Press Releases

April 5, 2004

Investigative Journalist and Financial Expert James Henry to Speak at Southampton College
Author of "The Blood Bankers: Tales From the Global Underground Economy" Will Lead Discussion on Profound Concern With Global Development Crisis

Contact:
Patricia Conway
631-287-8313

Southampton, NY - Globalization's dark side has devastated developing countries, according to James Henry, who spent more than a decade researching the world's most intimate and shocking financial secrets.

Henry's book "The Blood Bankers: Tales From the Global Underground," will be the focus of a lecture on Thursday, April 15 at 7 p.m. in Southampton College's Duke Lecture Hall.

Henry's informative and comprehensive research provides an original, first-hand account of decades of unscrupulous financial behavior in the Philippines, Brazil, Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Mexico and sheds new light on the financial roots of the current crises in Iraq and the Middle East.

In his foreword to the book, Senator Bill Bradley states that there is an urgent need for a "war on global poverty." He writes: "September 11 was a shocking assault. But it is a profound mistake to believe that police and military alone will ever be a sufficient answer to the poverty, inequality, and injustice that breed much of today's extremism?"

Henry's research has taken him to more than fifty developing countries and some of it has been instrumental in producing evidence that assisted in the conviction of General Manual Noriega; the exposure of a leading cocaine trafficking ring in Brazil; and the identification of the role by loans to the Philippines Central Bank in enriching Ferdinand Marcos. Henry has testified on these matters before the U.S. Senate, and lectured widely on the problems of development, money laundering and tax evasion.

An attorney, former chief economist for McKinsey & Co., and vice president for strategy for IBM/Lotus, Henry has also written for many major publications and is founder and managing director of the Sag Harbor Group, a strategy consulting firm with a special focus on technology strategy and business development. He has worked on a variety of competitive strategy issues for many global companies, serves as an advisor and board member of Peoplink.org, a nonprofit agency that focuses on bringing the benefits of e-commerce to developing countries, and an advisor to Ashoka, a "reverse Peace Corps" that sponsors more than 1,500 fellows working on social and environmental issues in developing countries. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and a member of the New York Bar, he received a master's degree in economics from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The free talk will be followed by a panel discussion with audience participation, book signing by the author and refreshments. The lecture is supported by the John P. McGrath Fund of Long Island University and co-sponsored by The Peconic Bay Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) and by the non-profit group, Meet The Minimum Needs of All, Inc. For further information contact Southampton College professor M. Radh Achuthan at (631) 287-8414.