STWR - Share The World's Resources

It's not the act itself, it's the hypocrisy. That's the line on Paul Wolfowitz, coming from editorial pages around the world. It's neither: not the act (disregarding the rules to get his girlfriend a pay raise) nor the hypocrisy (the fact that Wolfowitz's mission as World Bank president is fighting for "good governance").

The 20th century was a terrible blight on small farmers everywhere. In both wealthy capitalist economies and in socialist countries, farmers paid a heavy price for industrialization. 

CARACAS, Venezuela --President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

The Bank is killing thousands of the poorest people in the world

As International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank officials engage in their joint semi-annual meetings in Washington, the Fund has a nettlesome new task: convincing its shareholders (most of the world's governments, represented at the meeting by Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors) that the institution should continue to exist.

Shortly after protests in Seattle nearly shut down a round of negotiations for the World Trade Organization (WTO), a group of academics, trade negotiators and business people met in Washington to figure out a way to reduce the hostility to their trade agenda. A former Clinton administration official suggested giving the critics “another sandbox to play in,” so that they wouldn’t continue to obstruct a new WTO agreement. Specifically, he suggested that those who were concerned about labor and environmental standards could focus their attention on the International Labor Organization (ILO). From the standpoint of the assembled honchos, the ILO was an appropriate “sandbox” because it has no enforcement powers.

The best way Europeans and Americans can make reparations for their past role in the slave trade is to end unfair trade policies that keep Africans shackled in poverty, a U.S. historian said.