Multilateral Banks

As New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charges American International Group (AIG) executives with collusion in an insurance brokerage kickback scandal, a paper trail stretching back a decade reveals that AIG used offshore shell companies to skirt the law. Read More

BUENOS AIRES-- Leaders of Protestant churches of Latin America, tired of alleviating social problems that they blame on neo-liberal free market policies, have decided to advance their own alternative proposals to governments and the multilateral lending institutions. Read More

The World Bank should revamp its lending policies for mining, oil and gas projects to avoid corruption, mismanagement and poor economic performance spreading in countries that rely on such industries, says a confidential study by the Bank's internal review body. Read More

Hospital admissions arising from unsafe abortions in Argentina rose 50 percent in five years, and multiplied by a factor of 2.5 in some provinces -- a lethal consequence of the economic crisis and soaring poverty. Read More

International creditors of Mali have agreed to cancel $675 million of its debt over time under a controversial debt relief scheme, rewarding the West African nation for its pro-free market economic restructuring plan, they say. Read More

Pittsburgh -- In a speech today to the Ninth World Steel Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, United Steelworkers of America (USWA) international president Leo W. Gerard assailed the U.S. Treasury for supporting International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing plans for developing countries that exploit workers, drive up the U.S. trade deficit, and wipe out millions of American manufacturing jobs. Read More

The private sector was the first to notice: the planet is running out of fresh water at such a rate that soon it will be the most valuable commodity on earth. Read More

Citizens excluded from $25 million suit against Bolivia for company's failed water privatization scheme Washington, DC- The Bechtel Corporation was handed a powerful victory last week, when a secretive trade court announced that it would not allow the public or media to participate in or even witness proceedings in which Bechtel is suing the people of Bolivia for $25 million. Read More

Next week, thousands will descend on Porto Alegre, Brazil for the World Social Forum, under the slogan "Another World is Possible." We thought these reflections by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano on the world as it is today were a good place to start. Read More

Hundreds of protesters in Palu, Central Sulawesi, threw rocks at the provincial headquarters of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's political party. Police fired off at least two rounds of warning shots. There have been daily protests since the government increased fuel prices by 22% a fortnight ago as part of a package of economic reforms approved by the International Monetary Fund. Read More