/ 16 July 2006

G8 leaders agree to keep Africa’s woes in mind

World leaders pledged on Sunday to keep Africa’s woes in mind and to track actively their progress on cutting poverty and supporting development, a move welcomed by campaigners.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair put assistance for Africa at the top of the agenda at the Group of Eight summit he hosted in 2005 but this year’s host Russia initially ignored the topic.

But Britain pushed for discussion on Africa in St Petersburg and the leaders agreed to review efforts to boost aid, cut debt and improve trading conditions for the continent at next year’s meeting in Germany.

”We will review progress, and identify the next steps to support Africa’s successful development,” in Germany, the G8 said.

Campaigners blame sporadic attention by the outside world for the sometimes haphazard approach to relieving poverty in Africa and had worried that the blaze of publicity focused on the continent last year would vanish without lasting effect.

”Our goal remains a democratic, prosperous and peaceful Africa. We will continue to give our full support to African efforts to secure this,” the G8 text said.

Most campaigners say not enough has been done to fulfill G8 pledges of assistance since last year. But they welcomed the formal commitment not to let Africa issues slip from sight. ”This is the first time they have agreed to return to Africa. It means it is on the agenda for Germany. That’s really, really critical,” said Max Lawson, policy adviser for aid group Oxfam.

”They’ve got to keep reviewing programmes as their history on fulfilling promises is poor,” he said.

”The fact there have not been steps backward will be cold comfort for the 800 families in Africa who lost a child today because they couldn’t afford a doctor’s bill,” said Matt Phillips, head of campaigns for Save the Children.

”The G8 can and must act more urgently,” he said.

British officials say that while progress has been made in easing debt burdens for some of the poorest African nations, more needs to be done to boost aid and getting a breakthrough in global trade talks is a vital step to alleviating poverty.

Quest for a common position

Meanwhile, leaders strove to forge a unified position on the Middle East crisis as the United States strongly defended Israel’s right to defend itself from Hezbollah militant attacks.

Israel’s military offensive against Lebanon has divided Washington, the Jewish state’s big backer, and G8 partners such as France which see its response as excessive.

Under pressure to respond, G8 raced through documents on pre-planned themes including security of energy supply and sought to unblock world trade talks.

Differences on the merits of promoting nuclear energy and on how to tackle climate change were papered over. Host-nation Russia conceded to European Union demands to support in principle transparent and open energy markets.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said G8 leaders agreed to give their negotiators a one-month deadline to conclude the framework of the five-year-long Doha trade round.

But the worsening Middle East situation, where Israel is bombing Lebanon to punish Hezbollah guerrilla attacks across its border, dominated the thoughts of leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

French and German officials said G8 negotiators were trying to agree a statement on the crisis. It was not clear when or if sufficient agreement would be reached for one to be issued.

Bush early in the day reaffirmed US support for Israel’s right to self-defence and refused to ask it to halt its bombing of Lebanon.

”Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful of the consequences, so we are urging restraint,” he said. He did not back Lebanese calls for an immediate truce.

Echoing Bush, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the United States was ”deeply concerned” over the safety of civilians. An immediate ceasefire would not solve the problem, she said.

Though all the G8 leaders have condemned the actions of Hezbollah guerrillas, France has said Israel’s military response is disproportionate and Russia’s Vladimir Putin said Israel appeared to be ”pursuing other, wider goals”.

The United States earlier blocked any move by the UN Security Council to demand a ceasefire.

French President Jacques Chirac called for a lasting ceasefire and ”a show of moderation”.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the way to calm the violence was to tackle the reasons behind it, blaming Hizbollah and its allies Syria and Iran. Hinting at a struggle to heal divisions over the Middle East, he said G8 leaders would work hard for ”a common and unified position”.

”The only way we are going to get this situation calm and we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is if we address the reasons why the situation has arisen,” he said.

Hezbollah launched its deadliest attack on Israel in a decade on Sunday, firing rockets that killed at least eight people in the port city of Haifa and prompting Olmert to warn Lebanon of ”far-reaching consequences”.

Divisions over energy

Putin had set energy security as the main theme for the first G8 summit to be held in Russia.

A statement on ”Global Energy Security” approved by leaders acknowledged splits over nuclear energy and climate change among the world’s top economies.

Nuclear energy, which is making a comeback worldwide, produces no greenhouse gases and has been hailed by some environmentalists as a good way of protecting the climate while meeting growing demand for electricity.

But some G8 powers worry nuclear energy is dangerous and Germany is committed to phase-out its plants by the early 2020s.

Leaders also approved documents on education, and on fighting infectious diseases. They renewed a pledge to fight HIV/Aids, but offered no detailed plan on how they would fund the ambitious targets they have set.

Other topics on the agenda included Iran and North Korea.

On Pyongyang’s missile launches the leaders were able to start with a common position after a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted unanimously on Saturday imposed weapons-related sanctions on the secretive state.

Rice hailed the resolution, saying the show of international unity gave North Korea no choice but to return to six-power talks and ”pursue de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

Anti-globalisation demonstrators, severely restricted by the Russian police, conducted more small-scale protests.

Thirty-seven protesters, some of them European Union nationals, were detained after briefly blocking St Petersburg’s main thoroughfare, said Olga Miryasova of campaign group the Anti-G8 Network. Police confirmed only 22 detentions. – Reuters

Full texts of communiques agreed by Group of Eight leaders on trade and Africa.