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 Bye BYe Wolf 'O' Wits
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Posted on 05-15-07 8:46 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Wolfowitz 'broke World Bank laws'
A panel of executives at the World Bank says its President Paul Wolfowitz broke bank rules in awarding a substantial pay rise to his girlfriend.
The directors said the full board of the World Bank should consider whether Mr Wolfowitz was still able to provide effective leadership.

He is due to appear before the full 24-member board in Washington.

The board has the power to dismiss Mr Wolfowitz, reprimand him or report a lack of confidence in his leadership.

In remarks released ahead of the board meeting, the panel said Mr Wolfowitz provoked a "conflict of interest" at the World Bank.

It ruled he had broken the bank's code of conduct and violated the terms of his contract.

The full board must address the issue of Mr Wolfowitz's ability to continue in his job, the panel urged.

A spokesman for the US treasury secretary said the panel's findings did not merit Mr Wolfowitz's dismissal.

Censure 'likely'

"[The board must consider] whether Mr Wolfowitz will be able to provide the leadership needed to ensure that the bank continues to operate to the fullest extent possible in achieving its mandate," the panel concluded.


If this attempted coup against Mr Wolfowitz succeeds, it would poison US relations with Europe for quite some time to come
David Rifkin, former
Justice Department lawyer

The BBC's James Westhead, in Washington, says the signs do not look good for the World Bank head, with the tone of the panel's comments suggesting he will face at least some kind of censure.

Mr Wolfowitz has faced calls for him to step down since details emerged about his role in securing a pay rise for his partner, Shaha Riza, after he was appointed president of the World Bank in 2005.

When Mr Wolfowitz took over Ms Riza was transferred to work for the US state department, to avoid any conflict of interest.

But her salary rose quickly to about $193,000 (£98,000) - more than the $186,000 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice receives before tax.

The World Bank has since been investigating the extent of Mr Wolfowitz's role in securing the pay increase.

'Attempted coup'

Mr Wolfowitz has received the backing of senior figures in the US administration, including an endorsement by Vice-President Dick Cheney.

But he is less popular with European governments, which hold key positions on the board of the bank.

David Rifkin, a former justice department lawyer and friend of Mr Wolfowitz, told the BBC he found the panel's position inexplicable because Mr Wolfowitz had acted based on advice from the bank.

Many people viewed the row as an anti-American power play by European countries, he said.

"If this attempted coup against Mr Wolfowitz succeeds, it would poison US relations with Europe for quite some time to come," he warned.

"This is not an effort to oust him by people from regions in the developing world who supposedly may have not been happy about his anti-corruption efforts, they are all for him. It is about the Europeans and it is about in essence poking this administration in the eye."

Mr Wolfowitz was considered a controversial choice ever since President Bush nominated him to head the World Bank, because of his high-profile role during the early part of the Iraq war.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 8:50 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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DJs dropped over 'offensive' call
Two DJs have lost their American radio show after broadcasting an offensive telephone call to a Chinese restaurant.
Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, who presented The Dog House with JV and Elvis on New York's Free FM, had been suspended after last month's prank.

The pair placed an order for "shrimp fried lice" and made lewd remarks.

Their employer, CBS Radio, has dropped their programme, just weeks after dismissing "shock jock" Don Imus for racist and sexist remarks.

Imus - who described a women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" - is currently planning to sue the company for $120m (£61m), claiming a breach of contract.

A spokeswoman for the company would not confirm whether Vandergrift and Lay had been sacked altogether, or if they would appear on other shows.

But the decision to remove the pair from the airwaves was nonetheless welcomed by the Organization of Chinese Americans.

"This is a victory not only for the Asian-American community, but for all communities who find themselves constant targets of racist and sexist programming," executive Jeanette Wang told the Associated Press.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 10:38 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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It doesn't look like he is in any mood to step down. Unless the board evicts him, he might just stay on with a censure. I hope not and this will be an interesting story to follow.

In the meantime, the administration has come out in his support which seems to signal they aren't recalling him or asking him to resign - not yet at least.

This from SF Chronicle:

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow said he did not think Wolfowitz has done anything to warrant his resignation.

Snow said that President Bush continues to support Wolfowitz, who had served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon and was an architect of the U.S.-led war in Iraq before taking over the bank nearly two years ago.

"What we've said is, yeah, he made mistakes," Snow said. "That pretty much is obvious. On the other hand, it's not a firing offense."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson also said they don't think the facts merit Wolfowitz's dismissal.

"It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that you would want to see the dismissal of the World Bank president over," Rice said. "I hope it will be resolved in a way that is true to what really happened there but also strengthens the bank, which is a really important institution," she added.

Source : - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/05/15/national/w070943D05.DTL&type=politics
 
Posted on 05-15-07 10:41 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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About the composition of the board, this from Reuters (from last friday):

- http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2444199220070511

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of countries on the World Bank board believe Paul Wolfowitz should resign as President of the World Bank, bank board sources from rich and developing nations said on Friday.

"It is now very clear that a majority of members think Mr. Wolfowitz must resign," said one board source from a developing country, which received instructions from its capital this week not to support Wolfowitz's continued leadership.

"We believe that the World Bank cannot continue under the leadership of Mr. Wolfowitz," the source told Reuters.

The bank's 24-nation board this week delayed a final decision until next week over Wolfowitz's future, which hangs in the balance over a pay and promotion deal he approved for his companion, Shaha Riza, a World Bank Middle East expert.

The high-paying promotion sparked calls by the bank's employee association for Wolfowitz to resign and has paralyzed the institution, the globe's largest poverty-fighting agency.

Wolfowitz has said he took the advice of the board's ethics committee on Riza and that the row is part of a smear campaign designed to undermine his leadership.

Asked how many member countries thought Wolfowitz should resign, the source told Reuters: "More than 50 percent."

But another board official from a developed country cautioned that Wolfowitz's departure was not yet a foregone conclusion and he should be given time to respond properly to findings by a panel that his actions in the Riza's promotion broke bank rules.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 10:51 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Monin' Captn'
Man if they let him stay it would be really hypocritical of US government. How do they expect to be the POOLICE when they themselves are not setting an example. THE GUY HAS NO SHAME just like his THE ARROGANT EMPEROR GEORGE.
IMAGINE IF BILL CLINTON PULLED SOMETHING LIKE THAT ? WOULD THE REPUBLICANS BE OK ? Man TONY SNOW is nothing but a puppet of THE EMPEROR. If the emperor says dance he might start break dancing too(I never liked this guy, HIm and his buddies @ FOX are very good at spinning stories). As far as DICK is concerned ...he he he was still kissing RUMSFIELD till the day he resigned. THESE GUYS ARE SOOOO OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 10:52 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Giuliani's role at ground zero now under question
By Anthony DePalma

Monday, May 14, 2007
NEW YORK: Anyone who watched Rudolph Giuliani preside over ground zero in the days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, glimpsed elements of his strength - decisiveness, determination, self-confidence.

Those qualities were also on display over the months he directed the cleanup of the collapsed World Trade Center. But today, with evidence that thousands of people who worked at ground zero have become sick, many regard Giuliani's triumph of leadership as New York's mayor as having come with a human cost.

An examination of his handling of the extraordinary recovery operation during his last months in office shows that he seized control and largely limited the influence of experienced federal agencies. In doing that, according to some experts and many of those who worked in the trade center's ruins, Giuliani might have allowed his sense of purpose to trump caution in the rush to prove that his city was not crippled by the attack.

Administration documents and thousands of pages of legal testimony filed in a lawsuit against New York City, along with more than two dozen interviews with people involved in the events of the last four months of Giuliani's administration, show that while the city had a safety plan for workers, it never meaningfully enforced requirements that those at the site wear respirators, even long after the last survivor was rescued.

At the same time, the administration warned companies working on the pile that they would face penalties or be fired if work slowed.

Administration officials also on some occasions gave flawed public representations of the nature of the health threat, even as they privately worried about exposure to lawsuits by sickened workers.

"I would describe it as a conspiracy of purpose," said Suzanne Mattei, director of the New York office of the Sierra Club, which has been critical of how the cleanup was handled.

"It wasn't people running around saying, 'Don't do this safely.' But there was a unified attempt to do everything as fast as possible, to get everything up and running as fast as possible. Anything in the way of that just tended to be ignored."

City officials and a range of medical specialists are now convinced that the dust and toxic materials in the air around the site were a menace. More than 2,000 New York City firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems. Seventy percent of nearly 10,000 recovery workers screened at Mount Sinai Medical Center have trouble breathing.

And although no one knows whether other illnesses, like cancers, will emerge, city officials estimate that health care costs related to the air at ground zero have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The question of who, if anyone, is to blame for not adequately protecting the workers could finally be decided in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where thousands of firefighters, police officers and other recovery workers are suing the city for negligence.

City officials have always insisted that they acted in good faith to protect everyone at the site but that many workers chose not to wear available safety equipment for a variety of reasons.

Giuliani has said little publicly about how his leadership might have influenced the behavior of the men and women who worked at ground zero. Giuliani, whose image as a 9/11 hero has been the focus of his run for president, declined to be interviewed for this article.

His representatives did not respond to specific questions about the pace of the cleanup, the hazards at the site and Giuliani's reticence to speak out about the workers' illnesses.

Moreover, many of the people who ran agencies for Giuliani or who handled responsibility for the health issues after he left office would not comment, citing the pending litigation.

In the past, Giuliani has said that quickly reopening the financial district was essential for healing New York and the nation.

The cost of Wall Street going dark was enormous. Giuliani has said he was forced to balance competing interests as he confronted a never-imagined emergency, and he has acknowledged that he and others made mistakes.

From the beginning, there was no doubt that Giuliani and his team ruled the hellish disaster site.

Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all with extensive disaster response experience, arrived almost immediately, only to be placed on the sideline. One Army Corps official said Giuliani acted like a "benevolent dictator."

Despite the presence of those federal experts, Giuliani assigned the ground zero cleanup to a largely unknown city agency, the Department of Design and Construction.

Kenneth Holden, the department's commissioner until January 2004, said in a deposition in the lawsuit against the city that he initially expected the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Army Corps to try to take over the cleanup operation. Giuliani never let them.

In this environment, the mayor's take-charge attitude produced two clear results, according to records and interviews. One, work moved quickly. Although the cleanup was expected to last 30 months, the pit was cleared by June 2002, nearly two years ahead of schedule.

And second, the city ultimately became responsible for thousands of workers and volunteers while, critics say, its health and safety standards were lacking.

"The city ran a generally slipshod, haphazard, uncoordinated, unfocused response to environmental concerns," said David Newman, industrial hygienist of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a labor group.

Records show that the city was aware of the danger in the ground zero dust from the start. In a deposition, Kelly McKinney, associate commissioner at the New York City Department of Health in 2001, said the agency issued an advisory on the night of Sept. 11 that asbestos in the air made the site hazardous and that everyone should wear masks.

Many workers refused. No one wanted to be slowed down while there was still a chance of rescuing people. Later, workers said that the available respirators were cumbersome and made it difficult for them to talk.

Violations of federal safety rules abounded, and no one strictly enforced them. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration did not play an active role during the rescue phase, which is usually the case in emergency operations. But the agency remained in a strictly advisory position long after there was any hope of finding any survivors and at the point when, in other circumstances, it would have enforced safety requirements.

Agency officials said that enforcing rules and issuing fines would have delayed the cleanup and probably would not have helped much because contractors could have passed along the cost of the fines to the city.

In their defense against the negligence lawsuit, city officials have insisted that they cooperated with federal officials to develop an effective safety plan. On Nov. 20, well into the cleanup, contractors and city agencies agreed to follow safety rules, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration agreed not to fine them if violations occurred.

The agency ended up distributing more than 130,000 respirators. Workers' unions tried to get members to wear them, but usage remained spotty without strict enforcement of the rules.

"What they were doing on paper wasn't what they were doing in practice," said Paul Napoli, one of the lawyers representing the more than 8,000 workers who have sued the city for negligence.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 11:01 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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What else would you expect from the Bush administration that is renowned for its cronyism. Bush isn't going to let his lackeys down.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 2:25 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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U.S. fights for Wolfowitz to stay at World Bank By Lesley Wroughton
42 minutes ago



The United States fought for World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to keep his job on Tuesday, saying he had made mistakes but should not be fired despite a bank finding that he broke rules in promoting his companion.

In what appeared to be a coordinated move to stave off European pressure for his dismissal, the administration said the former U.S. deputy defense secretary and architect of the Iraq war had not committed a "firing offense."

"We've made clear that we support Paul Wolfowitz," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters.

"Furthermore, he has said -- and we agree -- that certainly a lot of mistakes were made in the personnel process. But it's not a firing offense," he added.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed the White House's comments, which came a day after a World Bank committee said he had violated ethics rules in the promotion and pay rise for his companion Shaha Riza, a Middle East expert.

"It seems to me that what happened there, as he said, he made some mistakes but it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that you would want to see the dismissal of a World Bank president over," Rice told reporters in Moscow.

Wolfowitz, whose neoconservative background and high-profile role in planning the Iraq war made him unpopular with many bank member countries, will make a last-ditch effort to hold on to his job when he appears before the bank's 24-nation board later on Tuesday.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Board officials said it was too early to say whether the board would fire Wolfowitz or would be swayed by behind-door U.S. diplomatic efforts to keep him at his post.

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who in April told Wolfowitz to step down, urged a quick resolution to the controversy that has paralyzed the institution and prompted turmoil among its staff.

"All of us development ministers want the integrity and the credibility of the bank to be maintained and reinstated," she told a news conference in Brussels.

The panel found that Wolfowitz had broken bank rules on conflict of interest by seeking a different resolution to Riza's job status than would have applied to other staff and had "cast himself in opposition to the established rules of the institution."

Senior European board officials told Reuters the panel's findings showed an arrogance by Wolfowitz and his aides toward the bank's normal operating procedures in the 2005 promotion.

The officials said the board is unlikely to make a final decision before Wednesday as it weighs the panel's findings. The United States is urging the board to consider the issues separately -- Wolfowitz's handling of the promotion and whether he still has credibility to lead the bank.

Another senior board official said Wolfowitz still had a chance of rescuing his job, depending on whether he could present a clear plan for rebuilding his credibility.

"I will only be convinced that he should stay on if he presents us with a genuine plan that he has the ability to raise funds for the bank, rebuild his relationship with staff and ensure the bank is effective," the official said.

Wolfowitz has called the panel's findings "unbalanced and flawed" and argued that it omitted statements and documents that support his position.

He has acknowledged there was perhaps some confusion and miscommunication between him and a bank ethics committee which advised him to transfer Riza to a job outside the World Bank to avoid conflict of interest issues.

The panel found that Wolfowitz believed the blame lay with others and failed to take responsibility for his actions.

(Additional reporting Caren Bohan in Washington, Arshad Mohammed in Moscow and Ingrid Melander in Brussels)
 
Posted on 05-15-07 2:32 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Here we go with that Arrogance of EMPEROR GEROGE. How does he expect the world to listen to him when his team indulges in matters such as this with an arrogant attitute like this ? JUST LIKE HE TRIED TO RAM DOWN THE WMD CASE BEFORE THE IRAQ WAR.
IF THIS GUY HAD ANY HONOR AND INTEGRITY LEFT IN HIM HE WOULD RESIGN.

DO ON TO OTHER AS YOU WOULD WANT THEM TO DO TO YOU.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 3:39 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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With the air over the John Bolton debacle just clearing, I don't think the administration has the appetite for another embarrassing and potentially damaging episode like this. I suppose in their minds Wolfowitz loosing his job is is a bigger embarrassment than a hunkered down Wolfowitz not being able to deliver because of the amount of friction created by all this.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 3:50 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Hunkered down WolfwOwits= hindrence to day to day operations of WORLD BANK

But Emperor George's Ego is bigger than an Elephants nuts. So him and his stupidity will not budge and let the hunkered WolfOwits do a half asses job. Which in turn would make world bank a disfuntional organization. Which would further deteriorate the relation between US and the European nations. I don't see good things coming out of this if he does not resign.
 
Posted on 05-15-07 3:56 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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I agree with you.But sadly Bush and company don't. So far at least. Depending on how this plays out, they might change their minds. Let's hope they do :)
 
Posted on 05-16-07 2:01 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Europeans harden opposition to Wolfowitz By Lesley Wroughton and Dave Graham

European countries signaled on Wednesday they would resist any U.S. bid to keep World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz in place as the bank's board considered whether to endorse a report that found he broke bank rules.

An endorsement of the report on Wolfowitz's handling of a promotion and pay rise for his companion in 2005 would effectively be a statement of no confidence in his leadership and would ramp up pressure on the former deputy U.S. defense chief to step down.

The board adjourned its meeting on Wednesday until 2:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) at the request of the United States, which has backed Wolfowitz and so far not agreed to endorse the report, board and bank sources told Reuters.

"The board is discussing whether to approve the panel's report, which would be as good as a no confidence vote in Mr. Wolfowitz, but the United States asked for an adjournment to consider its position," one senior board source said.

In an apparent hardening of Germany's position, Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul advised Wolfowitz not to take part in a two-day World Bank forum on development aid for Africa which starts on Monday in the German capital.

"He would do the bank and himself a great service if he resigned," Wieczorek-Zeul, one of Wolfowitz's strongest critics, told reporters in Berlin.

"It would be the best thing for all concerned."

Wolfowitz has been a controversial figure at the World Bank since his nomination by President George W. Bush in 2005 and has fought misgivings by European member countries over his role in the Iraq war while U.S. deputy defense secretary.

The U.S. request for an adjournment sparked speculation within the bank that U.S. backing for Wolfowitz was softening, but White House reiterated its support.

"We stand by our support of Paul as the World Bank president," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters.

The U.S. government failed in an effort to rally support for Wolfowitz among other rich Group of Seven countries on Tuesday.

It had tried to a cut a deal that would have separated consideration of his ethics violations from a decision over whether he had the credibility to continue, but only Japan out of the G7 countries sided with the United States.

G7 sources said most board members wanted a quick resolution to the protracted and messy battle over whether Wolfowitz should stay on, resign or be fired over the promotion for his companion, Shah Riza, a World Bank Middle East expert.

LINES DRAWN

Wolfowitz has remained defiant and has argued he should not take all the blame for the promotion and transfer of Riza to the State Department in 2005, saying he acted on the advice of a board ethics committee.

In an emotional appeal to keep his job, he urged the board on Tuesday to be fair and promised to change his management style and rely more on the advice of bank staff than on aides he brought with him from the Pentagon.

The attempt by the U.S. administration to cut a deal appeared to harden the positions of many of the board's 24 members, including some large developing countries, board officials said.

Denmark, a key contributor to development projects in poor countries supported by the World Bank, said it was difficult to see how Wolfowitz could stay on at the poverty-fighting institution.

"There is no doubt that the panel's report is very damaging for Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank," Denmark's development minister, Ulla Tornaes, told Reuters.

"And there is also no doubt that the prerequisites for continued cooperation between Wolfowitz and the bank's board doesn't seem to exist. It's difficult to see how he can continue," she said.

The Bush administration, however, repeated its contention that Wolfowitz's "mistakes" did not justify his dismissal.

"He clearly made some mistakes. He has said that," Snow said. "What happened in that case is not a firing offense in our opinion."

(Additional reporting by Erik Matzen in Copenhagen)
 
Posted on 05-16-07 2:15 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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You can now tell how powerful a pussy is?

 
Posted on 05-16-07 2:24 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Looks like Wolf'o'witz is at wits end.
 
Posted on 05-16-07 2:49 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Wonder what our brothers and sisiters over at World Banks have any inside scoop on this ? ANYONE ?
 


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