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G-8 leaders pledge $3 billion aid for Palestinians
Jerusalem Post ^ | July 8, 2005

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.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; Israel; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: g8; g8summit; money; palestine
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1 posted on 07/08/2005 9:19:20 AM PDT by Alouette
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To: 1st-P-In-The-Pod; A Jovial Cad; A_Conservative_in_Cambridge; adam_az; af_vet_rr; agrace; ahayes; ...
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.

WARNING: This is a high volume ping list

2 posted on 07/08/2005 9:19:49 AM PDT by Alouette (The only thing learned from history is that nobody ever learns from history.)
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To: Alouette
Hmmm even after a terrorist attack, they send money to fund more terrorists...

Go figure...

3 posted on 07/08/2005 9:25:39 AM PDT by Zavien Doombringer (Have you gotten your Viking Kittie Patch today? http://www.visualops.com/patch.html)
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To: Alouette

Wow, 3 billion will buy a lot of C4.

These G8 guys are a piece of work.


4 posted on 07/08/2005 9:25:41 AM PDT by hattend (Alaska....in a time warp all it's own!)
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To: Alouette
Oh! Just Great!
They should be able to equip a lot of bombers with that kind of money.
D
5 posted on 07/08/2005 9:28:51 AM PDT by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: Alouette

Unbelievable. Western liberals can't face reality - eben when it explodes under their high-held noses.


6 posted on 07/08/2005 9:29:01 AM PDT by Bogolyubski
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To: hattend

When will these "leaders" wake up and connect the dots?
This is absolutely insane.


7 posted on 07/08/2005 9:30:35 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Alouette

"G-8 leaders pledge $3 billion aid for Palestinians"

Why?

And yet these same leaders talk about stoping money from flowing to terrorists. I guess that doesn't apply to the Palestians who continue their crusade of murdering and terrorising Israelis.

Countries especially those who had experience terrorists attacks should be standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel. They had and still have to go through the fear and occurence of suicide attacks all the time.


8 posted on 07/08/2005 9:30:49 AM PDT by youngtory (Kick the Red Tories out of the Conservative Party!)
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To: Bogolyubski

Unbelievable. Western liberals can't face reality - e(v)en when it explodes under their high-held noses.
------
Yes the G8 can spray billions UPON TERRORISTS but they cannot spend one dime to rid our countries of terrorists and protect our borders against totally unrestricted terrorist entry.....

This is just F-ING crazy!!! Total insanity. Where is this BS coming from?


9 posted on 07/08/2005 9:31:35 AM PDT by EagleUSA
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To: Alouette

I hope all 3 billion in aid is for moving vans to help them go back to Jordan.


10 posted on 07/08/2005 9:31:49 AM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Alouette

More money down the terrorist rathole. It seems like such a simple axiom of life: if you ignore or soften the consequences of, or, in this case, reward bad behavior, you will get more bad behavior. The idea that these people are going to behave better if we help them out is a triumph of silly hope over sad experience.


11 posted on 07/08/2005 9:33:10 AM PDT by B.Bumbleberry
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To: Alouette
....agreed Friday on an "alternative to the hatred" — a $3 billion aid package for the Palestinians and another $50 billion for Africa.

An "alternative?" You mean that if we throw billion$ at terrorist-friendly orgnaizations (the PA) and third-world dictatorships the hatred that infests Islamists will magically disappear?

12 posted on 07/08/2005 9:33:54 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: EagleUSA
"Where is this BS coming from?"

I would assume it's coming from those in attendance at the conference. I'm sure someone can provide a list.
13 posted on 07/08/2005 9:33:57 AM PDT by NJ_gent (Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.)
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To: Alouette

A $3 billion aid package for the suicide-bomber capital of the world is "an alternative to hatred"? I wonder what would qualify as "a promotion of hatred"?


14 posted on 07/08/2005 9:34:25 AM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: Alouette

Terrorism works.


15 posted on 07/08/2005 9:34:39 AM PDT by Weimdog
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To: EagleUSA

Western Civilization is in suicide mode.


16 posted on 07/08/2005 9:35:04 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Alouette

Three billion should be enough to build a nice house for every Palestinian to live in Jordan or Syria or Egypt.
Wouldn't that be a better long term solution than Gaza which is about as pretty as a gravel parking lot in a desert.


17 posted on 07/08/2005 9:35:50 AM PDT by RicocheT
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To: B.Bumbleberry

This is just Tony Blairs apeasement money for yesterdays bombing. he's just disguised it as "aid". There is no such thing as a "palestinian" they are muslim terrorists, the same ones who bombed London.

Blair caved, just like Spain.


18 posted on 07/08/2005 9:37:13 AM PDT by Nathan Zachary
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To: Weimdog

It also pays well.


19 posted on 07/08/2005 9:37:19 AM PDT by hattend (Alaska....in a time warp all it's own!)
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To: NJ_gent

I would assume it's coming from those in attendance at the conference. I'm sure someone can provide a list.
------
Well I saw some of it: Bush, Blair, Adolf Schroeder, Saddam Chirac, were the ones that stood out: there were more.


20 posted on 07/08/2005 9:37:25 AM PDT by EagleUSA
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