Wolfowitz to become new
president of World Bank
BY JEANNINE AVERSA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The
World Bank approved Paul Wol
fowitz as its new president Thursday,
affirming the administration’s choice
of a Bush loyalist to take the helm of
the 184-nation development bank.
Wolfowitz, the deputy defense
secretary who helped plan the Iraq
war, will begin his five-year term
June 1.
“Nothing is more gratifying than
being able to help people in need
and developing opportunities for
all the people of the world to
achieve their full potential,” Wol
fowitz said after winning unani
mous approval from the World
Bank’s 24-member board.
The bank’s stated mission is to
fight poverty and improve the living
standards of people in developing
countries. It lends about $20 billion
a year to developing countries for
various projects, including roads,
schools and fighting AIDS.
The installation of Wolfowitz
enables the Bush administration
to put its imprint on the bank,which
employs some 10,000 people world
wide.
That has raised the hackles of
some international aid and
other groups. They question Wol
fowitz’s development credentials
and worry he might try to use the
bank to help America’s allies and
punish its enemies.
Wolfowitz, 61, said he believes
deeply in the World Bank’s mission
and would not pursue any political
agenda.
Some critics, including people
from the Mobilization for Global Jus
tice and ActionAid International
USA, protested the choice outside
the bank’s headquarters Thursday.
“Now the developing world has to
live with Paul Wolfowitz, a man with
no relevant experience but for his
oversight of the reconstruction of
Iraq — a project beset by corruption,
cronyism and incompetence,” said
Robert Weissman, director of Essen
tial Action, one of the protest groups.
President Bush surprised the inter
national community March 16 by
recommending Wolfowitz for the
job, given that his hard-line foreign
policy stance made him a target of
critics at home and abroad.
To quell criticism, Wolfowitz has
been reaching out. He has tele
phoned Bono, the Irish rock star who
is a vocal advocate for helping the
world’s poor. He has met with many
countries’ representatives to the
World Bank and traveled to Europe,
where he won the endorsement of
European Union governments. Sup
port from Europe was important be
cause hostility still lingers there over
the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Wolfowitz said he learned a lot
from those soundings and plans to
continue to meet and listen to people
inside and outside the World Bank in
the months ahead.
“I have a new appreciation for the
urgent need for debt relief,” he said.
“My new colleagues have recom
mended I review that right balance
between loans and grants.”
The administration has been
pushing for major changes in how
the bank operates and supports aid
in the form of grants — which need
not be repaid — rather than loans.
By tradition, the World Bank has
been led by an American. The
United States is the bank’s largest
shareholder.
President Bush hailed the board’s
approval of his pick, saying, “The
mission of the World Bank is of vi
tal importance to our country and
the world as this year’s focus on de
velopment and accelerating action
in Africa by the G-8 and the U.N.
highlights.”
While critics question Wolfowitz’s
development credentials, he has said
his management experience at the
Pentagon and diplomatic experience
at the State Department prepared
him for the job. At State, he was as
sistant secretary for East Asia and
U.S. ambassador to Indonesia.
Members of Congress have criti
cized Wolfowitz for underestimating
the number of U.S. troops needed in
Iraq and for understating, in testimo
ny to a House panel, the number of
troops killed in Iraq. They also took
him to task for predicting before the
Iraq invasion that Iraqi oil would
generate $50 billion to $100 billion
over two to three years, limiting U.S.
war costs. Instead, Iraq generated
just $17 billion in oil revenues in the
Wolfowitz’s new job
Paul Wolfowitz
was approved as
the World Bank’s
new president
Thursday by the
board.
Wolfowitz
2001- U.S. deputy secretary
present of defense
1994-2001 Dean. School of Ad
vanced International
Studies at Johns
Hopkins University
1989-93 Undersecretary of de
fense for policy
1986-89 Ambassador to
Indonesia
1982-86 Assistant secretary of
state, East Asian and
Pacific affairs
1981-82 Head of State
Department’s policy
planning staff
1977-80 Deputy assistant sec
retary of defense for
regional programs
1976-77 Special assistant, Stra
tegic Arms Limitation
Talks
1973-77 U.S. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency
SOURCE: Defense Department AP
first 19 months after the invasion.
James Wolfensohn, the bank’s
current president, will step down
at the end of May, when his sec
ond, five-year term concludes.
Wolfensohn helped engineer a
number of changes in the bank’s
philosophy and how it operates.
He pushed for greater emphasis
on “home grown” development
planning, trying to connect the
bank closer to the countries it
seeks to help. He pressed for debt
relief for the world’s poorest
countries. His 1996 “cancer of
corruption” speech focused a
new light on corruption as an im
pediment to development that
must be addressed.
“I will make every effort to en
sure that our transition period is
successful, so Paul can hit the
ground running on June 1,”
Wolfensohn said.
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Digital photography
has led to decrease
in retail film prints
BY BEN DOBBIN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jesse Eisen
berg came within a technological
whisker of losing all her honey
moon snapshots.
The 31-year-old lawyer’s digital im
ages, stored on an online photogra
phy site, vanished while she was in
the hospital this winter having her
first child. She had given up all hope
of retrieving them when they sudden
ly reappeared on her computer more
than a month later.
“I can’t believe we got them back! ”
she exclaimed. “Oh my God, I’m go
ing to be printing all day today.”
It’s a refrain that sets the photo in
dustry’s heart racing.
As the digital revolution sidelines
film, the photo industry is having to
rely more heavily on high-margin
services and supplies — inks,
chemicals, paper — that go into
making prints.
Yet the picture is not quite as
it seems.
While there’s no hint of a falloff in
the desire of Americans to freeze
frame the world around them, the
overall number of images converted
into prints has been slipping since
the dawn of the 21st century.
The drop-off coincided with the
lightning transition to a world with
out film. A few years ago, there
wasn’t a framework in place to help
digital shutterbugs print easily
or cheaply.
Digital cameras are now in about
43 million homes in America, and
that 40 percent penetration could
reach 70 percent by 2007. The more
mainstream they become, some an
alysts argue, the more likely that old
printing habits will re-establish
themselves.
“Everybody treasures memories,
and what makes memories more
vivid than a photograph, a print?”
said Ulysses Yannas of Buckman,
Buckman & Reid in New York. That
impulse, he thinks, “will not fade; it’s
human nature.”
Bolstering Yannas’ belief is a recent
frenzy of acquisitions of online photo
startups, which are projected to
churn out 700 million prints this year,
up from 400 million in 2004.
Others dismiss the notion of shoe
boxes filling up to the brim again as
wishful thinking.
“The pie isn’t necessarily going to
get any bigger,” said Frank Bail
largeon, an industry consultant in
Eagle, Idaho. “But the pie is going to
be sliced up in many, many differ
ent ways.
“In the digital era, you can see
your pictures immediately, share
them instantaneously, store them in
a variety of arguably safe ways and
print them selectively. My children’s
generation is so comfortable with
technology that the need to just
have a print in your hand or in a
shoe box doesn’t sound like a very
compelling proposition.”
Manufacturers like Eastman Kodak
Co., however, think the meteoric rise
Photo albums
grow thinner
The number of photos converted
into prints has declined due to
an increased popularity of digital
photography and a younger
generation’s lack of emotional
attachment or need for prints.
Number of prints made
HU Digital [ | Traditional
35 billion
30.3
Camera sales
20 million 18.2
Note: Data for 2004 is estimated. Camera
sales figures exclude single-use cameras.
SOURCE: Photo Marketing AP
Association International
of camera phones could turn the lu
crative print business into a growth
market again, possibly within two
years.
Aside from rushing higher-resolu
tion cameras, speedier printers, fanci
er software and all-purpose kiosks
into the marketplace, they’re employ
ing all their marketing tricks to mold
consumer habits and transform elec
tronically stored images into prints of
all varieties.
Their campaigns run from scare
mongering about the perils of letting
pictures languish on computers that
might crash to behavior-reinforcing
TV ads by Rochester, N.Y.,-based Ko
dak in which new digital patrons
shout out, “Where are my pictures?”
In the United States, prints ordered
from retailers and Web sites or made
at home fell from a peak of 30.3 bil
lion in 2000 to 27.4 billion in 2004
and could dip to 25.9 billion this year,
according to Photo Marketing Associ
ation International, a trade group in
Jackson, Mich.
IN BRIEF
Knitting group to give free
lessons at first meeting
The University Student Fibers
Guild will have free knitting lessons
at its first meeting of the term Sunday
from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in EMU 318.
The USFG will also restart its com
munity service programs in which
they knit hats for premature babies
for the March of Dimes and an
afghan for Womenspace.
A spring term schedule of events
for the group will be available at the
event. This year, the USFG will have
a variety of events, including spin
ning one’s own yarn and dyeing
wool with Kool-Aid.
For more information about the
group’s volunteer programs, visit
www.geocities.com/uo
hand weavers/Volunteer_Work. html.
— Jared Paben