Daily Press Cuttings

 

Friday 1st September 2000

FT: South America/Brazil: Today's meeting of 12 South American presidents in Brasilia will be the first time the region's leaders have sat alone around the same table. The summit raises some intriguing questions. Foreign policy specialists are asking if the western hemisphere is beginning to evolve into two separate blocks, one in the north dominated by the US and the other in the south, guided by Brazil. IMF: The IMF yesterday further opened its books to public scrutiny, detailing for the first time which governments provide it with resources. The Fund has been gradually becoming more open about its finances in response to criticism from the US Congress and others that it has been an excessively secret organisation. The new disclosures show 36 governments on the list of those standing ready to provide the IMF with funds at the end of May, though only 34 had actually provided resources. The two others—Trinidad and Tobago and the Czech Republic had recently joined the creditor group and their resources had not been called on. Withdrawals and additions to the creditor list are fairly frequent. The US itself withdrew during the dollar's travails in 1978, while South Korea was also a creditor until just before its financial crisis in 1997. World Bank: The World Bank and other leading aid agencies are considering drawing up a blacklist of companies found to be paying bribes to win aid-financed contracts. The bank's legal department is looking at the idea together with other multilateral development banks and aid agencies. Companies listed would be barred from bidding for aid-related contracts. Colombia/US: FT leader says that the US and other drug consuming countries must give more attention to efforts to reduce demand for drugs. Decriminalisation is unpalatable to many and so unlikely to happen soon. The best way to reduce demand is through education, accurate information, and appropriate care and rehabilitation of users. A cash injection for Colombia's government is not good enough.

The Independent: Uganda/debt relief: Comment from journalist and former politician Michael Brown on his visit in the early 1980s to Uganda. “As a tough Thatcherite I had previously had no time for overseas aid, believing that most of Africa's problems were a consequence of the abandonment of colonialism and entirely the fault of the new black rulers. That visit—with no electricity, no water and the most disgusting food I have ever eaten—opened my eyes to the reality of poverty that I had read about but never seen. As a result of this trip, I became convinced of the need to wipe out Third World debt and to increase overseas aid.” UN/democracy: Excerpt from a recent speech by Kofi Annan, secretary general of the UN, saying that democracy in parts of the world is threatened today by a new danger, which he calls “fig-leaf democracy”—attempts to cloak the outright subversion of democracy in the mantle of defending it. He says that good governance depends critically on the stability and security of parliaments.

The Guardian: Sierra Leone/UK: Stakes were rising last night in the increasingly desperate efforts to secure the release of the remaining six British soldiers in Sierra Leone as their captors, the renegade West Side Boys, made a series of near-impossible demands, including dissolving President Kabbah's government in favour of a power-sharing administration. Indonesia: Indonesia's attempt to try its former dictator Suharto for corruption stumbled at the first hurdle yesterday when, as expected, he failed to appear, citing poor health.

The Economist: South Africa: Economist leader says that South African leader Thabo Mbeki would like his country to be influential. Although his recent flirtation with a fringe theory about AIDS has somewhat eroded his credibility, few leaders articulate poor countries' grievances more convincingly. Mr Mbeki makes a coherent moral case for increased access to rich countries' markets, for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions, and even for causes from which South Africa does not stand to benefit. The Economist concludes that to increase South Africa's influence, the place he must start is his own doorstep.