This UPI article quotes Whitehouse spokesperson Tony Snow as indicating that “the President is close to choosing Wolfowitz’s replacement”, as soon as later this week. Combined with other recent posts, it seems reasonible to conclude that Zoellick will be put forward as the one and only candidate.

Responding to a freedom of information request, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s ‘Engaging with the Islamic World Group’ has confirmed British support for the Foundation which employed (?) Shaha Riza during her time away from the Bank. Continue reading →

Returning home from the recent African Development Bank meeting in Shanghai, economist Jeffrey Sachs comments on all that “is wrong with the World Bank, even aside from Wolfowitz’s failed leadership”. Unlike the Chinese, says Sachs, “the Bank has too often forgotten the most basic lessons of development, preferring to lecture the poor and force them to privatize basic infrastructure, rather than to help the poor to invest in infrastructure and other crucial sectors”.

Three finance ministers who have headed the G20 — the talking shop spearheaded by the Canadians, not the maverick grouping that formed at the WTO meeting in Cancun — issued statements on Sunday calling for an open, merit-based process to choose the next WB President. Guido Mantega of Brazil and Trevor Manuel of South Africa were joined by Peter Costello of Australia — which I believe makes Australia the first “Northern” (developed/industrialized/first world) country to publicly call for the U.S. to back off.

One of Sweden’s largest newspapers, SvD Brannpunkt, ran a comment on Wednesday demanding changes in the process for selecting the president of the Bank. For those of you who don’t read Swedish, translation of key points from a colleague at Forum Syd follows. Continue reading →