War Up, Protests Down

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With war against Iraq on everybody's mind, you might not even know about the protests in Washington at last weekend's annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. "Police outnumbered activists, who said U.S. security concerns after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- and low official tolerance for risky tactics -- had forced antiglobalization onto a new, more mainstream tack," reports Laura MacInnis. Lately the most dramatic protests against the World Bank and IMF are not on the streets, but in academia, where Atiya Hussain notes that leading economists are challenging "the very bedrock of these institutions -- that globalization and free trade are a sure-fire path to prosperity."