The UK Guardian reports that, “Barack Obama has reportedly tapped Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to be the next head of the World Bank.”
“Lula, an immensely popular leader at home and abroad, has indicated he would be ‘honoured’ to take the job at the bank after he steps down as Brazil’s president in 2011, according to the Brazilian magazine Exame.”
“The moderate leftist raised eyebrows by recently blaming ‘white, blue-eyed bankers’ for the global financial crisis.”
“The report followed a recent article in Foreign Policy, a Washington-based journal, that the Obama administration was considering Lula or Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, to head the financial institution.”
“As the biggest shareholder, the US has traditionally chosen the bank’s president, which is a five-year, renewable post.”
The full article is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/02/obama-lula-world-bank.
You can read more about at Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the New York Times at http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/luiz_inacio_lula_da_silva/index.html?inline=nyt-per.
That article notes, “In November 2008, against the backdrop of a rapidly unraveling world economy, the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers met in Brazil. During the meetings Mr. da Silva became a leading voice for the frustration of developing nations at the United States and other leading powers for sowing the seeds of the mess.”
