Summit reaches compromises on Africa, Palestinian aid

GLENEAGLES, Scotland -- World leaders on Friday concluded an economic summit shaken by terrorism, offering an "alternative to the hatred" -- a $50 billion aid package for Africa and up to $9 billion in additional support for the Palestinians over the next three years.

"We speak today in the shadow of terrorism, but it will not obscure what we came here to achieve," British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the summit host, said to close the three-day gathering.

"It is in the nature of politics that we do not achieve absolutely everything we hope to achieve, but nonetheless I believe we have made very substantial progress indeed," Blair told reporters at a closing news conference.

Wins and losses

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. The United States did not make any additional pledges beyond Bush's announcement last week that he would seek to double U.S. aid to Africa by 2010.

In a separate joint statement on terrorism, the leaders pledged new joint efforts against terrorism in light of the London bombings. Among those commitments was cooperating in ways to improve the safety of rail and subway travel.

Blair lost his push to get all summit countries to commit to boosting foreign aid to an amount equal to 0.7 percent 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 percent target. The United States is currently giving 0.16 percent 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 hoped going in.

He noted all the G-8 leaders took the unusual step of signing the final summit communiquŽs as a way of demonstrating their determination to meet the new goals.

"If we implement this, we will make poverty history," Blair told reporters.

At a separate news conference, French President Jacques Chirac said finding new ways to finance rich country support for Africa was crucial. He put in a plug for his idea to have all countries levy a new tax on international airline tickets to support poverty relief. The United States opposes this idea.

Aside from the massive increase in aid for the African continent, the leaders pledged to set a date for ending subsidies on farm exports, which Blair said he believed would be done at a meeting of the World Trade Organization in December in Hong Kong.

Debts canceled

The leaders also endorsed a deal reached by their finance ministers last month to cancel 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."

Anti-poverty groups praised the pledge to double aid for Africa but said the increases should be made more quickly, given the number of Africans dying of poverty and disease.

"The G-8's aid increase could save the lives of 5 million children by 2010 -- but 50 million children's lives will still be lost because the G-8 didn't go as far as they should have done," said Jo Leadbeater, head of policy for British-based Oxfam International.

Irish rock star Bono, who worked to mount the global Live 8 concerts last weekend to pressure the G-8 leaders, called the announcement "extremely meaningful" and said "a mountain has been climbed."

Blair said the Palestinian aid package would total up to $3 billion "in the years to come." However, the summit communique said the support would be up to $3 billion per year over the coming three years for a total of up to $9 billion. Faryar Shirzad, Bush's representative to the G-8, said the $9 billion figure was correct and a British official said the communique had the best explanation of the Palestinian aid.

Blair said the assistance was designed "so that two states, Israel and Palestine, two peoples and two religions can live side by side in peace."

The leaders, struggling to keep to their mission in the aftermath of deadly bombings that rocked London's morning rush hour on Thursday, shortened the summit's final day to allow Blair to rush back to lead a government panel dealing with the blasts.

Blair left the summit for several hours Thursday 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 continue as planned.

Bush left Gleneagles earlier than scheduled Friday. Upon arriving in Washington, the president was going straight to the British Embassy to sign a condolence book on behalf of the American people. He planned to devote his Saturday radio address to the London bombings.

Also reflecting the London attacks, the series of summit communiquŽs were to include a beefed-up section on terrorism. Aides to the leaders worked late into the night on this document, which was described as a progress report on what their countries are doing in the global war on terrorism.

Within hours of the London bombings, Bush and the other leaders issued a special joint statement that condemned "these barbaric acts."

"We are united in our resolve to confront and defeat this terrorism that is not an attack on one nation, but on all nations and on civilized people everywhere," the leaders said.