The Wolfowitz Files

[José]

Ou encore une nouvelle preuve que si l'on veut savoir ce qui se passe dans le monde, il faut éviter les médias francophones de manière générale et la télévision en particulier.

Tout le monde est au courant, j'imagine, du scandale qui éclabousse Paul Wolfowitz, l'affreux néo-con qui aurait profité de son poste de big boss de la Banque mondiale pour augmenter spectaculairement le salaire de sa moitié d'orange. Malheureusement, comme le révèle le Wall Street Journal, il apparaît à la lecture des documents fournis par le comité de direction de la Banque mondiale que, loin d'avoir intrigué pour augmenter le salaire de sa compagne, Shaha Riza, fonctionnaire de l'institution, ce fut Wolfowitz lui-même qui fit connaître sa relation sentimentale au moment d'être nommé à son poste, c'est-à-dire avant d'entrer en fonction et qui demanda au comité d'éthique de la banque de lui permettre de s'abstenir de toute relation professionnel avec sa compagne pour éviter un conflit d'intérêt. Or ce fut ce même comité qui lui refusa cette possibilité et qui rechercha l'alternative qu'il considérait comme la plus adéquate pour Shaha Riza : l'augmentatrion du salaire et la commission de service dans le Département d'État. C'est quand cette décision fut prise qu'il fut demandé à Wolfowitz, dès lors en charge, de donner les instructions nécessaires pour que celle-ci soit d'application.

À part le Wall Street Journal, personne ne s'est fait l'écho, pour le moment, de ce document qui exonère Paul Wolfowitz et qui démontre la manipulation réalisée grâce à la filtration intéressée et biaisée de documents de la Banque mondiale à la presse assoiffée de sang néo-con.

The Wolfowitz Files

The anatomy of a World Bank smear.

Monday, April 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The World Bank released its files in the case of President Paul Wolfowitz's ethics on Friday, and what a revealing download it is. On the evidence in these 109 pages, it is clearer than ever that this flap is a political hit based on highly selective leaks to a willfully gullible press corps.

Mr. Wolfowitz asked the World Bank board to release the documents, after it became possible the 24 executive directors would adjourn early Friday morning without taking any action in the case. This would have allowed Mr. Wolfowitz's anonymous bank enemies to further spin their narrative that he had taken it upon himself to work out a sweetheart deal for his girlfriend and hide it from everyone.

The documents tell a very different story--one that makes us wonder if some bank officials weren't trying to ambush Mr. Wolfowitz from the start. Bear with us as we report the details, because this is a case study in the lack of accountability at these international satrapies.

The paper trail shows that Mr. Wolfowitz had asked to recuse himself from matters related to his girlfriend, a longtime World Bank employee, before he signed his own employment contract. The bank's general counsel at the time, Roberto Danino, wrote in a May 27, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz's lawyers:

"First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member." (Our emphasis here and elsewhere.)

That would have settled the matter at any rational institution, given that his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, worked four reporting layers below the president in the bank hierarchy. But the bank board--composed of representatives from donor nations--decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate. And it was the ethics committee that concluded that Ms. Riza's job entailed a "de facto conflict of interest" that could only be resolved by her leaving the bank.

Ms. Riza was on a promotion list at the time, and so the bank's ethicists also proposed that she be compensated for this blow to her career. In a July 22, 2005, ethics committee discussion memo, Mr. Danino noted that "there would be two avenues here for promotion--an 'in situ' promotion to Grade GH for the staff member" and promotion through competitive selection to another position." Or, as an alternative, "The Bank can also decide, as part of settlement of claims, to offer an ad hoc salary increase."

Five days later, on July 27, ethics committee chairman Ad Melkert formally advised Mr. Wolfowitz in a memo that "the potential disruption of the staff member's career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record . . ." In the same memo, Mr. Melkert recommends "that the President, with the General Counsel, communicates this advice" to the vice president for human resources "so as to implement" it immediately.

And in an August 8 letter, Mr. Melkert advised that the president get this done pronto: "The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction." Only then did Mr. Wolfowitz instruct Mr. Coll on the details of Ms. Riza's new job and pay raise.

Needless to say, none of this context has appeared in the media smears suggesting that Mr. Wolfowitz pulled a fast one to pad the pay of Ms. Riza. Yet the record clearly shows he acted only after he had tried to recuse himself but then wasn't allowed to do so by the ethics committee. And he acted only after that same committee advised him to compensate Ms. Riza for the damage to her career from a "conflict of interest" that was no fault of her own.

Based on this paper trail, Mr. Wolfowitz's only real mistake was in assuming that everyone else was acting in good faith. Yet when some of these details leaked to the media, nearly everyone else at the bank dodged responsibility and let Mr. Wolfowitz twist in the wind. Mr. Melkert, a Dutch politician now at the U.N., seems to have played an especially cowardly role.

In an October 24, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz, he averred that "because the outcome is consistent with the Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed." A month later, on November 25, Mr. Melkert even sent Mr. Wolfowitz a personal, hand-written note saying, "I would like to thank you for the very open and constructive spirit of our discussions, knowing in particular the sensitivity to Shaha, who I hope will be happy in her new assignment."

And when anonymous World Bank staffers began to circulate emails making nasty allegations about Ms. Shaha's job transfer and pay in early 2006, Mr. Melkert dismissed them in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz on February 28, 2006, because they "did not contain new information warranting any further review by the Committee." Yet amid the recent media smears, Mr. Melkert has minimized his own crucial role.

All of this is so unfair that Mr. Wolfowitz could be forgiven for concluding that bank officials insisted he play a role in raising Ms. Riza's pay precisely so they could use it against him later. Even if that isn't true, it's clear that his enemies--especially Europeans who want the bank presidency to go to one of their own--are now using this to force him out of the bank. They especially dislike his anticorruption campaign, as do his opponents in the staff union and such elites of the global poverty industry as Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development. They prefer the status quo that holds them accountable only for how much money they lend, not how much they actually help the poor.

Equally cynical has been the press corps, which slurred Mr. Wolfowitz with selective reporting and now says, in straight-faced solemnity, that the president must leave the bank because his "credibility" has been damaged. Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team.

The only way this fiasco could get any worse would be for Mr. Wolfowitz to resign in the teeth of so much dishonesty and cravenness. We're glad the Bush Administration isn't falling for this Euro-bureaucracy-media putsch. Mr. Wolfowitz has apologized for any mistakes he's made, though we're not sure why. He's the one who deserves an apology.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe…ml?id=110009948

[melodius]

On verra; The Economist le descend en flammes, et le WSJ est trop partisan pour être crédible sur ce genre de sujets lorsqu'il est le seul à publier la nouvelle. Attendons donc de voir ce qu'il en est.

[Ronnie Hayek]

la presse assoiffée de sang néo-con.

C'est mal ?

Se fier au War Street Journal quand il est question des néo-connards, c'est un peu comme espérer lire dans la presse belge une critique dévastatrice de l'Etat-PS.

[José]

Se fier au War Street Journal…

Je ne me fie pas au Wall Street Journal, mais aux documents de la Banque mondiale que celui-ci publie. Cela m'étonnerait que ce journal ait créé un faux de toute pièce. Par ailleurs, l'attitude de Wolfowitz, qui refuse sec de démissioner, est révélatrice.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Par ailleurs, l'attitude de Wolfowitz, qui refuse sec de démissioner, est révélatrice.

… De sa fatuité et de son goût du pouvoir, assurément. Une sorte de Van Cau néocon, quoi !

[melodius]

Je ne me fie pas au Wall Street Journal, mais aux documents de la Banque mondiale que celui-ci publie. Cela m'étonnerait que ce journal ait créé un faux de toute pièce. Par ailleurs, l'attitude de Wolfowitz, qui refuse sec de démissioner, est révélatrice.

Elle révèle peut-être ce que tout le monde savait, soit que c'est un trou du cul.

Et oui, je crois le WSJ parfaitement capable de publier un faux, ils ne s'en sont pas privés lors de la campagne en faveur de la guerre en Irak. Crédibilité nulle, comparable seulement à celle de la Pravda de la grande époque. Wait and see donc.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Elle révèle peut-être ce que tout le monde savait, soit que c'est un trou du cul.

… qui porte des chaussettes trouées, afin de conformer son allure vestimentaire à sa nature profonde.

[José]

…je crois le WSJ parfaitement capable de publier un faux…

Il y a une différence entre publier un faux - que le Wall Street Journal aurait pu considérer comme authentique - et créer un faux, dans le cas du rapport du comité de direction de la Banque mondiale.

[melodius]

Il y a une différence entre publier un faux - que le Wall Street Journal aurait pu considérer comme authentique - et créer un faux, dans le cas du rapport du comité de direction de la Banque mondiale.

On ne prête qu'aux riches.

[José]

… qui porte des chaussettes trouées…

Tu vois qu'il est honnête, le mec : il porte des chaussettes trouées et on veut nous faire croire qu'il a plus que doublé le salaire de sa copine.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Tu vois qu'il est honnête, le mec : il porte des chaussettes trouées et on veut nous faire croire qu'il a plus que doublé le salaire de sa copine.

Tu sais, c'est un peu comme Flupke Moustache qui met toujours des vieux pulls mités et des godasses de clodo pour faire croire au populo qu'il est proche des pôôôv'.

[Invité jabial]

Pour ma part j'attend que cette affaire soit tirée au clair. Je refuse de professer une opinion sur un sujet dont j'ignore tout.

[Invité jabial]

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?…22&fsrc=RSS

[José]

On ne prête qu'aux riches.

Après vérification, il appert que le Wall Street Journal n'a commis aucun faux : les citations reprises dans l'article se trouvent bien sur le site de la Banque mondiale : For the record - Direct quotes contained in documents released by the Board of Executive Directors, April 12.

Pour les documents originaux : http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/N…PK:4607,00.html

[melodius]

Après vérification, il appert que le Wall Street Journal n'a commis aucun faux : les citations reprises dans l'article se trouvent bien sur le site de la Banque mondiale : For the record - Direct quotes contained in documents released by the Board of Executive Directors, April 12.

Pour les documents originaux : http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/N…PK:4607,00.html

L'article de The Economist posté par Jabial me semble illustrer la vraie portée du problème.

Si Wolfie ne parvient pas à régler ce type de petit problème, je me demande bien ce qu'il vaut dans son boulot qui en présente d'autrement plus compliqués, soit dit en passant.

[actsofvolition]

On verra; The Economist le descend en flammes, et le WSJ est trop partisan pour être crédible sur ce genre de sujets lorsqu'il est le seul à publier la nouvelle. Attendons donc de voir ce qu'il en est.

Le WSJ est assez professionel (voir le reportage sur l'ONU et l"Oil for Food" scandale). Je m'inquiete plutot de l'objectivité de la presse qui a decidé, pour une raison ou une autre, d'omettre ces "detailles".

[José]

Le Washington Post - que l'on pourra difficilement suspecter de sympathie envers Wolfowitz - prévient également contre une possible manipulation contre le président de la Banque Mondiale dans toute cette affaire.

Trouble at the World Bank

Beware a rush to judgment over the Wolfowitz pay flap.

Sunday, April 22, 2007; B06

THE EXECUTIVE directors of the World Bank initiated an "urgent" review Friday of the imbroglio surrounding bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz and the salary increases he arranged for his girlfriend, a bank employee. Such a review is overdue. We hope it provides a full assessment of the facts and puts some of the overheated rhetoric about this controversy into a fairer and calmer context.

The allegations against Mr. Wolfowitz, which have angered many bank employees, are by now familiar. After arriving at the bank in the summer of 2005, he arranged a generous employment package for his companion, Shaha Riza, then a senior communications officer at the bank with expertise in Middle East affairs. These terms mandated a salary increase from $132,660 to $193,590, assigned her to a job outside the bank and laid out a path to further promotion and raises. This has been characterized as an underhanded deal that undermines Mr. Wolfowitz's campaign against corruption in poor countries applying for World Bank aid.

Unfortunately, that thumbnail sketch omits some highly relevant facts. It was Mr. Wolfowitz who, before taking over at the bank, called the potential conflict of interest to the attention of the bank's ethics committee. He asked to be recused from any personnel decisions involving Ms. Riza. The committee agreed that a conflict existed, but it said that could probably be solved only by Ms. Riza leaving the bank, either permanently or on loan to another agency. The committee also told Mr. Wolfowitz that, if she chose to go elsewhere, Ms. Riza should be given a raise because she already had been short-listed for a promotion. So when Mr. Wolfowitz dictated her new terms of employment he was responding in part to the committee's instructions. Further raises were intended to be equal to what she might have earned had she stayed at the bank, responding to the committee's advice that she receive "compensation to offset negative career impact" from her reassignment.

Was the package nonetheless too generous, even by cushy World Bank standards? The executive directors should answer that question. But there's a relevant fact here, too. The ethics panel reviewed the situation again a half-year later, in February 2006, after receiving an anonymous complaint from a bank employee precisely on the issue of excessive pay. Once again it found, "on the basis of a careful review," that the allegations "do not appear to pose ethical issues appropriate for further consideration by the Committee."

What has changed in the intervening 14 months? That would be another question that we hope the review will answer. It's encouraging that the executive directors called for a review of bank procedures and standards, which will presumably range beyond the actions of the president.

Our view is that Mr. Wolfowitz should have insisted on recusing himself, the ethics committee notwithstanding, and should have taken no part in shaping the terms of Ms. Riza's package. He also showed poor judgment in awarding a quarter-million-dollar salary to the press secretary he brought with him. He may conclude that he can no longer be an effective leader of the bank -- that a bank president intending to make corruption his signature issue had to be above any reproach. Before any such decisions are made, though, we hope the executive directors will lay out all the facts, and not just those that suit Mr. Wolfowitz's detractors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…2100961_pf.html

[melodius]

Bref, on a le choix: soit il est malhonnête, soit il est bête. Peut-être combine-t-il les deux. On voit qu'il réunit toutes les qualités requises pour diriger la banque mondiale.

[José]

On voit qu'il réunit toutes les qualités requises pour diriger la banque mondiale.

Peut-être pourrait-on trouver un aspect positif dans la crise qui touche la Banque mondiale :

Sayonara to world finance sisters?

By Richard W. Rahn

April 18, 2007

Do you think the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) should be abolished? These sister organizations had their annual spring meetings in Washington this past weekend. It is obvious to everyone that both organizations are in deep trouble.

The two organizations were conceived at a Bretton Woods, N.H., conference in July 1944. The IMF was given primary responsibility for ensuring the stability of the international monetary and financial system and, specifically, to manage gold-denominated fixed-exchange rate system set up then (but abolished in 1973).

The World Bank is actually a group of five international organizations whose principal mission is to provide development finance and advice in order to eliminate global poverty. For several decades, responsible critics of the World Bank (including a number of its former senior professionals, such as former chief economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and distinguished economist William Easterly) have presented considerable evidence that the institution has created many more problems than it has solved.

The primary mission of the WB was misperceived at the beginning, and hence it was doomed to failure. Back in 1944, there was the widespread belief that if governments in poor countries were provided funds for infrastructure and other development they could quickly become more prosperous. As we now know, government officials spending other peoples' money on politically determined projects usually results in overspending and poor performance, even in wealthy democracies. In poor countries, the results are almost always worse. So all too much of the money the WB acquired from middle-class taxpayers in wealthy countries went merely to enrich government officials and corrupt leaders in poor countries.

The WB, because of lack of accounting controls and proper oversight and transparency, fueled corruption and oppression in Africa and elsewhere. In addition, the poor people who did not benefit from WB spending ended up saddled with the debt they were obligated to repay to the WB.

In 1990, I was the co-chairman of the Bulgarian economic transition team, sponsored by the National Chamber Foundation and the Bulgarian government. As part of our effort, we were trying to privatize most state-owned companies, including the state telephone company. Behind our backs, the WB provided a loan to the state telephone monopoly with a provision the government could not allow private competition. When I confronted the responsible WB official, he said it was more important that the WB be paid back than that the people of Bulgaria have private competing telecoms (i.e., lower prices and better service). Even today, this is still too much of the mentality at the WB. There has been some improvement in oversight and transparency in recent years, but far too many WB projects are still poorly thought out, incompetent in administration, and, of course, corrupt.

When Paul Wolfowitz took over as World Bank president in June 2005, he made anti-corruption among the WB borrowers, contractors, and even bank employees a central priority. Of course, the corrupt governments and their supporters, the corrupt contractors, and even some bank employees complained. Mr. Wolfowitz then made the foolish mistake of giving several of the folks he brought with him and his girl friend (a WB official) big salary increases, thus undermining his anti-corruption campaign and setting himself up for slaughter by his enemies.

The WB is so inherently flawed it can neither be fixed nor justified on a reasonable cost-benefit basis. As the late development economist Peter Bauer explained, if the institutions and policies are right in a country, it can obtain all of the investment funds it needs from domestic and foreign private sources without foreign aid, and if the institutions and policies are not right, no amount of foreign aid can succeed. Knowing what we do now, the World Bank would never have been established in first place, and thus it should be abolished before it does any more damage.

The case of the IMF is more complex in that it has made major mistakes, e.g., forcing poor countries to increase taxes, and by being the lender of last resort to irresponsible countries adding to global systemic risk. But it has also had some successes, e.g., helping to establish the banking, financial and monetary systems in some of the former communist countries.

Its current problems stem from the fact the IMF obtains its operating funds from the loans it makes to governments in distress, and now that most of its big debtors have repaid their loans, the IMF income is hundreds of millions of dollars below its costs. During its fat days, the IMF engaged in almost endless and unnecessary mission creep and general bureaucratic bloat with far too many highly paid people.

If the IMF radically downsized and restricted itself to data collection, promoting orderly international payments and the expansion of trade, and some limited technical assistance (all which it could do with a tenth of its current staff and budget), it might be able to justify its continued existence.

Saying goodbye to the WB and much of the IMF is likely to have the same beneficial results that welfare reform had in the U.S. When governments, like individuals, have no choice but to take more responsibility for their own actions, most will.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200704…91724-6697r.htm

[José]

Sinon, une classique illustration de la typique attitude européenne de la paille et de la poutre :

A Tale of Two Scandals

"Full confidence" for an EU official despite a romp on a nude beach with an employee.

BY BRET STEPHENS

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Imagine that a top civil servant at a major multinational institution arranges a job for a fortysomething female colleague that comes with a $45,000 raise and brings her yearly salary to about $190,000, tax free. Now imagine that the couple has been photographed at a nudist beach--him wearing nothing but a baseball cap.

The latest sordid twist in l'affaire Wolfowitz? Not at all. This is the story of Günter Verheugen, first vice president of the European Commission in Brussels. In its contrasts and similarities with the "scandal" now absorbing the World Bank and its president, it offers timely instruction on the nature and power of modern bureaucracies.

In April, Mr. Verheugen, a former German parliamentarian for the Social Democrats, appointed economist Petra Erler as his chief of staff. In August, the couple was spotted au naturel on a Baltic shore. Mr. Verheugen--who also has a wife--has dismissed allegations of impropriety as "pure slander" and asked the German newsweekly Der Spiegel whether "two adults [can't] do as they wish in their private lives?"

In fact, they can't: The EU Commission's Code of Conduct, which he helped draft, observes that "in their official and private lives Commissioners should behave in a manner that is in keeping with the dignity of their office. Ruling out all risks of a conflict of interest helps guarantee their independence."

Don't think, however, that the commissioner is out on his ear: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier defends him as "an irreplaceable Brussels heavyweight," while Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says Mr. Verheugen has his "full confidence." That's more support than Mr. Wolfowitz will ever get from his European friends, who are clucking noisily about the need for the World Bank to preserve its "credibility" and for its president to be "beyond reproach." (It's also more than he's getting from the Bush administration, which is offering token words of support while quietly shopping former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani as a potential successor.)

But this isn't just a story of European hypocrisy (an old story). Like Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Verheugen is a man of major prior accomplishments--in his case, engineering the enlargement of the European Union to 25 from 15 member states. Also like Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Verheugen came to his current job pledging to make war on the methods of his own bureaucracy. "The idea is that the role of the commission is to keep the machinery running and the machinery is producing laws," he said last October. "And that's exactly what I want to change."

The machinery had a different idea. Mr. Verheugen announced plans in 2005 to do away with scores of economically burdensome and antiquated regulations, which he thought could help lift economic growth. When his efforts went nowhere, he gave an interview to the press blaming the failure on the opposition he'd encountered within the Brussels bureaucracy. The Commission's staff union reacted predictably, by calling on him to apologize and suggesting he resign. Not coincidentally, it was around the same time that stories of his special relationship with Ms. Erler, and of her new job, came to the attention of the press and the public.

Now consider the Wolfowitz saga. Superficially, the similarities with Mr. Verheugen rest with the details of their respective scandals: a close lady friend on staff, a suspiciously generous pay raise, allegations of nepotism and conflicts of interest.

But aside from the facts that Mr. Wolfowitz is unmarried and prefers his clothes on, the substance of the cases could not be more different. Mr. Verheugen seems to have obscured the nature of his relationship with Ms. Erler; Mr. Wolfowitz acknowledged his relationship with Shaha Riza before he took the job as Bank president. Mr. Verheugen sought to use the power of his office to bring Ms. Erler nearer to him; Mr. Wolfowitz sought to use the power of his to move Ms. Riza away. Ms. Erler moved into a better job; Ms. Riza was forced into a lesser one. Mr. Verheugen ignored his own code of conduct; Mr. Wolfowitz followed the instructions of his ethics committee, whose chairman later praised him for acting in a "constructive spirit."

What the Wolfowitz scandal comes down to, then, is that he gave Ms. Riza a fat raise after the Bank's board agreed that she deserved compensation for losing her job. This is where the bureaucracy comes in and the real similarities with the Verheugen case begin.

When Mr. Wolfowitz arrived at the World Bank in 2005, it was to an institution ideologically committed to seeing him fail. When he announced that he would make the fight against corruption his signature issue, the ideological opposition became institutional as well. As development economist William Easterly observes, for the World Bank "priority No. 1 is to get the money out the door. When you introduce a wild card like cutting off corrupt governments, you threaten the loan-pushing culture."

Since then, it's been a steady dribble of leaks about Mr. Wolfowitz's every misstep and perceived wrongdoing, most of them to the suggestible Financial Times. The operative theory here, says former Bush administration diplomat Otto Reich, is that if you throw enough mud at a man "the stain will remain even if none of the mud sticks." That's just what has happened in the campaign at the World Bank: Having doused Mr. Wolfowitz in skunk juices, the critics can now say, with justice, that he stinks.

This isn't to say that Mr. Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank has been without disappointments: Mr. Easterly faults him for indulging utopian ambitions for what the Bank can do to alleviate poverty and promote democracy.

But that can't possibly justify the furies that have now descended on Mr. Wolfowitz. Like Mr. Verheugen, he sought to use his office to change an organization he thought--mistakenly, as it turns out--that he ran. Unlike Mr. Verheugen, he never really did anything improper. That he is now on the firing line while Mr. Verheugen is not is a point worth noting. That both men, despite the great differences between them, have been thwarted by their bureaucracies should be a reminder to everyone that the government of mandarins is more than just a danger to interloping neocons.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/b…s/?id=110009982

[Apollon]

Robert Zoellick promet de "calmer les choses" à la Banque mondiale

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 31.05.07 | 09h17 • Mis à jour le 31.05.07 | 12h56

Robert Zoellick, tout juste nommé par George W. Bush pour devenir président de la Banque mondiale, a reconnu, mercredi 30 mai, qu'il existait actuellement beaucoup "d'anxiété, de frustration" dans cette institution, qui vivait une "période traumatique" suite à la démission de l'actuel président, Paul Wolfowitz.

"Je pense que l'une des tâches sera de calmer les choses mais aussi de tenter d'avoir une idée, tous ensemble, de la manière dont nous pouvons établir un consensus sur la direction dans laquelle l'institution doit se diriger, a-t-il dit. Malgré toute l'attention portée sur la stratégie, la politique et la mission de la Banque, l'un des plus grands défis, sinon le plus grand, auquel la Banque est confrontée est celui de la direction et de la gestion."

Le conseil d'administration de la Banque mondiale a pris acte, mercredi, du choix de l'administration américaine en faveur de Robert Zoellick et se prépare maintenant, comme le veut une tradition héritée des accords de Bretton Woods en 1944, à l'entériner officiellement."Les 24 membres du conseil d'administration représentant les 185 Etats membres sont heureux de pouvoir entamer des discussions avec M. Zoellick dans le cadre du processus de sélection", indique un communiqué.

Jusqu'au 15 juin, d'autres candidats peuvent théoriquement encore se manifester. "Après cette date, des réunions seront organisées pour considérer toutes les nominations. Les membres du conseil s'attendent à avoir terminé le processus pour la sélection d'un président d'ici au 30 juin 2007", la date à laquelle M. Wolfowitz quittera officiellement ses fonctions, ajoute le communiqué.

UN PRIX NOBEL D'ÉCONOMIE DÉNONCE "LE PROTECTIONNISME" DE M. ZOELLICK

Joseph Stiglitz, Prix Nobel d'économie et ancien responsable de la Banque mondiale, a estimé que la nomination à la tête de l'institution de Robert Zoellick est dans la continuité de celle de Paul Wolfowitz, dont le mandat a été "une catastrophe".

"Robert Zoellick a défendu bec et ongles le protectionnisme agricole américain quand il était chargé des négociations commerciales, a souligné M. Stiglitz dans un entretien accordé au journal italien La Repubblica. Comment, en tant que futur président de la Banque mondiale, demandera-t-il le démantèlement des aides à l'agriculture qui favorisent les pays développés aux dépens des pays pauvres ?"

Joseph Stiglitz a également reproché aux pays européens d'être responsables de la mauvaise période traversée par la Banque mondiale. "Ils ont préféré soutenir un système qui leur garantit la présidence du Fonds monétaire international, au lieu de modifier avec courage les critères de sélection", a-t-il ajouté.

Les alters vont avoir des sueurs froides : encore un rallié à Sarkozy ?

[Cochon]

Crédibilité nulle, comparable seulement à celle de la Pravda de la grande époque. Wait and see donc.

Ah mon avis, tu n'as pas dû lire souvent la Pravda ou sa traduction française pour faire ce genre de comparaison

Sinon, une classique illustration de la typique attitude européenne de la paille et de la poutre :

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/b…s/?id=110009982

Oui, mais lui c'est un humaniste de la vieille Europe, donc pas un impérialiste-islamophobe-sioniste-américain comme Wolfowitz.

Ca rend la presse plus compréhensive sur ses faiblesses

[Ronnie Hayek]

Oui, mais lui c'est un humaniste de la vieille Europe, donc pas un impérialiste-islamophobe-sioniste-américain comme Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz est surtout le mari d'une féministe hypergauchiste (désolé pour le pléonasme); ce qui explique pas mal de choses.

[Rincevent]

Wolfowitz est surtout le mari d'une féministe hypergauchiste (désolé pour le pléonasme); ce qui explique pas mal de choses.

Shaha Riza a grandi en Tunisie et en Arabie Saoudite. Tu n'allais tout de même pas attendre d'elle qu'elle soutienne les despotes locaux ou les islamistes ?

A moins que ce qui te fasse enrager soit précisément le fait qu'ils ne soient pas mariés.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Shaha Riza a grandi en Tunisie et en Arabie Saoudite. Tu n'allais tout de même pas attendre d'elle qu'elle soutienne les despotes locaux ou les islamistes ?

A moins que ce qui te fasse enrager soit précisément le fait qu'ils ne soient pas mariés.

Ca, je m'en bats l'oeil (à un point que tu ne peux même pas imaginer), comme eût dit Moshe Dayan. Sinon, bravo pour ta sortie politiquement correcte. On reconnaît le lecteur béat des faux empêcheurs de penser en rond, mais toujours très intellos de gauche: Taguieff, Finky-Winky, etc.

[Cochon]

Wolfowitz est surtout le mari d'une féministe hypergauchiste (désolé pour le pléonasme); ce qui explique pas mal de choses.

Et en plus une personne de culture islamique… Mais moi qui croyais que les néoconservarteurs étaient des américano-sionistes islamophobes assoifés de sang arabe?

[Ronnie Hayek]

Et en plus une personne de culture islamique… Mais moi qui croyais que les néoconservarteurs étaient des américano-sionistes islamophobes assoifés de sang arabe?

Elle est à peu près aussi musulmane d'Ayaan Hirsi Ali, si tu veux mon avis.

[Cochon]

Elle est à peu près aussi musulmane d'Ayaan Hirsi Ali, si tu veux mon avis.

Tu m'étonnes, féministe, de gauche et amoureuse de Wolfie, ça fait pas une bonne musulmane

[Ronnie Hayek]

Tu m'étonnes, féministe, de gauche et amoureuse de Wolfie, ça fait pas une bonne musulmane

Merci de reconnaître que ta tentative d'ironie était sans objet.

[Cochon]

Merci de reconnaître que ta tentative d'ironie était sans objet.

Toute ironie à part, j'ai bien dit "personne de culture islamique" ce qui est une constatation… pas une indication de pratique