Hervé
28th March 2013, 05:48
The World Bank: Rejecting “The Rule of Law”
“The proverb, ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you”, originated in 1576 as, ‘So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.’ But the opposite is true. Unpleasant hidden truths do the most harm. The best way to fight corruption is to expose it. Think of the World Bank as ENRON.” … Karen Hudes
by Karen Hudes (with Jim Fetzer) (http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/fetzer/)
(http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/fetzer/)http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/karen-world-bank-320x239.jpg (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/27/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/karen-world-bank/)
Karen Hudes
When, thanks to Mark Novitsky, a federal whistleblower (http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com/), I learned that Karen Hudes, who earned her J.D. at Yale, our most distinguished School of Law, and an M.Phil. in economics at the University of Amsterdam, which is also a formidable institution, had been removed from her position as Senior Counsel for the World Bank because of her efforts to expose corruption and reaffirm the rule of law in the form of appropriate standards of accounting, I was dumbfounded.
What initially appear to be obscure issues of international finance, moreover, have the potential to sever ties between us and our NATO allies and weaken the national security of the United States. The stakes involved are therefore extremely high for every American citizen.
During the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings last October, with her encouragement, the Development Committee informed President Jim Yong Kim of the need for “a more open, transparent and accountable World Bank Group.” The reasons that motivated that request included the following series of disturbing developments:
The World Bank has disregarded the Joint Economic Committee’s 2005 inquiry (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/101.pdf) into the World Bank’s “corporate governance irregularities” and “accounting problems”;
The World Bank has failed to follow the Joint Economic Committee’s advice that professional financial and accounting employees be given independent access to the World Bank’s Board and its Audit Committee;
The World Bank has failed to protect Hudes against retaliation for challenges of illegality or other misconduct through external arbitration pursuant to the 2005 Lugar-Leahy amendment (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/105.pdf), which could threaten its mission;
The World Bank has stonewalled Senator Lugar’s and Congressman Van Hollen’s four requests (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/108.pdfhttp://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1101.pdf%20https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzss7Q0pShvzejNWLWR3Yjljdmc/edit)for the advice of the executive search firm following Hudes’ disclosure of internal control lapses;
The World Bank has refused to comply with the Government Accountability Office inquiry into corruption requested by Senators Lugar, Leahy and Bayh (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/124.pdf) for more than three years;
Congress has reiterated its request for the GAO inquiry during hearings on the World Bank capital increase (http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=33c66777-5056-a032-525a-a0a5806634e9), with which it has yet to comply; and,
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner misrepresented progress on World Bank reform (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzss7Q0pShvzWmE5Rlp1NVdMQlk/edit) in his 11/21/12 report to the Appropriations Committees pursuant to § 7082 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012.
The Crisis in Cyprus as a Mini-Model
The threat by EU bankers to loot savings accounts held in Cyprus has raised red flags all over the world. As The New York Times (25 March 2013) has reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/business/global/no-matter-outcome-cyprus-crisis-is-blow-to-business.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130325&_r=0),
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS — It is not just about rich Russians and Cypriot retirees. Also vitally at stake in this island country’s banking crisis is Cyprus’s credibility as a place for international companies to continue doing business.
Take Avid Life Media, the Canadian-owned operator of some of the world’s biggest online dating sites. Only a few weeks ago it set up an office here as a base for its international operations, attracted to Cyprus — as hundreds of other foreign businesses have been — because of its reputation for financial stability, a low corporate tax rate, a friendly banking environment and most of all, a strong rule of law.
Now imagine that was the case for the most important bank of all, which affects the world’s economy. Imagine that bank accounts were being looted world-wide and you will begin to appreciate the dimensions of the problem.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hheaM3q1Ilw/UVL5Yg7DC1I/AAAAAAAABp4/e6znCTb3uGM/s400/6+December+2011+News+Release.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hheaM3q1Ilw/UVL5Yg7DC1I/AAAAAAAABp4/e6znCTb3uGM/s1600/6+December+2011+News+Release.jpg)
When I discovered that Karen Hudes’ reinstatement, which was being supported by the finance ministers of the nations of the world, was being blocked by its recently appointed president, Jim Yong Kim, who was formerly President of Dartmouth, I was further astonished, because I had encountered Kim before. He had supported the publication for an article by a member of the computer science faculty, Hany Farid, who claimed that the backyard photographs used to convict Lee Harvey Oswald in the public mind were authentic, which was profoundly disturbing.
Hany Farid and “the backyard photographs”
That is a claim that others had long since proven false. Jack White, the legendary JFK photo analyst, had testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) when it had reinvestigated the deaths of JFK and of MLK in 1976-77 and had pointed out a dozen features that disqualify them (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/08/19/framing-the-patsy-the-case-of-lee-harvey-oswald/). Oswald himself had told Capt. Will Fritz, the Dallas Homicide detective who interrogated him, that the photo he was shown had his face pasted on someone else’s body. Like other claims Oswald made at the time, subsequent research has proven that he was right.
The chin is not Lee Oswald’s chin, which was somewhat pointed, but a block chin; there is an insert line between the chin and his lower lip; and the finger tips of his right hand are cut off, for example. Even more interestingly,
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Backyard-fakery2.jpg (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/25/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/backyard-fakery-3/)
he realized that the two communist newspapers that Oswald was holding–The Militant and The Worker–had known dimensions and could serve as an internal rule to determine the height of the person who was holding them. Using that method, he was able to establish that he was about 5’6″ tall, when Oswald was about 5’10″–which meant that either someone who was too short to be Oswald had posed for the photos or that they had been introduced too large when they were faked. Either way, they could not possibly be authentic.
When I discovered that Hany Farid, who has a lab funded by the FBI, had published the claim that he had proven them to be authentic by showing that it was possible to replicate the shadow cast by the nose in one of them, I knew he was perpetrating a fraud on the public, because (1) there are four poses taken in different positions at different times, where it would have been virtually impossible for the nose shadow to remain constant from one to another; and (2) there are many other indications of fakery besides the shadow cast by the nose that prove fakery, where even if he had been right about the nose shadow, his conclusion of authenticity would have been wrong. He was violating a basic precept of science by not basing his reasoning upon all the available relevant evidence
So I wrote to President Kim to explain why Darmouth was committing a blunder in supporting Hany Farid’s claim, which I substantiated with multiple lines of proof. Dartmouth stood pat, however, and never took steps to correct the record, even though it was a matter of immense public interest and concern. I published an article about my experience with Kim in an article co-authored with Jim Marrs in OpEdNews, “The Dartmouth JFK-Photo Fiasco” (http://www.opednews.com/articles/THE-DARTMOUTH-JFK-PHOTO-FI-by-Jim-Fetzer-091116-941.html) (20 November 2009) and followed up by publishing my correspondence in “Blowing the Whistle on Dartmouth: Hany Farid in the nation’s service” (http://www.opednews.com/Diary/Blowing-the-Whistle-on-Dar-by-Jim-Fetzer-100126-428.html) (26 January 2010), which I regarded as a professional obligation.
It now appears to me that Kim may have been rewarded for his contribution to the public deception about the death of JFK by being appointed to the World Bank, just as Paul Wolfowitz appears to have been appointed by George W. Bush for his contributions to 9/11 and the “war on terror”. I have long believed that, in Washington, D.C., the bigger the liar, the further you go. I now believe that, when it comes to acting contrary to the public interest, the presidency of the World Bank may be another sign of compliance with corruption, as the experiences of Karen Hudes reflects. I regard us as kindred spirits insofar as “whistle blowing” seems to be coursing through our veins.
[/URL]
Credit Ratings, NATO and Democracy: Too Big for Transparency?
by Karen Hudes
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Board-of-Governors3.jpg (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/25/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/board-of-governors-4/)
Continue reading here: [URL]http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/27/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/
“The proverb, ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you”, originated in 1576 as, ‘So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.’ But the opposite is true. Unpleasant hidden truths do the most harm. The best way to fight corruption is to expose it. Think of the World Bank as ENRON.” … Karen Hudes
by Karen Hudes (with Jim Fetzer) (http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/fetzer/)
(http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/fetzer/)http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/karen-world-bank-320x239.jpg (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/27/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/karen-world-bank/)
Karen Hudes
When, thanks to Mark Novitsky, a federal whistleblower (http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com/), I learned that Karen Hudes, who earned her J.D. at Yale, our most distinguished School of Law, and an M.Phil. in economics at the University of Amsterdam, which is also a formidable institution, had been removed from her position as Senior Counsel for the World Bank because of her efforts to expose corruption and reaffirm the rule of law in the form of appropriate standards of accounting, I was dumbfounded.
What initially appear to be obscure issues of international finance, moreover, have the potential to sever ties between us and our NATO allies and weaken the national security of the United States. The stakes involved are therefore extremely high for every American citizen.
During the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings last October, with her encouragement, the Development Committee informed President Jim Yong Kim of the need for “a more open, transparent and accountable World Bank Group.” The reasons that motivated that request included the following series of disturbing developments:
The World Bank has disregarded the Joint Economic Committee’s 2005 inquiry (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/101.pdf) into the World Bank’s “corporate governance irregularities” and “accounting problems”;
The World Bank has failed to follow the Joint Economic Committee’s advice that professional financial and accounting employees be given independent access to the World Bank’s Board and its Audit Committee;
The World Bank has failed to protect Hudes against retaliation for challenges of illegality or other misconduct through external arbitration pursuant to the 2005 Lugar-Leahy amendment (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/105.pdf), which could threaten its mission;
The World Bank has stonewalled Senator Lugar’s and Congressman Van Hollen’s four requests (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/108.pdfhttp://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1101.pdf%20https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzss7Q0pShvzejNWLWR3Yjljdmc/edit)for the advice of the executive search firm following Hudes’ disclosure of internal control lapses;
The World Bank has refused to comply with the Government Accountability Office inquiry into corruption requested by Senators Lugar, Leahy and Bayh (http://kahudes.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/124.pdf) for more than three years;
Congress has reiterated its request for the GAO inquiry during hearings on the World Bank capital increase (http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=33c66777-5056-a032-525a-a0a5806634e9), with which it has yet to comply; and,
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner misrepresented progress on World Bank reform (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bzss7Q0pShvzWmE5Rlp1NVdMQlk/edit) in his 11/21/12 report to the Appropriations Committees pursuant to § 7082 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012.
The Crisis in Cyprus as a Mini-Model
The threat by EU bankers to loot savings accounts held in Cyprus has raised red flags all over the world. As The New York Times (25 March 2013) has reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/business/global/no-matter-outcome-cyprus-crisis-is-blow-to-business.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130325&_r=0),
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS — It is not just about rich Russians and Cypriot retirees. Also vitally at stake in this island country’s banking crisis is Cyprus’s credibility as a place for international companies to continue doing business.
Take Avid Life Media, the Canadian-owned operator of some of the world’s biggest online dating sites. Only a few weeks ago it set up an office here as a base for its international operations, attracted to Cyprus — as hundreds of other foreign businesses have been — because of its reputation for financial stability, a low corporate tax rate, a friendly banking environment and most of all, a strong rule of law.
Now imagine that was the case for the most important bank of all, which affects the world’s economy. Imagine that bank accounts were being looted world-wide and you will begin to appreciate the dimensions of the problem.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hheaM3q1Ilw/UVL5Yg7DC1I/AAAAAAAABp4/e6znCTb3uGM/s400/6+December+2011+News+Release.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hheaM3q1Ilw/UVL5Yg7DC1I/AAAAAAAABp4/e6znCTb3uGM/s1600/6+December+2011+News+Release.jpg)
When I discovered that Karen Hudes’ reinstatement, which was being supported by the finance ministers of the nations of the world, was being blocked by its recently appointed president, Jim Yong Kim, who was formerly President of Dartmouth, I was further astonished, because I had encountered Kim before. He had supported the publication for an article by a member of the computer science faculty, Hany Farid, who claimed that the backyard photographs used to convict Lee Harvey Oswald in the public mind were authentic, which was profoundly disturbing.
Hany Farid and “the backyard photographs”
That is a claim that others had long since proven false. Jack White, the legendary JFK photo analyst, had testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) when it had reinvestigated the deaths of JFK and of MLK in 1976-77 and had pointed out a dozen features that disqualify them (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/08/19/framing-the-patsy-the-case-of-lee-harvey-oswald/). Oswald himself had told Capt. Will Fritz, the Dallas Homicide detective who interrogated him, that the photo he was shown had his face pasted on someone else’s body. Like other claims Oswald made at the time, subsequent research has proven that he was right.
The chin is not Lee Oswald’s chin, which was somewhat pointed, but a block chin; there is an insert line between the chin and his lower lip; and the finger tips of his right hand are cut off, for example. Even more interestingly,
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Backyard-fakery2.jpg (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/25/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/backyard-fakery-3/)
he realized that the two communist newspapers that Oswald was holding–The Militant and The Worker–had known dimensions and could serve as an internal rule to determine the height of the person who was holding them. Using that method, he was able to establish that he was about 5’6″ tall, when Oswald was about 5’10″–which meant that either someone who was too short to be Oswald had posed for the photos or that they had been introduced too large when they were faked. Either way, they could not possibly be authentic.
When I discovered that Hany Farid, who has a lab funded by the FBI, had published the claim that he had proven them to be authentic by showing that it was possible to replicate the shadow cast by the nose in one of them, I knew he was perpetrating a fraud on the public, because (1) there are four poses taken in different positions at different times, where it would have been virtually impossible for the nose shadow to remain constant from one to another; and (2) there are many other indications of fakery besides the shadow cast by the nose that prove fakery, where even if he had been right about the nose shadow, his conclusion of authenticity would have been wrong. He was violating a basic precept of science by not basing his reasoning upon all the available relevant evidence
So I wrote to President Kim to explain why Darmouth was committing a blunder in supporting Hany Farid’s claim, which I substantiated with multiple lines of proof. Dartmouth stood pat, however, and never took steps to correct the record, even though it was a matter of immense public interest and concern. I published an article about my experience with Kim in an article co-authored with Jim Marrs in OpEdNews, “The Dartmouth JFK-Photo Fiasco” (http://www.opednews.com/articles/THE-DARTMOUTH-JFK-PHOTO-FI-by-Jim-Fetzer-091116-941.html) (20 November 2009) and followed up by publishing my correspondence in “Blowing the Whistle on Dartmouth: Hany Farid in the nation’s service” (http://www.opednews.com/Diary/Blowing-the-Whistle-on-Dar-by-Jim-Fetzer-100126-428.html) (26 January 2010), which I regarded as a professional obligation.
It now appears to me that Kim may have been rewarded for his contribution to the public deception about the death of JFK by being appointed to the World Bank, just as Paul Wolfowitz appears to have been appointed by George W. Bush for his contributions to 9/11 and the “war on terror”. I have long believed that, in Washington, D.C., the bigger the liar, the further you go. I now believe that, when it comes to acting contrary to the public interest, the presidency of the World Bank may be another sign of compliance with corruption, as the experiences of Karen Hudes reflects. I regard us as kindred spirits insofar as “whistle blowing” seems to be coursing through our veins.
[/URL]
Credit Ratings, NATO and Democracy: Too Big for Transparency?
by Karen Hudes
http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Board-of-Governors3.jpg (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/25/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/board-of-governors-4/)
Continue reading here: [URL]http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/27/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/