In
DC,
Session on Corruption Hunting Is World Bank Ad, ICC Tales, Gaddafi
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
WASHINGTON
DC,
April 13 -- A World Bank session on “Corruption Hunting”
Wednesday at the International
Monetary Fund's & World Bank's Spring Meetings devolved
into little more than an advertisement for the Bank's work, from
Indonesia to tigers, and for its lack of planning and coordination.
Robert
Zoellick
spoke at the beginning and the end of the session, starting by
bragging of forcing restitution payments to Indonesia and ending with
the World Bank's work to preserve tigers, along with ASEAN.
At the
beginning he invited those in attendance, including the press, to
later ask questions. But after each of the six other speakers went
over-time, the public and press were excluded.
International
Criminal
Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo brushed off the
moderator, Bill Connor, saying “don't ruin my last story.” Connor
backed off, as he'd do later for Giovanni Kessler of Olaf and Boon
Hui Khoo of Interpol.
Ocampo's
story
began with the “Ukraine mafia” doing business in Ituri in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, and ended with “Ronald Desmet,”
whose aircraft “9QCMC” flew the DRC's Bemba as well as Viktor
Bout, and who according to Ocampo had Gaddafi's private number.
Libya
was
mentioned, as not being included in the World Bank report, but
Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia did not come up at all.
Zoellick & Ocampo nearly fall asleep on April
13, interaction not shown (c) MRLee
Rather,
Giovanni Kessler of Olaf bemoaned not being able to better
share information, and Singaporean Boon Hui Khoo of Interpol
complained of lack of resources.
Khoo
predicted
that the UN Security Council will never deem corruption a threat to
international peace and security, and therefore the ICC won't have
jurisdiction.
Not
mentioned, or
able to be questioned about, was Ocampo's Wikileaked briefing to
Susan Rice and Alejandro Wolff at the US Mission to the UN, urging
them to speaking publicly about Bashir of Sudan having $9 billion
dollars, and naming Lloyds Bank. There has been no follow through on
this. Watch this site.
* * *
Amid
Yemen
Crackdown,
IMF Meets With Central Bank, Denies DSK Nepotism
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
31 -- The IMF, which called the
outlook for Libya's
economy “favorable” as recently as February 15 of this year, is
still having “technical meetings” with the government of Yemen
even as protesters are gunned down, IMF spokesperson Caroline
Atkinson told Inner City Press on Thursday.
Inner
City
Press
submitted two questions to the IMF bi-weekly briefing on March 31,
including
“On
Yemen, please describe IMF's engagement with current gov't after
Ghazi Shbeikat's talks earlier this month, and any impact its killing
of protesters has had.”
Ms.
Atkinson translated
this
to “I have a question online about Yemen: Please
describe the IMF’s engagement with the current government after
talks earlier this month and any impact the violence has had.”
The
violence --
that is, the killing of protesters -- has been so bad even Yemen's
Permanent Representative to the UN Abduallah Alsaidi, former head of
the Group of 77 and China, has quit. Here was Ms.
Atkinson's (first)
answer:
“Of
course, in Yemen, Syria, and other cases we deplore any violence and
we hope for peaceful resolution of political issues–We have a
program actually outstanding with Yemen and there have been contacts
at a technical level with the central bank monitoring developments.
We have had contacts at a technical level with a number of central
banks in the region.”
Reporters
who
cover
the IMF but are not present in its briefing room are not
allowed follow up questions.
Dominique Straus-Kahn & Ben Ali per FP,
clairvoyance not shown
But in this
case, those
in the room
followed up:
QUESTION:
I’d
like
to follow up on Yemen. Is that program still in place or
has it been suspended in any way?
MS.
ATKINSON:
Well,
we do not suspend programs –-
QUESTION:
Well,
no,
sometimes you do when it comes to political issues -–
Ukraine, for example.
MS.
ATKINSON:
Well,
perhaps it is just semantics. Our programs remain in
place until they expire. Quite often in different occasions countries
may not draw under the programs for different reasons including that
we may not have reached agreement on economic policies or on policies
that we believe will be sufficient to justify the financing. In the
case of Yemen the Board approved a three year arrangement last July
under the extended credit facility. There has not been any
disbursement since then to Yemen.
There
are
a
number of objectives of the program: supporting strong growth;
diversifying the revenue base because there is an important need for
expenditures especially for the poor and the vulnerable; and
reprioritizing the expenditures to support capital investment as well
as social spending. We have been in discussions about that for a
number of months.
We'll
see.
Inner
City Press had submitted a second question, as it did without any
answer from the IMF two weeks ago:
“Please
state whether Dominique Strauss Kahn has any relatives working in the
World Bank or other UN affiliated organizations, and if so why this
does not run afoul of anti nepotism rules and principles?”
Two
weeks ago, the
IMF simply pretended this question had not been submitted. This time,
while Ms. Atkinson did not read it out, her deputy William Murray
later sent this answer:
“Matthew,
He has no relatives on the staff of the IMF. Given the premise of
your question, let me note that the Bank and UN are wholly separate
institutions from the IMF, with no fiscal or managerial connections.
At the IMF we certainly have nepotism rules, and they have not been
violated in any way.”
While
Inner
City
Press thanked Murray for the answer, follow up questions are
predicted. Watch this site.
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