[Imc-newsroom] World Bank to Avoid Protests with Online Meeting

[Molly Stentz]

Have people heard about this? I just came across this alternet story which
is almost a month old now. I think this is a sign the Free Trade movement
is on the offensive and is making major headway! It also seems foolish
because the Free Trade and Indymedia movement have got the best tech
people around... (if only we had funding to pay them full time, can you
imagine!)

Can anyone write up a news piece on this? I am way way too busy with the
upcoming News Hour but I am fascinated by this.

-Molly


SOLOMON: World Bank to Avoid Protests with Online Meeting

Norman Solomon,
AlterNet

May 29, 2001

                           Few media eyebrows went up when the World Bank
recently canceled a global meeting set for Barcelona in late June -- and
shifted it to the Internet. Thousands of street demonstrators would have
been in Spain's big northeastern port city to confront the conference.
Cyberspace promises to be a much more serene location.

                           The World Bank is eager to portray its decision
as magnanimous, sparing Barcelona the sort of upheaval that has struck
Seattle, Prague, Quebec City and other urban hosts of international
economic summits. "A conference on poverty reduction should take place in
a peaceful atmosphere free from heckling, violence and intimidation," says
a World Bank official, adding that "it is time to take a stand against
this kind of threat to free expression." [...]

The rest of the story is at:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10942

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