This is a relief. -d
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World Bank, IMF annual meetings in Washington expected to be postponed September 12, 2001: 1:04 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Staff of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were resigned Wednesday that their upcoming annual meetings would be called off, saying an announcement is expected on the matter within days.
"The meetings are going to be called off," an IMF source told Reuters, adding that the lender is awaiting word from the U.S. Treasury -- the official host of the Washington summit -- before making an official announcement.
The source said an announcement was, "at least two days away."
D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey Tuesday urged the international lenders to call off their meetings in the aftermath of terrorist attacks that caused both towers of New York's famed World Trade Center to collapse.
The attackers also crashed a hijacked plane into the Pentagon, costing many lives and putting local police and emergency workers in crisis mode.
With tens of thousands of protesters expected at the meetings, slated to take place at the end of September, sources at the World Bank said the lenders had no desire to put Washington through any more trouble so soon after Tuesday's horrific events. Early estimates of the loss of life at the Pentagon range from 100 to 800 people.
"They will leave it for a couple of days before making an announcement," one World Bank staffer told Reuters.
Among the problems local police face is how to manage crowd control in the face of an expected massive protest in Washington. Police had said they would rely heavily on officers drafted from New York and elsewhere to help control the event.
But given the massive operations in downtown Manhattan, it now seems impossible for New York to spare its own much-needed police to help Washington tackle anti-globalization protesters.
Protests at global financial summits have grown increasingly violent recently, with one protester killed in clashes with police at a mid-July summit in Genoa.
IMF spokesman Bill Murray and World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey both said no decision had been made but that the meetings will be discussed in coming days.
As the host country of the meetings, the United States advises the World Bank and IMF about security details of the meetings in Washington. Police were bracing for as many as 100,000 protesters to take part in violent demonstrations against the policies of both institutions.
One of the main protest organizers, Mobilization for Global Justice, is mulling its options, including whether to curtail or down-size some of the protests.
The annual meetings bring together finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world to discuss the global economic situation. The event, currently scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30, already had been shortened to two days because of the threat of violent protests.
In the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941, three hijacked planes slammed into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center Tuesday. Two of the planes demolished the New York landmark's two 110-story towers that have symbolized U.S. financial might. Later in the day a third and smaller WTC tower that had been burning also collapsed.
Officials fear the number of victims could climb into the thousands at the trade center, where 40,000 people worked.