STWR - Share The World's Resources

Women fruit pickers in South Africa endure 'pitiful conditions', says report

Liberal handwringing over the World Bank simply reflects a failure to recognise the role it exists to fulfil.

The appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank has little to do with his personal credentials, writes Robert Hunter Wade

Bono and Bill Gates are two of the better-known names who have been mentioned as possible new presidents of the World Bank, though only the Microsoft founder would have qualified, according to the tradition that one of Washington's two multilateral financial bodies is headed by an American; the other, the International Monetary Fund, is run by a European. The announcement that George Bush's nominee is a US citizen was thus no surprise. But there was shock and consternation when the president named Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defence, and one of the prime movers of the Iraq war.

Devinder Sharma examines the unreported, commercial factors which resulted in the Asian Tsunami of December 2004, exacting far greater devastating than would have otherwise been the case, such as agri-business and the tourism industry.