Our Work

Right now, there is a vacancy for the most senior post in official world development circles, a job that is of direct interest to billions of people across the globe. The process and candidates are shrouded in secrecy and the only candidates in the running are U.S. citizens.

When newly appointed CIA Director Porter Goss recently warned that China??s modernization of its military posed a direct threat to the U.S., was it standard budget time scare tactics?

Largely unnoticed with the focus on the war and insurgency in Iraq, and overshadowed by an upsurge in violence in Saudi Arabia, terrorist violence is also on the increase in neighboring Kuwait.

While on one level appointing John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is the contemporary equivalent of having King Herod as head of UNICEF, there is some comfort to be drawn from it. He will be singularly ineffective in winning friends and support for the White House’s policies.

It is now time for the United States to pursue the one policy option that has been missing from the national discussion of Iraq: the negotiation of a peace settlement with the insurgents that would involve the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops in return for the surrender of the insurgents and the reintegration of the Sunni region into the post-Saddam political system.

The Iraq War launched by the Bush administration 24 months ago is draining lives–U.S., Iraqi, and others–and treasure that should be devoted to other human needs.

Dick Cheney, a long-time beneficiary of World Bank largess, has moved to take ownership of the world’s development coffers through his man, Wolfowitz.

With the nomination of John D. Negroponte to head the newly restructured intelligence system and the rather startling choice of the controversial and confrontational John Bolton as ambassador to the UN, Bush continues to show much less concern for world public opinion or credibility than for personal loyalty and a hard-right ideology.

Ongoing scandals of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are fuelled by the Bush administration??s criticism of the Geneva Conventions.

John Paul’s vision of globalization sharply countered the pro-corporate triumphalism spread by “free trade” boosters.