Global Politician said:

It's 2 a.m. on a Saturday night. I'm in a Singapore police station. No, this story doesn't involve alcohol. Fortunately neither the death penalty nor caning is likely.

The story begins earlier on September 16, when I arrived in Singapore, the site of the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF, from neighboring Batam, Indonesia. My companions and I were organizers of the International People's Forum vs. the IMF and World Bank (IPF), which wasn't feasible in Singapore. In January the Singapore government threatened to cane protesters and in the days before the events they made public an official blacklist of 27 people who would not be allowed entry to Singapore.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "From an activist's view... "

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Finance Asia said:

The market was shocked on Friday when Morgan Stanley announced that its Asia economist, Andy Xie, had resigned. The announcement was brief and mysterious, giving no explanation of why he was going or where he was going. With Morgan Stanley’s bonus period only two months away, it looked like a very strange time for the Shanghai-born Xie to leave the firm.

The Hong Kong rumour mill quickly began speculating as to why Xie had left. Attentions have focused on an email that Xie penned on September 18. Many copies of the email – which was about Singapore – have since been passed around by the region’s fund management and banking community.
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“I tried to find out why Singapore was chosen to host the conference,” wrote Xie. “Nobody knew. Some said that probably no one else wanted it. Some guessed that Singapore did a good selling job. I thought that it was a strange choice because Singapore was so far from any action or the hot topic of China and India. Mumbai or Shanghai would have been a lot more appropriate. ASEAN has been a failure. Its GDP in nominal dollar terms has not changed for 10 years. Singapore’s per capita income has not changed either at $25,000. China’s GDP in dollar terms has tripled during the same period.”

Xie then continued that he thought some “were competing with each other to praise Singapore as the success story of globalisation. Actually, Singapore’s success came mainly from being the money laundering centre for corrupt Indonesian businessmen and government officials. Indonesia has no money. So Singapore isn’t doing well. To sustain its economy, Singapore is building casinos to attract corrupt money from China.”

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Some harsh words for Singapore... "

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The Campus Observer said

Seow Hui Hong, a student volunteer of S2006, likened Singapore’s approach to the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Singapore to that of Germany’s hosting of the 2006 Fifa World Cup finals.

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e pur si muove said:

So the IMF/WB conference has finally come to an end, and with it the associated panoply of hard work surrounding the need to get things running like clockwork. The million dollar question is: despite the PR fiasco, did the delegates at least enjoy themselves here?

Recommended by tinkertailor: "Interesting comments from some delegates."

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The Intelligent Singaporean said:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have accused Singapore of reneging on a deal to allow activists into their annual meeting. - News Reports from around the world

Recommended by inspir3d: "The World Bank questions the integrity of the Singapore Government"

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Smoot said:

This is a long post but it really does get extra irritating to go through this nonsense and then have the news tell us that everything is really really great

Recommended by Cobalt Paladin: "The true report about the people at Suntec affected by the IMF event. The true report behind the mainstream media report."

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BBC said:

In an interview with BBC World Business Report, Mr Wolfowitz said Singapore had made a "bad" decision when it blocked activists that had been invited to the event.

"I hope Singapore's authorities will change their minds and allow the people in that we have accredited as originally agreed," he added.

He added that was important for the organisation to hold a "strong dialogue" with such groups.

"We may not always agree with what they have to say, but it is very important to have that discussion," Mr Wolfowitz said.

Recommended by at82: "Going back on an agreement does not seem to be a sign of World Class customer service to me..."

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