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Wednesday, May 16, 2012 20:21 GMT

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Round One to Radical Left, Round Two to Europe?
Analysis by Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS - Kosmas Bitros (29) didn’t "believe in politics and in elections as a way of changing society". Still, he showed up at the ballot boxes for the first time last Sunday to cast a vote against austerity in the Greek national elections.
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Struggles over Land Rights Fall Under the Rio+20 Radar
By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada - Land is the missing element at next month's big U.N. sustainable development summit known as Rio+20, where nations of the world will meet Jun. 20-22 with the goal of setting a new course to ensure the survival and flourishing of humanity.
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OP-ED
Waiting for Copernicus
By John Feffer*
WASHINGTON - It's happening in Buenos Aires. It's happening in Paris and in Athens. It's even happening at the World Bank headquarters.
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IMF Policies Crippling Jamaican Economy
By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON - Jamaica's fragile economic recovery would be dangerously hampered by demands by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donors, according to a new report released here by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
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Unions Urge Development Bank To "Walk the Talk" on Labour Rights
By Dennis Engbarth
MANILA - The exclusion of certified labour union delegates from the official opening ceremony of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) meeting here on May 4 revealed a wide gap between the Manila-based development bank’s promises and practices on labour rights.
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Greek, French Elections Sound Death Knell for Austerity
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN - The voting out of conservative governments in France and Greece this weekend heralds the end of harsh European austerity programmes and ushers in an era of new economic, investment, and social policies aimed at restoring growth and employment across the continent.
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Greeks Gear Up to Cast ‘Protest Votes’ Against Austerity
Analysis by Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS - Aggeliki Anagnostopoulou (30) sits in a corner of the huge room that volunteers from the new party, Independent Greeks, are using as a headquarters for their pre-election campaign in the lead up to polling day on May 6.
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Laos’ Herculean Effort to Join the WTO
By Isolda Agazzi
GENEVA - After almost a decade of major economic transformation, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic is on the brink of World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership.
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India Serves Up Costly Cocktail of Vaccines
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI - Ignoring widespread concern over the safety, efficacy and cost of pentavalent vaccines, India’s central health ministry has, this month, approved inclusion of the prophylactic cocktail in the universal immunisation programme in seven of its provinces.
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World Bank Overseeing Global Land Grab
By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON - The World Bank continues to facilitate land-grabbing in poor and developing countries around the world, according to new research released here on Monday.
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Cloning - Lifeline for Cashmere Shawl Industry
By Athar Parvaiz
SRINAGAR, India - After scientists in Kashmir successfully cloned the pashmina goat, that produces the famous ‘cashmere’ wool, hopes are running high for the revival of the traditional shawl-making industry in this Indian state.
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Massive Theft of Developing World's Farmland
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN - The mass acquisition or lease of arable land in developing countries, especially in Africa, by foreign investors – a practice aggravated by the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2007 – has reached record highs, according to several new studies.
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Food Security Slipping Ever Further Away
By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON - Continuing near-record high food prices around the world are highlighting international inattention to a looming threat, observers here warned on Friday.
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Multilaterals Warned Not to Go Too Far, Too Fast in Myanmar
By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON - As multilateral lending agencies prepare to seriously re- engage with Myanmar for the first time in decades, observers at the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are warning that a poor understanding of ground conditions in the country could jeopardise many of the early opportunities created by government-initiated reforms.
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U.S.'s Kim Prevails in First World Bank President Contest
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - Capping an unprecedented multinational contest for the post, the World Bank's executive board upheld a nearly 70-year tradition Monday by selecting the U.S. candidate, global health expert Jim Yong Kim, to be the Washington-based agency's next president.
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World Bank Supports Harmful Water Corporations, Report Finds
By Johanna Treblin
UNITED NATIONS - Water privatisation has been proven not to help the poor, yet a quarter of all World Bank funding goes directly to corporations and the private sector, bypassing both governments and its own standards and transparency requirements in order to do so, says a new report released Monday.
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They underpin the world's financial architecture, with the power to revamp whole economies and channel billions of development dollars each year. But the so-called International Financial Institutions -- the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund and regional investment banks -- face a new era of public scrutiny and challenges to their relevancy.

How are the IFIs responding to growing demands from the South and civil society groups for greater democracy and accountability? And are they living up to their stated mission of promoting economic prosperity for all? IPS reports.