However, there is little evidence of the generosity necessary to make it work: the Bush administration has so far been unable fully to fund its own ambitious bilateral-aid plan, the Millennium Challenge Account.

ECONOMIST: Should poor countries' debts all be written off?

So now that Washington has decided to provide bilateral aid for Uruguay, using the same fund as that used to bail out Mexico in 1995, alarm bells are ringing in some quarters.

ECONOMIST: America to the rescue? | The

Tommy Thompson, America's health and human services secretary and also chairman of the Global Fund's board, says the bilateral part of Mr Bush's package is aimed at 14 African and Caribbean countries, which contain half the world's infected people.

ECONOMIST: Trick or treatment?

The critics soon found their voice again when it became clear that much of this would be bilateral aid, rather than aid channelled through the Global Fund.

ECONOMIST: Trick or treatment?

Without both, Ecuador will not get the stand-by agreement with the Fund that it needs to renegotiate its debts to bilateral official lenders abroad, and open the door to new multilateral lending.

ECONOMIST: Ecuador

It adds insult to injury that Primakov has secured what amounts to Western underwriting for these initiatives in the form of IMF and bilateral assistance, debt reschedulings, the Nunn-Lugar slush fund, etc.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: More taxpayer-subsidized IMF aid won't help