On
World
Bank, Rice
Says Has Great
Job, Sachs
Only Says He's
Nominated
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 8 -- Two
reported World
Bank
presidency
candidates
were at the UN
Thursday
morning. One,
Susan Rice,
denied
candidacy.
The other,
Jeffrey Sachs,
declined to
comment beyond
saying he has
been nominated
by a number of
countries.
Then he
refused to
answer
questions
about Senegal
and Malawi.
As
US Ambassador
to the UN
Susan Rice
walked into
the Security
Council for a
debate on
Haiti, Inner
City Press
asked her,
"World Bank
bound?"
Rice slowed,
smiled and
replied,
"C'mon, I've
got a great
job." She is
also said to
be a candidate
to replace
Hillary
Clinton as
Secretary of
State, if
Barack Obama
wins a second
term.
An
hour later,
Jeffrey Sachs
held a press
conference
with UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon. While
Ban typically
did not take
any questions,
Sachs stayed
and waxed
poetic about
growth rates
in Africa.
Inner
City Press
asked Sachs a
question it
put to the
International
Monetary Fund
at
that morning's
briefing: why
was Senegal's
growth last
year two
percent, half
of what the
IMF predicted?
And, Inner
City Press
continued,
should Sachs
be considered
an "insider"
or
"inside the UN
system"
candidate?
Sachs
replied, "I
won't use this
occasion to
comment,
except that I
have been
nominated
by a number of
governments to
be World Bank
President.
[which] well
led could make
this progress
faster."
He
said, "I
don't know
about the
Senegal
situation."
This was on
the
Security
Council's
agenda this
week; Inner
City Press
then asked
about Malawi,
where Sachs
has a Villages
program. He
replied, "I
can't talk
about
individual
countries, I'm
not prepared
for that."
So would he be
prepared for
the World
Bank? Watch
this site.
, 
