Correa walks out on WB at Ibero-American summit http://buenosairesherald.com/article/83164/correa-walks-out-on-wb-at-iberoamerican-summit  Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa walked out of the Ibero-American summit in Paraguay yesterday ahead of the speech by the World Bank representative for Latin America, Pamela Cox.Correa said he was leaving so he “wouldn’t have to listen” to Cox, adding that the World Bank “has been a bulwark of neoliberalism and openly blackmailed my country.“Why do we have to listen to the World Bank in these fora?” asked Correa after requesting the floor moments before Cox began to address the summit. “When are they going to listen to us?” asked Correa who reminded his peers that the WB had cancelled a loan granted to Ecuador because the country “had changed its economic policy” after he took office. “They should at least begin by apologizing,” he insisted.Host president Fernando Lugo explained that it was a plural forum and one should be ready to listen to different opinions. But Correa stood pat: “I am leaving the room in order not to have to listen to Mrs. Pamela Cox.”On his return, Correa read excerpts from his book Ecuador, from banana republic to no republic, citing the part where he negotiated the WB loan when economy minister in 2005.“I had to go to Washington and Pamela Cox told me that the US$100 million cheque was cancelled because I had changed some of the conditions in which the guarantees came from our oil resources. So when I became president in 2007 I had to expel the World Bank representative from Ecuador,” he explained.“President Lugo,” he urged, “listen to your Ibero-American colleagues and not to the international organizations!”A few minutes earlier Correa had also exchanged words with the secretary general of the Organization of Economic Trade and Development (OCDE in Spanish), Angel Gurría of Mexico.After Gurría ended his presentation, Correa asked for the floor to protest its presence: “So that something changes, I propose that at the next OCDE forum some Latin American country attend to present our view.”In the past Correa has called the World Bank the defender “of financial speculation capital” and the cause “of Latin America’s debacle.”