Posted on 07/08/2005 9:19:19 AM PDT by Alouette
World leaders wrapping up an economic summit shaken by terrorism agreed Friday on an "alternative to the hatred" — a $3 billion aid package for the Palestinians and another $50 billion for Africa.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the Palestinian aid package would total $3 billion "in the years to come." The British leader said the assistance was designed "so that two states, Israel and Palestine, two peoples and two religions can live side by side in peace."
In the aftermath of Thursday's terror attacks in London, Blair said, "We speak today in the shadow of terrorism, but it will not obscure what we came here to achieve."
"It isn't all that everyone wanted but it is progress — real, achievable progress."
With a last-minute pledge from Japan, Blair won a key victory, announcing that aid to Africa would rise from the current $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010.
Blair, however, lost in his push to get all summit countries to commit to boosting foreign aid to an amount equal to 0.7% of national income by 2015. Instead, a summit document said the European Union had agreed to that support but did not mention the United States.
President Bush had refused to be bound by the 0.7% target. The United States is currently giving 0.16% of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G-8 countries.
Blair ticked off a list of accomplishments from a meeting that nonetheless produced less than he had hoped going in. The major failure was in the area of global warming, where staunch opposition from Bush thwarted Blair's efforts to get a US commitment to firm targets for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere.
Aside from the massive increase in aid for the African continent, leaders signaled support for new deals on trade, endorsed cancellation of the debt of 18 of the world's poorest nations, pledged universal access to AIDS treatment, renewed their commitment to a peacekeeping force in Africa and heard African leaders promise to move toward democracies that follow the rule of law, he said.
"All of this does not change the world tomorrow — it is a beginning, not an end," Blair said, with leaders of the G-8 and five African nations standing behind him. "And none of it today will match the same ghastly impact as the cruelty of terror. But it has a pride and a hope and humanity at its heart that can lift the shadow of terrorism and light the way to a better future." Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo thanked the leaders for focusing on Africa and for "their resolve not to be diverted by these terrorist acts."
Describing the agreement on climate change, Blair said merely that the plan of action "will initiate a new dialogue" between the summit countries and leaders from developing economies who also met with them.
The leaders, struggling to keep to their mission in the aftermath of deadly bombings that rocked London's rush hour on Thursday, shortened the final day of their summit to allow Blair to rush back to lead a government panel dealing with the blasts.
On Thursday, Blair had left the summit for several hours to confer with officials at Scotland Yard and calm a nation shocked by the worst attacks on the capital since World War II. Though he later returned, business did not proceed as planned.
Bush left Washington earlier than scheduled Friday.
On climate change, the United States, the only G-8 country that has not ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, was successful in rejecting Blair's call for setting specific targets and a timetable for reducing greenhouse emissions, according to a draft obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.
The communique was to acknowledge the split between the United States and the other countries in a section that said "those of us who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, welcome its entry into force and will work to make it a success." That was the document's only mention of the treaty put into effect this February.
Bush contends the Kyoto accord's curbs on greenhouse emissions would wreck the US economy.
Still, supporters of more aggressive action said that the United States had agreed to a document that stated "while uncertainty remains in our understanding of climate science, we know enough to act now." French President Jacques Chirac called that compromise language a "visible, real evolution" in the American position.
I assume that the good ole USA will be putting up the 3 billion dollars. What a bunch of crap!
Of that, I'm sure.
BUSH, Shut our wallet until you can insure our citizens will get their return on the forced retirement system called Social Security.
"Terrorism works."
Sadly, that would certainly seem to be the lesson here, wouldn't it?
Wow,
Three Billion will buy alot of nice sized throwing rocks!
Now I'd rather that they went back to the global warming nonsense.
--G-8 leaders pledge to steal $3 billion from their own citizens and send it to corrupt Palestinian leaders.
Paying for your own destruction. Hmmm......what is that called? Masochism? Having a death wish? World class stupidity?
And the liberals will keep on excusing terrorism by explaining how "poor" and "hopeless" and "desperate" they are.
"...The United States is currently giving 0.16% of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G-8 countries..."
THE PROBLEM ISN'T THAT WE ARE GIVING ONLY .16%! THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT IS .16% TOO MUCH!
I'd like to see some return on my investment. How about these folks stop seeing 1 thin penny until they start to purge terrorists from their ranks.
The other countries need to increase their national income. That way their percentage of giving will go down, too.
piss in a rat hole and funding to imperil the only regional democracy.
The world is insane. Goodbye logic, reason and justice. I fear for the future of this world.
Actually this was an American initiative, announced a few months ago. To bring democracy to the middle east.
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