Daily Press Cuttings

Friday 12th November 1999

The Guardian: Jubilee 2000: Picture of members of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition wearing Tony Blair masks encircle the Treasury yesterday as they demand that the government faces up to the problem of poverty and cancels debt owed by third-world countries. Commonwealth: The Commonwealth's continued pressure on Pakistan, expressed at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Durban is the latest sign of an unstoppable shift in this international organisation towards a concern for human rights. Pakistan will be given a deadline for a return to democracy following last month's military coup. AIDS/Africa/UK: British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will deliver a blunt message to Commonwealth leaders today that they must step up their efforts to combat the threat of AIDS after a new government report found that the average life expectancy in some African countries will fall by 20 years during the next decade. Britain is to provide a multi-million pound package to promote awareness about AIDS in Africa.

The Independent: Jubilee 2000/Bono: The Irish singer Bono's work for the Jubilee 2000 campaign was recognised last night at the MTV awards ceremony in his home city of Dublin. The U2 singer was presented with the Free Your Mind Award and heard the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan praise his efforts to cancel Third World debt. Mr Annan said in a pre-recorded broadcast: “Bono as an artist, activist, and advocate for the poor, you have made a real difference, crossed boundaries and broken taboos.”

FT: Commonwealth: Focus on Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the retiring secretary-general of the Commonwealth. He sees the promotion of democracy as one of the successes of his tenure. The other was supporting the transition to majority rule in South Africa. He says that one of the greatest challenges in the 21^st Century will be divisive pluralism, and the management of diversity. He sees one of the most important areas of Commonwealth preoccupation as demonstrating to the rest of the world that diversity can be properly and effectively managed.

The Economist: IMF: Article says that the IMF needs a new focus as well as a new boss. There are two areas in particular require attention: the first covers the world's poorest countries. Of the IMF's 57 current lending programmes, 33 are in very poor countries—those poor enough to qualify for highly subsidised loans. In these countries, many argue that the IMF has become, in effect, another aid agency, under the guise of providing medium-term balance of payments support. Today in the context of poor-country debt relief, there is an unprecedented focus on the IMF's role in the countries affected. The IMF's soft loan arm has been renamed the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility; the Fund (together with the World Bank) aims to place much greater emphasis on poverty reduction and ownership. But some outsiders think the IMF should get out of Africa and of poor countries elsewhere altogether. Even those who support an IMF role believe it should take a back seat to the World Bank. The other area that the IMF needs a new clarity of purpose is dealing with future emerging-markets crises.

Thursday 11th November 1999

The Guardian: Japan/Aid: Japan has admitted for the first time that it is using its overseas aid budget to persuade developing countries to join the International Whaling Commission and vote for a resumption of commercial whaling. Japan's aim is to recruit four to five new countries each year and within three years gain enough support to overturn the international moratorium on whaling which came into force in 1986. The Japanese plan was made public by Hiroaki Kameya, the vice minister for fisheries, after trips to Guinea, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Talks were ongoing with Mauritania and Morocco. The World Wide Fund for Nature was enraged by the practice, saying “Japan is blatantly misusing development aid to buy votes at the IWC and such steps violate the spirit, if not the law of international treaties.” World Trade: Journalist George Monbiot says that there is one certainty at the next round of trade talks in Seattle, and that is that the intention is to make big business bigger still. When a single global market place has been engineered, across which single corporations can roam, we shall find them deaf to our entreaties. Were we to tell such monsters that we shall take out custom elsewhere, they will ask us which planet we had in mind. This is the new world order, of earth-swallowing companies, the leviathans of the 21^st Century, to whom you and I are no more than bobbing plankton. South Africa/UK: The Queen fell short of apologising for British actions in the Boer War—which began over 100 years ago—but expressed sadness at the suffering and distress caused during the war.

IHT: IMF/Indonesia: In discussions about his tenure at the IMF, Michel Camdessus said that the IMF had “created the conditions that obliged the President Suharto to leave his job. He added “that was not our intention.” World Bank: Comment from James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, that a free press is not a luxury. A free press is at the absolute core of equitable development, because if you cannot enfranchise poor people, if they do not have a right to expression, if there is no searchlight on corruption and inequitable practices, you cannot build the public consensus needed to bring about change.

FT: India: The official death toll in the cyclone-devastated east Indian state Orissa rose to 7500 yesterday, more than double the figure previously given. There are fears that the number of fatalities may double again when the full extent of the disaster is known. The Congress government of Orissa has blamed the slowness of rescue efforts on the federal government led by its rival the BJP, underlining India's lack of a disaster management policy. FT: Chad/ Cameroon: Exxon has announced that it is considering changes to the consortium which has planned to undertake the Chad/Cameroon oil pipeline, so casting some doubt over the future of the controversial development project. IMF: FT leader looks at the changing role of the IMF as it seeks a new managing director. It says that two major changes during his tenure have been the increase in IMF operations focusing on developing countries and countries in transition, and the opening of capital markets which has transformed the crises it deals with.

The Times: UK: The Chancellor's “war chest” could be even larger than estimated by the Treasury, the Institute of Fiscal Studies has said. He may have an extra £8 billion of revenue over the next three years.

Wednesday 10th November 1999

IHT: IMF: Michel Camdessus, the managing director of the IMF who steered the organisation through the Asian financial crisis, announced his resignation yesterday after more than 12 years in the job. The resignation, although believed to be genuinely motivated by personal reasons, came after months of criticism of the IMF's handling of both the Asian crisis and the Russian crisis. His replacement is likely to be a European. Among potential candidates are the Germans Caio Koch-Weser, a deputy finance minister, and Horst Kohler of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, together with Mario Draghi, director general of the Italian Treasury and Andrew Crockett, head of the Bank for International Settlement. Asia: The Asian Development Bank unveiled a new strategy on Tuesday that will shift its focus entirely toward poverty reduction and away from the big infrastructure projects. Billed as a radical shift form the Asian Development bank's past policies, poverty reduction will become the prime consideration for all bank loans, financing projects and technical assistance. Comment from Tadao Chino, president of the Asian Development Bank, on the new agreed poverty reduction strategy of the bank. The key elements are: pro-poor, sustainable economic growth; social development and good governance. He says that extreme poverty has been a fact of life in Asia for a long time, but it is not immutable. Public policy and action can eliminate it. The experience of the region thus far gives rise to confidence unthinkable even a decade ago: that absolute poverty can be eradicated. Congo (Kinshasa): The nation's main rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, said on Tuesday that it no longer respected a two-month old peace agreement. It claimed that government forces had recently attacked its territory in the north-west.

The Guardian: India/UK: Relief workers struggled yesterday by boat and bicycle to reach flooded interior areas of Orissa that are only now beginning to reveal the full horror of the cyclone that struck the east Indian state 13 days ago. Aid agencies now believe that low-lying villages many miles from the coast, in Erasma and Balikunda in the district of Jagatsinghpur may have borne the brunt of the disaster when they were engulfed by local rivers. Some 1500 people are believed to have died in Erasma alone. In London yesterday a consortium of 11 British charities including the Red Cross, ActionAid, Oxfam and Save the Children launched an appeal for the estimated 15 million people affected by the cyclone.

FT: World Trade: Feature article looks at the legions of activists who will be demonstrating at the World Trade Organisation in Seattle. The groundswell of protest has caught the WTO and the Seattle host Committee off guard. Privately, organisers worry that the official agenda will be eclipsed by the rallies, marches and teach-ins planned by NGOs. The article says that it would be wrong to view the entire non-profit voluntary sector as idealistic outsiders. Thanks to them, issues such as landmines, global warming and debt relief were brought into the mainstream of the political debate.

Tuesday 9th November 1999


The Guardian: UK/finance: Full analysis of the key personnel inside the Treasury, as Chancellor Gordon Brown prepares his pre-Budget report. UK: (Monday's paper) Larry Elliott argues that the British Chancellor Gordon Brown may have just under £20 billion to play with Labour wins the next election. UK/Ghana: The royal visit to Ghana took on extraordinary dimensions yesterday when as much as half the population of Accra turned out, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Queen and Prince Philip. Jubilee 2000: (Monday's paper) Focus on Eva Otero, part of the core administrative team for the Jubilee 2000 Coalition. Ms Otero joined Jubilee 2000 in 1997, after working for several campaign groups involved in international development and human rights. Her initial job has developed significantly as the campaign has gathered pace. With the Dalai Lama, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela and Tony Blair all making supportive statements, the coalition's public profile has shot skywards in the past year. She says: "I have never had a role before where Bono leaving messages about Bill Clinton is the norm."


--We understand that the pre-Budget report will include comments on the progress of the Enhanced HIPC initiative, together with an increased UK pledge for the HIPC Trust Fund.---


The Times: Indonesia: Thousands of Indonesians massed before the main mosque in the capital of Aceh province yesterday, demanding a referendum on independence in a new threat to the country's territorial integrity.


FT: Trade: WTO: FT leader says that all that WTO negotiators have to show so far for their laborious efforts to draw up a Seattle agenda is an unwieldy document that is little more than a laundry list of irreconcilable proposals. The paper argues that renouncing unattainable ambitions now would be far preferable to running the risk of a monumental failure in Seattle, which would allow free trade's increasingly vocal critics to claim a decisive victory over the onward march of globalisation. Africa/ Stock markets: (Monday's paper) Article looks at Uganda Clays, the first equity to be traded on the country's stock market. Today sub-Saharan Africa has more than 15 stock markets, many established in the last decade. Apart from South Africa, which has by far the most developed stock exchange, countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Sudan all boast stock markets.


IHT: India/Orissa: Comment that the examples of recent disasters such as the cyclone that struck Orissa show that the world needs a strengthened disaster agency. About 85 per cent of the deaths - from natural hazards occur in the Asia-Pacific region; 95 per cent are caused by earthquakes, typhoons or floods; nine of the world's the most disaster prone countries are in Asia. The Philippines, India and China head the list. Some 20 major natural disasters kill an average of 83 000 Asians every year, and destroy property and crops worth $4 billion.


Sunday Express: Bono/Jubilee 2000: It could sound like a question for the next edition of Trivial Pursuit. "Name the rock singer who in one year had a private meeting in the Oval Office with the President of the United States, personally lobbied Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, was granted an audience with the Pope and delivered a lecture to the UN. The answer is U2's Bono, who this year never quite had time to finish the album his band were making because he was attending meetings of the IMF and briefing the US Treasury Secretary. The UN calculates that if debt repayments were diverted into health and education the lives of 34 000 children a week would be saved. The point will be made graphically in London this Thursday, 50 days before the millennium when thousand so Jubilee 2000 campaigners will create a human chain around the Treasury in London. Jubilee 2000 wants Britain to stop taking back the £75 million it receives annually in interest and repayments. Bono insists he is with the campaign for as long as it takes: "Wouldn't it be wonderful to wake up on the first morning of January 2000 knowing that you didn't only make a noise, but a difference?"  Sunday Express editorial says that to date Bono and the Jubilee 2000 campaign have managed to persuade the West to write off $100 billion in Third World debt. That is a phenomenal sum. On Thursday it will be 50 days until the millennium and in that time Jubilee 2000 hopes to persuade the West to write off the rest of the $354 billion owed. Britain's own offer to cut the $2.6 billion owed this country is hedged around with small print and is less generous that it at first appears. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have recognised the basic argument for debt relief. We now urge them to go the whole hog and let the Third World start the new millennium with a clean financial sheet.