G8 leaders face growing pre-summit pressure on Africa, global warming

LONDON, Sunday (AFP)

Pressure mounted Sunday on the world's most powerful men to end poverty in Africa after an unprecedented global wave of star-studded concerts as well as a mass rally in Scotland that heralded yet more to come.

Leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial countries were also facing pressure to fight global warming and boost chances for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during their summit in Scotland this week.

However, the momentum for change appeared to be most striking on the problems of Africa.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government is harnessing worldwide popular support behind its agenda to alleviate poverty in Africa at the G8 summit that begins Wednesday in the Scottish golf resort at Gleneagles.

Wrapping himself in the anti-poverty banner unfurled across the world, Blair's finance minister Gordon Brown joined campaigners in the Scottish capital Edinburgh and called the popular movement "a beacon of hope."

The fight against poverty in Africa was "the greatest moral crusade of our times," Brown told a gathering organized by the Church of Scotland and the Christian Aid charity in Edinburgh.

The gathering followed a march of 200,000 people, the biggest political rally ever held in the Scottish capital, before more rallies take place in the runup to the summit in Gleneagles, just north of Edinburgh.

At the same time a dramatic plea to help Africa came from an unprecedented wave of star-studded concerts in nine countries that drew one million or more spectators and a possible television audience of billions.

Pledging their support at the concerts were Microsoft computer software billionaire Bill Gates, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former South African president Nelson Mandela and a host of world-famous musicians and actors.

The leaders of the G8 -- Britain, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Russia -- are asked to write off billions of dollars in debt to the world's poorest countries, boost aid, and make trade fair.

G8 finance ministers already agreed last month to immediately write off all multilateral debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest countries, most of them in Africa, amounting to 40 billion dollars (33 billion euros).

Other components of Britain's Africa agenda -- which could prove harder to find agreement on -- are more aid to the world's poorest countries and an end to market-distorting farm subsidies in rich nations.

Farm subsidies have provoked a dispute at the heart of the European Union, which has four countries represented in the G8 -- Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

The US administration is reluctant to meet the full aid demands made by Britain. "Money alone is not the answer," US Treasury Secretary John Snow said.

Salil Shetty, spokesman for the Global Call for Action Against Poverty, said the popular events put world leaders on the spot.

"We think that if the G8 leaders who have been promising these things (for Africa) for so many years don't deliver now there is absolutely no excuse," he said.

Global warming is proving a tougher nut to crack.

With the exception of the United States, all the G8 countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol targeting the issue of reducing greenhouse gases said to be responsible for global warming.

After assuming office in early 2001, President George W. Bush denounced the Kyoto treaty, saying that it would destroy jobs in the United States. He was also opposed to its non-application to developing countries such as China and India.

The Guardian newspaper said Friday that Blair and the other G8 leaders may agree to a text that will leave Bush isolated.

It said the United States objects to wording in the draft communique that "climate change is a serious and long-term challenge" that could affect the whold world and that "human activity is contributing" to it.

It said Washington also rejects the following: "But we know that we need to slow, stop and then reverse the growth in greenhouse gases to reduce our exposure to potentially serious economic, environmental and security risks."

Britain will also put the Arab-Israeli dispute on the table at Gleneagles.

Blair left Saudi Arabia Saturday night after seeking the oil-rich kingdom's backing for a peace initiative designed to help the Palestinian Authority in the wake of an Israeli disengagement from Gaza.