Summit to deal with AIDS, Africa aid
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush and other leaders of the world’s most powerful countries are determined to use this year’s Group of Eight summit to launch what some are calling a Marshall Plan for Africa: billions of dollars in new aid to the poorest continent. African assistance is expected to be the primary achievement of the 28th annual economic summit, which gets under way Wednesday at a remote resort in the Canadian Rockies.
Bush and the leaders of the other G-8 countries – Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada – also will spend considerable time at their first summit meeting since Sept. 11 reviewing the fight against international terror.
U.S. allies are coming with plenty of questions about what Bush might have in mind in terms of expanding the war to Iraq and other countries. The president, in a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy on June 1, said the United States will strike pre-emptively against suspected terrorists or the states that support them if necessary to deter attacks on Americans.
The remarks raised new misgivings about what many U.S. allies see as a troubling U.S. tendency toward unilateral action.
“In the context of terrorism, the allies will make an effort to get the president to commit to greater consultation.
“The West Point speech heightened their anxiety,” said James Steinberg, deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he was not expecting Bush to apply any pressure to get backing from the other leaders for an imminent expansion of the campaign.
“Demands are not on the agenda in Canada,” Schroeder said in a pre-summit interview.
Even before Sept. 11 elevated terror to the top of the summit’s agenda, violent street protests at last year’s summit in Genoa, Italy, had convinced Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien that a drastic overhaul in the annual meetings was needed.
He switched the location from a bustling city easily accessible to anti-globalization protesters to the tiniest site ever to serve as host for a G-8 summit – Kananaskis, Alberta, a remote village accessible by a single two-lane road.
The official delegations have been sharply reduced to fit the three available low-rise hotels. Chretien has pared back the discussions from three days to just 30 hours, starting Wednesday and ending with the reading of a brief chairman’s statement Thursday afternoon.
Chretien declared a year ago that he wanted the formal agenda to focus on Africa.
That idea gained new momentum after Sept. 11 attacks as wealthy countries saw the benefit of combating poverty as a way to eliminate breeding grounds for terrorist groups.
The G-8 leaders will be joined in their discussions by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the leaders of five African countries, including South African President Thabo Mbeki.
He is seeking support for his “New Partnership for African Development,” which some see as the modern-day equivalent of the Marshall Plan, the U.S. program that rebuilt Europe from the devastation of World War II.
The G-8 program would provide billions of dollars of aid to African countries that pledge to eliminate government corruption and pursue free-market economic reforms.
Bush sent Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill on a fact-finding tour of Africa this spring with rock star Bono. The president said last week he is planning his own visit to Africa in 2003.
He also announced increased spending on HIV-AIDS and education programs in Africa, although activists said both proposals fell far short of what is needed.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in announcing a $2 billion pledge last week for African education programs, said, “There will be no stability and prosperity in the international community in the 21st century unless the problems in Africa are resolved.”
In another terror-related matter, Russian President Vladimir Putin is hoping to win backing for a program in which the United States and other wealthy countries will provide $10 billion in matching money over the next 10 years to help Russia decommission its nuclear stockpile.
U.S. intelligence agencies have warned Congress that Russia’s nuclear material is vulnerable to theft and terrorism.
Bush probably will come under some criticism inside the meetings for his recent decisions to impose steep tariffs on imported steel and to sign legislation granting a big increase in U.S. farm subsidies.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said last week that rich nations could do the most to alleviate global poverty by cutting trade-distorting farm subsidies and opening their markets to products from poor countries.
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On the Net: Canadian government’s summit site: http://www.g8.gc.ca/