Summit's final word on aid and trade

[Otto]

Speaking of bombast and bluster and empty rhetoric!

Summit's final word on aid and trade:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1524585,00.html

The G8-leaders have ratified nothing. They have only signed a final
communiqué (like so many before) that isn't binding any future government.

What the organizers of that "Make Poverty History" media event have to say
about the final outcome:
"(...) the deal is yet to be ratified and then it needs to be delivered."
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/response.shtml

"But African leaders and aid agencies were unhappy with the deal. (...) John
Hilary, the director of campaigns at War on Want, called the summit a
betrayal of the 1.1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day.
(...)
"The G8 have given less than 10% of our demand on debt cancellation and not
even a fifth of what we called for on aid ... When the moment came to act,
the G8 turned their backs on the world's poor.""
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1524584,00.html

So much about the quality of the deal which still needs to be delivered:

"Mr Schröder said he would use a tax on air travel to meet Germany's
ambitious aid targets."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1524584,00.html

Empty words. "Germany", if you speak about the majority of its population,
has no "ambitious aid targets" at all, and Schroeder hasn't got a mandate
anymore.

It's absolutely unclear to me how and when he's going to introduce that tax.
He's got an unbreakable conservative majority in the Second Chamber against
him and, even worse, most likely his time will be over September 18th (the
only one who could really guarantee another Schroeder-term would be George
Bush declaring his intention to attack one of the other "Axis of
Evil"-states soon). 

You won't find somebody in Germany who would risk a "quid wager" (GR 19) on
Schroeder/Fischer on September 18th. Sorry to say this but the country is in
the mood for a change:
http://www.infratest-dimap.de/?id=16#ue7

Schroeder's example alone should remind us how "substantiated" that final
Gleneagles-paper is.

Otto



	

	
		
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