World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz is uncloaking new measures at the institution apparently designed to appease his critics and regain the initiative after weeks of fast retreat in the face of accusations of nepotism and an international downpour of criticism for his management style.
furore surrounding World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz exposes the need for overdue reform of the six-decade-old development lender itself, according to experts. "It’s as much a crisis of governance as a crisis of leadership," said Dennis de Tray, who has worked at both the bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz pledged on Friday to abide by recommendations of the lender’s executive board investigating a pay scandal, but left his future course of action unclear. In a brief statement issued after a late-night announcement by directors, the embattled World Bank chief said he "welcomes the decision of the board …".
Republican United States presidential contender John McCain turned to popular music to illuminate the debate on the Middle East, singing at the suggestion that the United States bomb Iran. ”That old Beach Boys song, ‘Bomb Iran’?” McCain asked in response to a question about US policy on its diplomatic pariah at an electoral campaign meeting.
As Nestlé shareholders gathered on Thursday in Switzerland for their annual meeting, growing numbers of voices have been questioning the company’s claims on spring water around the world and its effects on local communities. Nestlé Waters North America has been found to damage the environment through its pumping operations.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz cancelled a speech to a health conference on Thursday as the bank’s board met late into the night to discuss a controversy over the promotion of his girlfriend, which has paralysed the poverty-fighting institution. The bank’s staff association, which has led the calls for Wolfowitz to step down, called on the board, which usually operates in secret, to make its decision public.
Embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz looked more isolated than ever on Thursday as directors debated his fate amid the rumblings of a civil war among senior staff. The 24 executive directors discussed what action to take over a pay and favouritism scandal that has engulfed the former Pentagon deputy chief.
The world public rejects the United States role as a world leader, but still wants the US to do its share in multilateral efforts and does not support a US withdrawal from international affairs, says a poll released on Wednesday. The survey respondents saw the US as an unreliable ”world policeman”.
United States President George Bush on Wednesday bluntly warned that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had one "last chance" to help end violence in Darfur or face tougher US sanctions and other punishments. "The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act," Bush said in remarks at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.
Surging energy prices pushed consumer inflation in the United States up by the largest amount in nearly a year in March. Meanwhile, industrial output fell for the second time in the past three months, reflecting a big drop in production at the nation’s utilities because of the warmer-than-usual weather.
Virginia Tech students described the mayhem on campus on Monday and criticised officials for not shutting the university down quickly enough after 33 people were killed including a gunman. Andrew Gisch, a second-year student, was walking across a quadrangle listening to his iPod when he heard ”a big bang”.
At least 22 people, including the suspected gunman, were killed in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech university on Monday, police and university officials said. The rampage took place in two separate areas of the campus during the morning. Police said they believe a single gunman was responsible.
The woman at the centre of a scandal that could force the resignation of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz says she has been victimised and forced to take a transfer she never wanted in the first place. Shaha Riza said she was surprised when told she had to take an outside assignment because of her relationship with Wolfowitz.
Despite denials by World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz on Thursday, newly disclosed internal documents indicate that the bank may, in fact, have reversed a long-standing policy of promoting family planning on his watch. The contradictions could further intensify Wolfowitz’s troubles at the bank.
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz criticised rich countries, including the United States, for failing to increase aid to needy developing nations at a time when some African economies were about to ”turn the corner”. Some key economies were improving, he said, but the countries still needed aid to make the most of new opportunities.
Search engine Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum launched an online mapping project on Tuesday to provide what the museum said was evidence of atrocities committed in Sudan’s western Darfur region. More than 200 000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003 and some of this carnage has been detailed by Google Earth.
The stability of the global financial system is being bolstered by favourable economic conditions, but some financial market risks have crept up in recent months, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday. The IMF pointed to potential risks from the rapid decline in the United States subprime mortgage market, involving borrowers with poor credit history.
The home of late country music legend Johnny Cash in Nashville, Tennesee, burned to the ground on Tuesday in a fire likely fuelled by renovation materials, according to local media reports. The huge lakeside house in Hendersonville, a suburb of the country music capital, went up in flames on Tuesday afternoon as it was being heavily renovated.
United States President George Bush said on Tuesday that he will sign a Bill to permit federal funding of research using human embryos that cannot develop into fetuses. At the same time, he said he will again reject a Bill that would clear the way for the government to pay for largely unrestricted stem-cell research on viable embryos.
A controversial raise for a World Bank employee who has been romantically involved with the bank’s president, Paul Wolfowitz, was not the work of the bank’s ethics committee, as originally alleged by Wolfowitz’s office, according to the watchdog group that leaked the information.
A worldwide scientific effort to catalog every living species has topped the one-million milestone. Six years into the programme, the total has reached 1 009 000, researchers report. They hope to complete the listing by 2011, reaching an expected total of about 1,75-million species.
A 102-year-old United States woman became the oldest person yet to hit a hole-in-one during a golf outing, US media reported on Friday. Elsie McClean of Chico, California, has been playing golf since she was in her 20s and had never hit a hole-in-one before.
The World Bank’s employee organisation has questioned the promotion and pay raise of a female staffer it says is involved with bank president Paul Wolfowitz. The bank’s Staff Association demanded an explanation from Wolfowitz for what it called ”violations of staff rules in favour of a staff member closely associated with the president”.
United States President George Bush said on Tuesday US troops would suffer if a deadlock with Congress over war funding continues, scolding US lawmakers for going on holiday leaving business unfinished. If Congress did not approve a war funding Bill, ”… the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones”, Bush told reporters.
They watch MTV, surf the web, have iPods, play video games and eat at fast-food restaurants. And, no, they’re not your average United States teenager, but people over the age of 100 who shared the secrets of their longevity for a study released on Tuesday by Evercare, a health provider for the elderly in the United States.
In a defeat for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a United States government agency has the power under the clean-air law to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions that spur global warming. The ruling came in one of the most important environmental cases to reach the Supreme Court in decades. It marked the first high court decision in a case involving global warming.
United States farmers plan to cash in on the ethanol fuel boom by planting the largest area to maize in 63 years, potentially yielding a record crop and calming fears that renewable fuels will steal grain needed for food and feed, the federal government said on Friday.
Discount shoppers the world over were put on guard on Friday after retail group TJX disclosed that 45,6-million credit and debit card numbers were stolen by hackers in 2005 and 2006. The company also said on Thursday about 455Â 000 customers may have had personal information compromised.
World leaders must speak out to help pull Zimbabwe out of a political and economic quagmire, former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu said on Thursday. ” … this is not the time for silent diplomacy,” the authors wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
Retired United States Navy medic Charlie Anderson twice thought about committing suicide: once when he feared he would be sent back to Iraq in 2004 and again last year when a friend and fellow veteran killed himself. ”I can’t say that I can’t go because we don’t do that; I also can’t go because I’m putting people in danger if I do,” he said of his first brush with suicidal thoughts.
A growth that was surgically removed from White House press secretary Tony Snow was cancerous and the cancer has spread to his liver, the White House disclosed on Tuesday. Snow, a colon-cancer survivor, underwent surgery on Monday at an undisclosed hospital to remove the growth from his abdomen region.
An image of the Liberty Bell, an icon of American freedom and independence, will adorn the United States Postal Service’s new ”forever stamp”. The stamp, which will carry the word ”Forever” instead of a price, will remain valid for sending a letter, no matter how much postal rates go up in the future.