings of the European Union and to
some degree NATO. It is hard, Jan Fischer says, for UN news to break through.
They hold press conferences, and briefings by visiting UN envoys, from conflict
diamonds to the rights of the child. Across from the well-guarded United States
embassy, there's a storefront for UNICEF, with its tell-tale blue sign. The UN's
refugee agency, it appears from a list, has a dozen Brussels employees, seeking
EU funding for their far-flung operations. UNRIC tries to get their stories
told. Mr. Fischer says he'd rather say too much than too little; he suggests
that the media not abandoned UN staffers who go off script and speak their
minds. It's a plan that makes much sense, and one that we will follow. This
series of occasional visits with continue from Inner City Press, consonant with
the cost-cuts as they come.
Footnote: in a
third-floor room in the European Parliament on April 27, Green party delegate
Heide Ruhle listened while nodding to consumer advocates despairing of non-bank
input into the pending Consumer Credit Directive. When asked, with an
administrative colleague, about merger review in the Euro zone, the Green
response was that review by particular nations is outmoded. Will Brussels'
review consider predatory lending? That remains unclear.
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
Kinshasa Election
Nightmares, from Ituri to Kasai. Au Revoir Allan Rock; the UN's
Belly-Dancing
Working with
Warlords, Insulated by Latrines: Somalia and Pakistan Addressed at the
UN
The Silence of
the Congo and Naomi Watts; Between Bolivia and the World Bank
Human Rights
Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins
from SUVs
Child Labor and
Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu
Press Freedom?
Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security
Council
The
Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens
Background Checks
at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from
Turkmenbashi's Single Book
Ripped Off Worse
in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in
Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds
Burundi: Chaos at
Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated
by Forty Until 4 AM
In Liberia, From
Nightmare to Challenge; Lack of Generosity to Egeland's CERF, Which
China's Asked About
The Chadian
Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the
Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come
Through the UN's
One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations,
Even Nuclear Areva
Racial
Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks
Mine Your Own
Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the
Paparazzi
Human Rights Are
Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still
Murky
Iraq's Oil to be
Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in
their Camps
The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In Congolese
Chaos, Shots Fired at U.N. Helicopter Gunship
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Abkhazia:
Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
Citigroup
Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference
Other Inner City Press
reports are archived on
www.InnerCityPress.org -
For reporting about banks, predatory
lending, consumer protection, money laundering, mergers or the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click
here for Inner
City Press's
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