| India: Outcry at Police Action Against Dam Protestors by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service August 24th, 2000 Human rights and environmental groups are condemning state police in India for preventing about 500 people from attending a public hearing on a controversial dam planned for the Narmada river. |
| Brazil: Grassroots Referendum on Foreign Debt by Axel Bugge, Reuters August 23rd, 2000 Worries by Brazil's government over plans by a grassroots movement to hold a plebiscite on the country's huge debt costs gathered steam this week as the vote aiming to force attention on deep social inequalities approached. |
| India: World Bank Admits Failure of Coal Project UN Wire August 14th, 2000 According to the report, thousands of villagers in eastern and central India received no compensation after state-owned Coal India used a $530 million loan from the World Bank in 1997 to raze their homes in a coal mine modernization scheme. Although resettling, compensating and retraining farmers as entrepreneurs was part of the loan deal, Coal India had no experience in these activities and was unable to carry them out. |
| Czech Republic: IMF Prepares for Prague Demonstrations Associated Press July 31st, 2000 The director of the International Monetary Fund said Monday he is confident that authorities in Prague are ready to handle possible riots during the IMF and World Bank meeting that will be held in the Czech capital in September. |
| USA: Bolivia Makes the Style Page; Anti-Corporate Protests Ignored by Gregory Palast, Washington Post July 26th, 2000 In April, five people were shot dead in Bolivia, a military policeman was lynched and the president declared a state of siege following a general strike that shut down much of the nation. At the end of it all, for the first time in a decade anywhere in the world, American and British corporate giants, the targets of the protest, were booted out of the Andean nation, a stunning reversal of the march of globalization. |
| South Africa: IMF Can Only Bring Misery by Trevor Ngwane and George Dor, The Sowetan July 12th, 2000 Last Friday, Horst Koehler, newly-appointed head of the International Monetary Fund, received a hostile response from the anti-privatisation forum, Jubilee 2000, the campaign against neoliberalism and the South African Communist Party. |
| USA: World Bank Out of Chinese Resettlement Project by Gumisai Mutume, Inter Press Service July 7th, 2000 WASHINGTON -- The World Bank has caved in to pressure from one of the biggest anti-World Bank campaigns by non-governmental organisations forcing China to use its own funds to resettle farmers on Tibetan territory. |
| USA: Environmentalists Question Uganda Dam Project by Danielle Knight, Inter Press Service June 22nd, 2000 WASHINGTON -- World Bank funding should not go toward building a large hydroelectric dam in Uganda when smaller scale renewable energy, like wind and solar, would more likely benefit the East African nation's rural poor, according to environmental groups here. |
| USA: Activists Target IMF Meeting by John Madeley, The Observer (London) April 9th, 2000 Their target in Washington is the spring meetings of the Bank and International Monetary Fund, which begin next Sunday. The protest campaign against the sister institutions begins tomorrow with the launch an international campaign to persuade corporate investors not to buy World Bank bonds. |
| USA: Where Was the Color at A16 in DC? by Colin Rajah, ColorLines April 1st, 2000 After Seattle, the movement set its sights on mobilizing for the annual Spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C. this past April 16. Known as A16, these actions were also hugely successful. |
| Bulgaria: Up to 10,000 Protest IMF Ausertity Associated Press March 22nd, 2000 Up to 10,000 people gathered in downtown Sofia on Wednesday to protest the country's unemployment, poverty and temporary-employment contracts. |
| USA: IMF on the Ropes by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on Corporations March 21st, 2000 But these jujitsu tactics may be running out of steam. Political momentum against the IMF ratcheted up in recent weeks, when the Meltzer Commission, a bipartisan advisory commission to the U.S. Congress, released its report. |
| Mozambique: Leaders Call For Debt Cancellation Panafrican News Agency March 15th, 2000 Leaders of the Southern Africa Development Community Tuesday called on the international community to cancel all foreign debts owed by Mozambique. |
| USA: Wolfensohn Responds - Limiting the World Bank by James D. Wolfensohn, Washington Post March 13th, 2000 During the past few days a good deal of coverage has been focused on the Meltzer Commission Report on the International Financial Institutions, and what it might mean for the World Bank. Let me take this opportunity to lay out some real concerns that we at the bank have, and also to set the record straight. |
| USA: Between Revolution and Reform - The Meltzer Commission's Vision by Martin Wolf, Financial Times March 8th, 2000 The ''report of the international financial institution advisory commission'' sounds so innocuous. It is not. In the current US debate, it will be explosive. The question is whether it will end with pure destruction or efficient replacements for the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and regional development banks of today. |
| Mozambique: Country Staggers Under Debt Despite Devastating Floods Financial Times February 23rd, 2000 Mozambique, hit by the worst floods in 30 years, is having to pay $1.4 million a week in debt service, the Jubilee 2000 Coalition revealed in a statement to the press on 23rd February. |
| Thailand: Outgoing IMF Chief Hit With Pie Associated Press February 13th, 2000 Thailand -- The outgoing chief of the International Monetary Fund got a rude retirement present Sunday when an American anti-free trade activist penetrated security at a trade conference and hit him with a pie in the face. |
| Brazil: IMF -- Shut Up or Get Out Associated Press February 12th, 2000 The International Monetary Fund has retracted criticism of Brazil's anti-poverty plan in the wake of national indignation and calls for IMF representative Lorenzo Perez to be kicked out of the country. |
| USA: Protestors at WTO Plan DC Follow-Up by John Burgess, Washington Post January 26th, 2000 Activist groups that paralyzed downtown Seattle during the World Trade Organization conference late last year plan to converge on Washington in April to protest a joint meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. |
| INDIA: Creating dispensable citizens by Usha Ramanathan, The Hindu This is not merely about whether the dam should be constructed or not. It is about condoning state inaction and then blaming the victim. |