whiskerando wrote:

The way I see it, the earth is like a teenager's pimpled face.... by suppressing a war here, another one will pop-up somewhere else.

i don't think that is how acne works.

london daily mail, 4-6-07 wrote:Bank chief hands his lover a £30,000 raise

World Bank boss Paul Wolfowitz - a leading architect of the Iraq war - is under fire for promoting his British girlfriend and giving her a huge pay increase. The staff association at the Washington-based bank is demanding an inquiry and has expressed 'dismay and outrage'.

Oxford-educated divorcee Shaha Riza, 53, saw her salary jump from £67,500 to £98,500 when she was moved from her communications job to represent the bank at the U.S. State Department.

She and Mr Wolfowitz, 63, who is separated from his wife Clare, have been going out for more than three years, since before he became her boss.

President George Bush controversially nominated Mr Wolfowitz as World Bank president two years ago.

workers dot org wrote:The World Bank is as close as you can get to the Halliburton corporation. Cheney’s former firm has a lock on energy contracts in Iraq and is positioned to help U.S. oil giants take control of Iraqi oil.

Wolfowitz was an architect of the war, which was all about that oil. When Wolfowitz takes over the World Bank he will still be in the war for oil; he will still be working with Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon in the service of finance capital and its empire, just in a different capacity.

During the period of 1992 to 2004, the World Bank financed fossil fuel projects—oil, coal, gas, electric power plants, privatization of plants and natural resources—to the tune of $28 billion. (“Wrong Turn from Rio,” www.seen.org) Of that $28 billion, Halliburton got $2.575 billion for projects in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, Cameroon, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, Russia and Thailand. Halliburton was the largest oil contractor with the World Bank.(“The Energy Tug of War,” www.seen.org)

Not to be left out, ExxonMobil got $1.367 billion for projects in Argentina, Chad, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Geor gia, Kazakhstan, Russia; Chevron Texaco got $1.589 billion to go into Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, Congo-Brazza ville, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Thailand; Unocal got $938 million; and Enron received $744 million. All the oil giants of the imperialist world got in on the take.

One glance at the list of oil-producing countries reveals they are also countries of interest to the Pentagon, the banks and other transnational profiteers.

So the shift of Wolfowitz to the World Bank amounts to shifting a militaristic hawk from one part of the imperial apparatus to another part. The centralizing nexus is the military-industrial complex, the Pentagon and big oil. They are all inseparable from imperialism itself.

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, under fire for massive pay raises given by the powerful development organization to his girlfriend, insisted Monday he had always upheld staffing rules.

In an extraordinary statement to staff that did not mention the name of his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz accepted "full responsibility" over the case but said he had "acted on the advice" of the bank's ethics committee.

Staff have highlighted apparent discrepancies between accounts of her employment given by Wolfowitz and members of the World Bank's board and ethics committee.

According to the Washington-based Government Accountability Project (GAP), neither the committee nor the board approved Riza's hefty pay hikes as claimed by Wolfowitz's office.

The row risks undermining Wolfowitz at a time when he is leading his campaign to clean up corruption in the World Bank's multibillion-dollar lending.

The drive will again be under the spotlight when the bank, in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund, holds its spring meeting this weekend.

"It's ironic that Mr. Wolfowitz lectures developing countries about good governance and fighting corruption, while winking at an irregular promotion and overly generous pay increases to a partner," said Bea Edwards, the GAP's international director.

Wolfowitz has also ruffled feathers among staffers by appointing Republican allies to key World Bank positions, including in charge of its anti-corruption unit.

The March issue of Vanity Fair, meanwhile, said that Riza served as a consultant to military contractor SAIC while a World Bank employee in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, which Wolfowitz helped engineer.

clocker bob wrote:

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, under fire for massive pay raises given by the powerful development organization to his girlfriend, insisted Monday he had always upheld staffing rules.

In an extraordinary statement to staff that did not mention the name of his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz accepted "full responsibility" over the case but said he had "acted on the advice" of the bank's ethics committee.

Staff have highlighted apparent discrepancies between accounts of her employment given by Wolfowitz and members of the World Bank's board and ethics committee.

According to the Washington-based Government Accountability Project (GAP), neither the committee nor the board approved Riza's hefty pay hikes as claimed by Wolfowitz's office.

The row risks undermining Wolfowitz at a time when he is leading his campaign to clean up corruption in the World Bank's multibillion-dollar lending.

USA Today wrote:World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is taking "full responsibility" for helping a close woman friend get transferred to a high-paying job.
Wolfowitz's comments — contained in an e-mail message Monday to the bank's employees — were aimed at defusing outrage and accusations of favoritism from the bank's staff association.

The case involves the transfer of a bank employee, Shaha Riza, who has been romantically linked to Wolfowitz. She was given an outside assignment to the State Department in September 2005, shortly after Wolfowitz became bank president.

To avoid a conflict of interest, Wolfowitz said he sought the advice of the bank's Board of Directors once he took over the World Bank in the summer of 2005.

"I subsequently acted on the advice of the board's Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation," Wolfowitz's letter to employees explained.

SecondEdition wrote:

"I subsequently acted on the advice of the board's Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation," Wolfowitz's letter to employees explained.

No one is accusing USA Today of being anything other than generic toilet paper, but this is almost offensively bland reporting, even for them.

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, under fire for massive pay raises given by the powerful development organization to his girlfriend, insisted Monday he had always upheld staffing rules.

In an extraordinary statement to staff that did not mention the name of his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz accepted "full responsibility" over the case but said he had "acted on the advice" of the bank's ethics committee.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged Thursday that he erred in helping a close female friend get transferred to a high-paying job, and said he was sorry.

His apology didn't ease concerns among the bank's staff association, which wants him to resign.

At issue are the generous compensation and pay raises of a bank employee, Shaha Riza, who has dated Wolfowitz. She was given an assignment at the State Department in September 2005, shortly after he became bank president.

"In hindsight I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations," Wolfowitz said. "I made a mistake, for which I am sorry."

Wolfowitz pay scandal laid bare

Washington - The World Bank early Friday released more than 100 pages of documents that exposed the pivotal role played by its president, Paul Wolfowitz, in awarding startling pay hikes to his girlfriend.

They included an August 2005 memorandum from Wolfowitz that ordered the bank's human resources division to award his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza, pay increases that took her bank salary to nearly $200,000.

Wolfowitz directed that Riza, who was being moved from the World Bank's Middle East communications office to the US state department, should move to an even higher pay grade if "I stay on to serve a second term".

He concluded the memo by expressing his "deep unhappiness" that the bank's ethics committee had rejected his preferred resolution to the situation, to recuse himself from all personnel decisions involving Riza.

Riza's secondment to State was ordered by the World Bank's board, over her own and Wolfowitz's objections, to forestall any conflicts of interest after Wolfowitz took charge of the powerful organisation in June 2005.

World Bank staff rules forbid an employee from working under another's supervision if the two are in a relationship.

We have seen in the case of Europe how a social democratic welfare state discourages population growth as well as economic growth, and suppresses the virtues traditionally associated with "manliness" in foreign policy. Europe is now paying a terrible price, to the point where it is in the process of losing its historic identity, because of the sovereignty it has accorded the social democratic ethos over both domestic and foreign policy. That the two are inseparably intertwined has never been more convincingly demonstrated.

True, the American version of "national greatness" has recently run into some local difficulties out there in the Middle East, and I suppose that the idea itself will be muted for some time ahead. But I note that the American population has just reached 300 million, with 400 million pretty firmly projected for 2040. So my grandchildren will be living in a country with the world's third largest population, the strongest economy, and the most powerful military establishment. Our critics may demand ever-greater humility from our ever-greater power; that would be a historic first were it ever to happen. So, for better or worse, "national greatness" is being thrust upon us.

discourages population growth

Andrew. wrote:From Kristol's faculty page:

We have seen in the case of Europe how a social democratic welfare state discourages population growth as well as economic growth, and suppresses the virtues traditionally associated with "manliness" in foreign policy. Europe is now paying a terrible price, to the point where it is in the process of losing its historic identity, because of the sovereignty it has accorded the social democratic ethos over both domestic and foreign policy. That the two are inseparably intertwined has never been more convincingly demonstrated.

True, the American version of "national greatness" has recently run into some local difficulties out there in the Middle East, and I suppose that the idea itself will be muted for some time ahead. But I note that the American population has just reached 300 million, with 400 million pretty firmly projected for 2040. So my grandchildren will be living in a country with the world's third largest population, the strongest economy, and the most powerful military establishment. Our critics may demand ever-greater humility from our ever-greater power; that would be a historic first were it ever to happen. So, for better or worse, "national greatness" is being thrust upon us.