| Daily Press Cuttings |  |
| Daily Press Cuttings | |
FT: Mozambique: Mozambique, deluged by new rainstorms that are hampering flood relief operations, yesterday expressed disappointment that foreign countries had not done more to lighten its external debt burden. The Paris Club of bilateral creditor nations decided late on Wednesday to allow Mozambique to defer its debt service payments to the group until much of the debt is cancelled under the second phase of the HIPC initiative. Paris Club members said they wanted to help Mozambique in its current exceptional state of emergency following severe flooding in the south and centre of the country over the past five weeks. But Leonardo Simao, the Mozambican foreign minister reaffirmed his government's call for a total cancellation of its foreign debt. Peru: President Alberto Fujimori's iron grip on general elections seems to be slipping, following further embarrassing evidence over the alleged massive signatures forgery implicating Peru 2000, a pro-Fujimori support group. IMF: Full page analysis of the battle to fill the vacancy at the top of the IMF. Chancellor Schroeder of Germany rode roughshod over US and European allies to put a German at the helm of the world's leading financial institution. Journalist Philip Stephens argues that a hollow German victory in the battle to choose a new leader for the IMF has badly damaged the cause of reform.
The Economist: Madagascar: Article looks at the devastation wrought by flooding in Madagascar. Large tracts of the country are flooded. In the worst-hit areas, almost all of the staple rice crop was lost. Cholera victims now number 1000 a week and malaria is expected to surge. IMF/World Bank: Further debate on the Meltzer commission, asking whether Congress is out to revitalise the IMF and World Bank or ruin them.
The Guardian: World Bank: The World Bank was embroiled in charges of nepotism and corruption yesterday after it emerged that the appointment of its new British chief economist, Nick Stern, broke strict rules banning the Washington-based institution from hiring more than one family member. Professor Stern, former chief economist at the London based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the brother of Richard Stern, the World Bank's human resources vice-president. Mozambique: Debt campaigners criticised the Paris Club for not writing off the flood-stricken country's loans.
The Independent: Zimbabwe: Veteran liberation guerrillas in Zimbabwe yesterday said they were ready to go back to war to secure land occupied by white farmers.
IHT: Brazil: Focus on child labour in Brazil. Children working 10-hour days are earning as little as $1.50 a week. Water: Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation argues that water should be treated as an international and public good and adequate access to fresh water must be guaranteed for the poor.
Japan/Okinanawa: Full page advertisement about Okinawa, with its history and plans for acting as host for the forthcoming G-8 summit in July.
El Pais: Mozambique/Paris Club: Mozambique's creditors meeting at Paris Club yesterday agreed to a moratorium on the payment of service debt for the country to help it face the exceptional emergency situation caused by the floods. The French Minister of Finance said that this would last until debt cancellation was agreed (under HIPC) during the course of the year. Southern Africa (Yesterday's paper): An extraordinary summit of 6 African leaders (from Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Namibia) met in Maputo and asked for total cancellation of Mozambique's external debt as the only way to finance reconstruction. The Summit called on the international community to cancel all debt so as to channel all available resources into reconstructing the infrastructure and destroyed property. Maputo spends more than $73m annually in debt service.
The Times: Africa/Diamonds: Article focuses on Antwerp in Belgium, which handles 80 per cent of the world's rough diamonds. The streets here are the heart of the world's diamond trade—a trade now alleged to be wilfully perpetuating conflicts in Angola and Sierra Leone by purchasing their smuggled and illicit gems. Since 1992 Unita's has earned almost £2 billion from diamonds, enable it to prosecute a war that has cost 500 000 lives. Antwerp is also the principal destination for smuggled gems from Sierra Leone, where government and rebel forces are fighting for control of the diamond fields.
Le Monde: Japan/IMF: Interview with Eisuke Sakakibara, who had been nominated as Japan's candidate to head the IMF. He criticises the IMF for its policies in Asia, saying these may have been appropriate for Latin America, but not for Asia. He says the IMF needs to understand better the countries in which it intervenes.
The Independent: Honduras: Jan McGirk writes of the continuing tragedy seventeen months after Hurricane Mitch. Aid pledges came from around the world but the funds are slow to materialise. Madagascar: Jennifer Overton a regional health officer estimates that some 90 per cent of rice fields and crops have been destroyed by the floods.
IHT: Madagascar: Cholera killed 384 people in Madagascar in February, a sharp increase in an epidemic that began in March 1999. The increase confirmed fears that cholera deaths could rise sharply after the cyclones in February and March. Burundi: Comment from Steve Smith, senior advocate for Refugees International, that international support could fan an ember of hope in Burundi. The international community should insist that all sides declare a cease-fire and come to the bargaining table. A peace dividend that includes military demobilisation and a resumption of development aid is essential for a sustainable peace. Continued arms shipments to a region drowning in weaponry are obscene. The United States and other powers, particularly France, should help halt this traffic in death.
FT: Caribbean: CARICOM the Caribbean Community have asked the OECD to postpone an end-of-June deadline for listing offshore financial jurisdictions considered to be providing 'harmful tax competition'.
FT: IMF: The accession of Horst Kohler as head of the IMF appeared almost inevitable yesterday, however the European monopoly of the position looks likely to be lost. Jose-Pedro de Morais, the Angolan executive director, said yesterday that the IMF board had decided to set up a special committee to change the future selection process for the managing director. This would seek a procedure that was transparent involved the entire membership and gave them a choice of several candidates. Water: Prices paid by water customers in developing countries must rise substantially to avoid life threatening shortages and environmental damage, according to an international report published yesterday and supported by the World Bank and the UN. Mexico: FT leader says that the upgrading by Moody's of Mexico's debt is premature. It comes before a crucial presidential election next July and underestimates both economic challenges and political risks. Ukraine: The IMF said that it was misled by Ukraine over the size of its foreign currency reserves, and would have halted aid payments to the country had the true state of its finances been known. South Africa: Economist Martin Wolf argues that if the country is to avoid political and economic instability its overriding priority has to be job-generating growth. Indonesia: The IMF has warned that it may review its lending to Indonesia if a corruption scandal surrounding Bank Bali is not resolved. Paris Club/London Club: After initial grumbles and disquiet over the IMF principle of “burden sharing”—the involvement of private creditors in debt restructuring by troubled countries—it is becoming a common practice. Eurobond investors have already accepted similar restructurings by Pakistan and Ecuador.
IHT: Madagascar: Picture of fresh graves in a cemetery in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, evidence of the disease's toll in the aftermath of severe flooding on the Indian Ocean island. Environment/Food: Former Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug argues that biotechnology will be the salvation of the poorest in the war against hunger.
The Times: Mozambique: Nearly 2000 cases of cholera have been confirmed in Mozambique in the wake of the floods, resulting in at least 11 deaths.
The Voice: Mozambique: A deliberate failure to support African development lies at the root of the current crisis in flood-ravaged Mozambique, according to the Jubilee 2000 Afrika campaign. Kofi Mwali Klu said that “people in this country should ask why such disasters occur and what is being done to prevent them. There is evidence to show that disasters such as the one in Mozambique are not natural but caused by the huge consumption patterns of countries in the northern hemisphere which leads to global warming and deforestation.” Haiti: Plagued by organisational problems that left more than one million voters unregistered, Haiti has postponed its March 19 elections, without specifying a new date.
The Independent: UN/UK/Mozambique: Ministers blamed the United Nations yesterday for delays in getting aid to Mozambique after the country was hit by disastrous floods last month. A UN disaster team, including two members from Britain, pulled out two days before the worst floods hit the country, Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, told a Commons committee.
The Express: Mozambique: Journalist Ros Wynne Jones argues that the DFID role in Mozambique should not be criticised, but rather deserves applause.
The Guardian: IMF: US President Bill Clinton will support Europe's new candidate, Horst Köhler, to head the IMF, effectively ending a four month wrangle over choosing the head of the global lender. This was agreed on the understanding that Köhler would retain the talented management team at the IMF. Africa/Aids: More people have died of Aids in the past year in Africa than in all the wars on the continent, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said yesterday in London. He cited Cote d'Ivoire, where a teacher dies of Aids every school day, and of Botswana, where a child born today has a life expectancy of 41 years whereas, without Aids, they would have been expected to live to 70. He has commissioned a major UN study on Aids in Africa, which will be completed in May. Angola: UN lawyers say the indictment of the Unita leader Jonas Savimbi in the US for murder could be based on evidence from senior rebel defectors, who said that US planes were shot down on his orders.
FT: Bangladesh: Bangladesh is planing to sign natural gas deals with several US energy companies during President Bill Clinton's one-day visit to Bangladesh next Monday at the start of his south Asia tour. However, some major energy companies, including Shell and Unocal of the US, are refusing to invest unless the Bangladeshi government agrees to export gas to energy-hungry India. African Development Bank: The African Development Bank visited the yen market for the first time since 1997 yesterday, reflecting the rising popularity of the yen-denominated bond deals. The deal sold well to Japanese investors, who bought about half of the bonds. Standard and Poor's affirmed a rating of AAA for the organisation after it received a capital increase last year.
The Times: Chile: Chile's new Socialist President said that he might call a referendum to try to reform the constitution. President Lagos would propose the repeal of a law barring him from dismissing Chile's top military commanders.
IHT: World Bank: President of the World Bank, Jim Wolfensohn, responds to the criticism of the Meltzer commission, saying that many of its recommendations significantly miss the mark. He says that were the World Bank to withdraw entirely from Asia and from Latin America it would cut out the marginalised , the poorest, the excluded who live in these countries. He welcomes however the commission's call for debt relief, and hopes that funding support from Congress will follow it. Mozambique: New York Times leader says that in Mozambique nearly a million of the country's 17 million people have lost their homes, farms or food supplies. the death toll is expected to rise into the thousands. The UN says 250 000 people are now living in makeshift camps, and another 250 000 remained in ruined villages. Flood damage could reduce the country's domestic product by as much as a third.
Independent on Sunday: Mozambique: Article by David Bryer, director of Oxfam, saying that the first thing creditors must do is to cancel the country's debt. All of it. The Paris Club has added Mozambique as an “emergency item” this week. This is a perfect opportunity to do right by Mozambique. It is unconscionable that the Mozambique government must this year give $62 million to foreign creditors, of which the World Bank is the biggest. Debt relief, or a moratorium on repayment is not enough. The British government, which has decided to grant poor countries like Mozambique 100 per cent cancellation, should continue to its lead to the Bretton Woods institutions and their share-holders, and to the finance ministers of Italy, Russia, France and Brazil, and Africa's regional development banks. Cleaning Mozambique's slate would do more than anything to help the country repair itself. Madagascar: A food relief programme costing US$ 3 million has been launched for cyclone victims in the Indian Ocean state of Madagascar. The UN World Food programme says it intends to provide basic food for 175 000 people over the next three months in the stricken north-east and east of the country.
FT: Ecuador: IMF proposals to support Ecuador in a multilateral $2 billion three year package should provide an important confidence boost ahead of the planned release of frozen bank deposits today. IMF: Profile on Horst Kohler the candidate now proposed by the German government to head the IMF. A driving force behind the single currency, he should not be underestimated as a potential IMF head.
The Times: Coffee: The world's coffee-producing countries are banding together to from a cartel aimed at stopping the slide in the price of green coffee beans. Negotiations are in progress between key producers, including Brazil and Colombia to build an Opec-style alliance aimed at limiting exports in order to shore up prices.
IHT: Mongolia: Mongolian herders will face hunger by May as their livestock die off after the harshest winter in 30 years, the UN said on Sunday. Bangladesh: Nearly 300 Bangladeshi students clashed with police officers on Sunday during a rally protesting against the forthcoming visit of US President Bill Clinton on 20th March. IMF/Meltzer Commission: Economist Paul Krugman says that the commission members who refused to sign the commission's recommendations regarded the report as an attempt not to fix the IMF, but to gut it—which for all the Fund's flaws would make the world a considerably more dangerous place. Mexico/Spain: Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya has agreed to take over Grupo Financiero Bancomer SA, the second largest Mexican bank, which would create the largest banking company in Mexico. Banco Bilbao is tussling with Banco Santander Central Hispano SA to become the leading foreign institution in Latin America. Banco Bilbao announced it would sell as much as $43.17 billion in new shares to finance expansion in Latin America. Besides Mexico Banco Bilbao wants to expand in Chile and is looking for an acquisition that would make it one of the five biggest non-government banks in Brazil.
The Guardian: IMF/Meltzer Commission: Larry Elliott comments on the Meltzer commission report, saying the IMF must become more democratic, that creditors must bear the burden in times of difficulty—not just debtors—and it should operate as a proper lender of last resort, by being prepared to tame the excesses of global capital. Larry Elliott welcome the recommendation of the commission that the Fund and the Bank should write off their claims against all highly indebted poor countries.
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