Social leaders belonging to the Hemispheric Social Alliance from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile gathered in Quito – coinciding with the G20 meeting in Washington - to discuss the implications of the current global financial crisis and the actions that the peoples of the continent should take. Among the attendants were: the Minister of Coordination of Economic Policies of Ecuador, Pedro Paez; the Senator of the Alternative Democratic Pole of Colombia, Jorge Enrique Robledo; and the Bolivian Ambassador in Ecuador, Juan Javier Zárate. All of them presented their views on the topic. (See the full statement by Hemispheric Social Alliance)

As analysts and civil society expected, the final G-20 communiqué didn't bring any substantial agreement on international regulatory coordination or any semblance of a new Bretton Woods. More of the same could be the balance... Crisis represents a very good excuse for IFIs to continue in the same path of activities we have been accustomed to. We reached a dead end, but unfortunately IFIs themselves might be enforced and legitimated by global financial turmoil (See final communiqué).

by Roberto Bissio

Israel's riot police invaded last Sunday, November 9th., the church of the Holy Sepulcher arresting two monks, armenian and greek, to finish a violent discussion more suitable of hooligans in a stadium than priests in the most sacred place of christianity.

The armenian monks had organised a procession to commemorate four hundred years of the holy woods that are worshipped as being part of Jesus Christ's Cross. Thus, the greek monks formed a human barrier to repel the advance of the procession to which they were not invited, avoiding them to pass into the grave's ediculus they are in charge of custody. "If the procession went on, they would've gained a right they don't actually have", explained a greek monk named Serafim, bleeding from a cut in his face after being punched by armenian monks that broke his glasses.

Today, November 15th., world leaders will meet at the G-20 Summit in Washington D.C., to discuss in a non inclusive manner the destiny of the global financial architechture. Pledges for more participation from civil society organisations and individuals worldwide have been ignored by the few, in their hands is the destiny of global economics. Feel free to share your views, documents and thoughts.

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Resources (updated November 17th.):

On the eve of the G-20 summit I find interesting to share the post that Dani Rodrik included recently in his weblog: "Everyone knows that the final communiqués of summits held by political leaders are written way in advance by their "sherpas". Through my contacts in the Bush administration I have managed to get my hand on the communiqué that will be issued at the conclusion of the G-20 summit being held on November 15th in Washington, DC. Here is how it reads..."

By Dean Baker

November 10, 2008, Truthout

Imagine that the United States was researching biological weapons and it inadvertently allowed a deadly bacteria to get into the atmosphere. The bacteria quickly spread around the world, leading to sickness and death everywhere.

Fortunately, U.S. scientists have developed a drug to treat the disease, which the United States generously shares with the other wealthy countries and a select group of developing countries. Unfortunately, there are a number of developing countries with whom the United States does not choose to share the drug.

This picture would pretty well describes the world financial crisis as the G-20 prepares to meet in Washington this week. The Wall Street geniuses managed to tie up the whole world’s financial system with the housing bubble in the United States. They crafted exotic financial instruments which they sold to investors in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere.

The collapse of the housing bubble led to the disappearance of trillions of dollars of financial wealth in a hugely overleveraged system. This has led to the rash of bank collapses in the United States, Europe, and in other countries where banks bought Wall Street’s junk.

While in the US the Obama office announces that he will not attend the G20 Summit on restructuring global finances, next November 15 in Washington, in Sao Paulo the Bush administration tells the invited leaders that he may indeed appear.  (See the Reuters report)

Is that just a bait to convince 19 presidents to go, knowing that is not George W. who they want to see? Or is that a real possibility? Will Obama go to the UN convened Financing For Development Summit in Doha, on November 30?

by Brian Wingfield and Deborah Orr 10.13.08, 6:00 AM
Forbes.com

Following a packed weekend of meetings here, many of the world's top economic officials are returning to their home countries Monday to deal with the next stage in the ongoing financial crisis.

Sir, If the International Monetary Fund is projecting that the world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s, and that “that global growth was likely to slow to 3.9 per cent growth in 2008 and 3 per cent in 2009, sharply down from 5 per cent growth last year” (“IMF forecasts global slowdown”, FT.com, October 8), then why is it still making i

Here’s a quiz question for all you international finance wonks out there. Who said this to the world’s press last week: “…we welcome monetary easing in the advanced economies...

A small number of civil society representatives from Africa were able to come to the IMF/WB annual meetings in Washington this year. But they were able to make two high-profile interventions.

As I was walking through the lobby of the Main Complex building of the World Bank yesterday, probably for the last time during these Annual Meetings, I saw that the Bank had created a series of huge self-promotional banners for the meeting. The closest to me was one that blared, "A Global Crisis Requires a Global Response." A sign of our times ...

I find it incredibly annoying. All these years the imposed policies of IFIs over developing countries were targeted to hard conditionalities that controled how much was invested in public health, education and development. The recipe advised no intervention of the State in the economy which should be [they insist] regulated naturally by the flow of capital in a liberalised economy.

Just made hopefully my last trip through the security gates here in the October Palace - the card scanner guys are just sitting down now. Flanked by his successor, the German Thomas Mirow, Jean Lemierre said his goodbyes at a press conference this afternoon Here's a play-by-play on how it went.

Campaigners attending the EBRD's annual meeting are joining with other groups from around the world [1] in calling for the EBRD and other public lenders to stop providing soft loans for Arcelor Mittal, the global steel giant that has benefited from more than USD 600 million in taxpayer-backed loans in the last ten years.

With yet another coded expression of continuing US unease at funding Russian investment projects via the EBRD, this year's EBRD annual meeting in Kiev is underway.