Daily Press Cuttings

 

Friday 3^rd December 1999

The Times: World Bank: The former chief economist of the World Bank resigned his post because he felt under pressure to silence his criticism of the US Treasury and the IMF it emerged yesterday. Joe Stiglitz, 56, said he believed it would have been “a form of complicity” to keep his outspoken views to himself and remain in his job as head of the World Bank's economic unit. “Rather than muzzle myself, or be muzzled, I decided to leave,” Mr Stiglitz told the New York Times. Mr Stiglitz has been at the forefront of academic criticism of the so-called “Washington consensus”—prescriptions for economic crises that include raising interest rates and shunning capital controls. His views have frequently taken him into conflict with the IMF and the US Treasury, prompting speculation that Lawrence Summers, Treasury Secretary, had urged the President of the World Bank to persuade his chief economist to keep quiet.

FT: World Trade: Negotiations on the agenda for a world trade round appeared to be nearing make-or-break point yesterday, after an acrimonious session at which many World Trade Organisation members protested that they were not being allowed to play a full role in the preparations. Diplomats said that ministers and delegates, mainly from developing countries, booed an pounded their desks to complain that they were not being fully consulted. Many also condemned US President Bill Clinton's call on Wednesday for the WTO to develop labour standards backed by sanctions. World Bank: Letter from economist Jagdish Bhagwati responds to FT coverage of the resignation from the World Bank of Joe Stiglitz. Mr Stiglitz's resignation, known to all as a dismissal with a fig leaf, is a sorry episode, whose chief perpetrator (President Jim Wolfensohn) has got instead a second term from Washington. But this cloud has a silver lining. Mr Stiglitz returns to Stanford to renew his scholarly research: economists everywhere can only rejoice. Mozambique: Article states that President Chissano is expected to be re-elected this weekend in the country's presidential and parliamentary elections, but it is not certain that his ruling party, Frelimo, which has been in power since independence, will maintain its parliamentary majority.

The Guardian: World Trade: Hopes of a breakthrough in the stalled global trade talks rose dramatically last night after the EU and the US agreed a deal over the vexed issue of agriculture. With the fate of the global trade talks in Seattle hanging in the balance, trade negotiators came up with an 11^th-hour compromise that would allow Washington and Brussels to sign up to new talks on reducing farm subsidies. Education/Oxfam: Journalist Victoria Brittain looks at the education crisis in Africa. She says that it is an international scandal that at the end of the 20^th century children in a rich, oil-producing country, Angola, gather on the grass under a tree with not a book or pencil in sight. Or that in rural Tanzania one book is shared among 30. Oxfam has proposed a “Compact for Africa” to the value of $3.6 billion a year over 10 years, offering real financial backing for governments serious about education. It is proposed that $2.6 billion of this come from international aid and from debt relief. But $1 billion a year would come from African governments themselves, requiring them to redistribute their own resources, in particular the obscene $7 billion spent each year on arms.

Thursday 2nd December 1999

FT: World Trade/Debt relief: Michel Camdessus, Managing director of the IMF, said yesterday that recent initiatives to expand debt relief for poor countries would be “almost irrelevant” without parallel opportunities for them to export more to the industrialised world. “Debt relief alone is nonsense,” he told journalists after addressing the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Seattle where he underlined the importance of trade in pulling countries out of poverty. Priority should be given to the proposed initiative to grant duty-free market access to industrialised country markets for the world's poorest countries which should include the heavily indebted poor countries covered by the latest official debt reduction arrangements. Oxfam welcomed Mr Camdessus' remarks on the importance of trade to poorer nations. AIDS: Many of the 11 million children of parents who have died of AIDS are stigmatised, denied education and assumed to be affected with the virus, according to a UN report published yesterday. The UNAIDS report said that “The AIDS pandemic has turned sub-Saharan Africa into a killing field, creating an orphan crisis of epic proportions requiring nothing less than an emergency response.” US/Trade: US President Bill Clinton sought to persuade developing countries that his government's demands that the WTO deal with labour rights and environmental policy were not intended to close the US market to their exports. Seattle: Seattle authorities yesterday clamped down on protests at the World Trade Organisation ministerial talks, arresting about 250 people who entered a security zone and taking them by bus to a wire-fenced area on the city's outskirts. The local police were joined by reinforcements from elsewhere in the state as well as two units of the National Guard who were brought in by the governor after the city declared a stated of emergency overnight. Burundi: Nelson Mandela was yesterday appointed mediator for peace talks in strife-torn Burundi, raising cautious hopes of a new impetus toward reconciliation in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Russia: Russia failed to clinch a deal with the London Club of private creditors, but said that it was still hoping to restructure the $32 billion Soviet-era debt before the end of the year. Russia/IMF: With $20 billion of loans outstanding to Moscow, the IMF's role has changed from credit agency to debt-collector.

The Times: India: While the western world busies itself with millennium preparations, people in the Indian state of Orissa have more serious issues to contend with. Tens of thousands of adults and children face a grim winter after the cyclone that hit the coastal belt in October, leaving 12 million people homeless and causing devastation in what was already one of India's poorest states.

IHT: Vietnam: Article argues that Vietnam has not stopped reforming, but the progress is slow. Farm output remains buoyant, and the remarkable reduction in rural poverty achieved since doi moi—the reform movement--began is continuing.

The Guardian: World Trade: The US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky promised that Washington would announce support for a package that would give duty-free access to America for most exports from the world's 48 poorest countries, bringing the US into line with the EU and Japan. The industrialised countries are hoping that the gesture will make developing countries more willing to agree to a new round of talks.

The Independent: Congo (DRC): A peace deal for the Democratic Republic of Congo signed four months ago looked increasingly threatened yesterday when the government reportedly increased its aerial bombardment of the centre of the country in an attempt to free 700 Zimbabwean troops besieged by rebels.

Wednesday 1st December 1999

FT: AIDS: Feature article says that AIDS is now the biggest killer of young adults in Africa. The future of the next generation rests on whether governments and companies can join forces to control the disease. Shortly before World Aids day today, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS issued its latest update on the spread of the disease. It noted that most of the 23.3 million infected people in sub-Saharan Africa would die in the next decade. Within a few years life expectancy in southern Africa will fall from 59 to 45 years. East Africa: The Presidents of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya re-established their long defunct East African Community yesterday, but shied away from committing the bloc to a clear timetable for trade liberalisation. Nigeria: The most comprehensive report carried out in Nigeria into the prevalence of the HIV virus, published to coincide with world AIDS day warns that the epidemic has reached an explosive stage. The survey was carried out by the Nigerian government and is part sponsored by the World Health Organisation and Britain's Department for International Development. The report predicts that 4.9 million Nigerians will be carrying the AIDS virus by 2003.

IHT: World Trade/Seattle: Thousands of protesters delayed the official opening of a landmark World Trade Organisation meeting on Tuesday by several hours before police used pepper spray and rubber bullets to push them back. Several arrests were reported, but no injuries. However, the demonstrations that had brought 50 000 people to Seattle were mostly peaceful. In Washington, President Bill Clinton acknowledged that “more people are going to demand to be heard” and said that it was a good thing. He is scheduled to travel to Seattle to address the WTO on Wednesday. WTO/ILO: Juan Somavia, director general of the International Labour Organisation warns that the promotion of free trade must not overlook the world's people. Harnessing the forces of globalisation for the benefit of working people, their families and their communities—that is the objective we must collectively pursue, in Seattle and whenever we meet in the years ahead. Comment from the Economist says that by trying to force labour rights onto the agenda for the new round, the US and Europe are playing with fire. Globalisation is not irreversible. Unless governments come out fighting for free trade in Seattle and beyond, the huge gains it has brought will be lost. Namibia: The elections this week are unlikely to change the ruling SWAPO government, but its dominance will be chipped away at by opposition parties.

The Guardian: Seattle: John Vidal reports that most protesters watch appalled as masked activists hijack the demonstrations. Jonathan Freedland comments that as robocops face down protesters in Seattle and London, the globe's citizens are helpless before the future. Asking a state to tame Microsoft is like trying to slow down a car by tugging at the reins.

The Times: World Trade/UK: Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has already committed Britain and its EU partners to removing virtually all tariffs on products from the world's 49 poorest nations, a gesture that could find favour elsewhere. Zimbabwe: Oblivious to the economic despair around them, Simon Muzenda, Zimbabwe's Vice-President, Cabinet and MPs have given themselves pay increases of between 160 per cent and 300 per cent. President Mugabe is yet to declare his increase. AIDS: Article looks at the business approach to the AIDS crisis. Glaxo, Merck and Roche are working with UNAIDS to make drugs available more cheaply, but the cost of treatment is still unimaginable in developing countries which are most badly hit.