OMG! we're actually doing something right for once! i am so excited about the G8 summit, july 6-8. this is going to make history. basically, some of the richest countries in the world are going to pay off 'debts' of the poorest. [THEY HAVE ALREADY AGREED TO PAYING OFF $40 BILLION!!!!] so then they will have money to improve education, medical care, infrastructure, and more! and this will hopefully slow down corruption and make for a more level playing field (more equality) and oppurtunities for those born into poverty. the article explains more.

MSN article about G8 summit


P.S. you can also sign the ONE campaign here, which is asking president bush to give 1% of the US's tax dollars to foreign aid per year, and is pushing the G8 summit to help out more.

That sounds wonderful! Maybe this will usher in a new era of financial responsibility in governments, where we don't let our debts just get higher and higher, while still lowering taxes, and pushing our problems onto our children's generation...

or maybe not...one can hope, though.

yeah, im not getting my hopes up about it, but they have already agreed to give $40B, and that is definitly going to make a difference in a lot of peoples lives, even if its not a big enough one. (scary that $40B is'nt enough to fix this.)

It's very late in arriving. Many sensible people have been asking for this to happen for a long time, but thank goodness the people in power are finally listening. I do wonder though whether it's only because they realise that they are soon going to want to be using these countries for cheap production now that China is waking up to its real global power.

The Chinese economy is set to explode which is making it less of a safe bet for people to import from China, and they have been funding the world's commercial market for years. Now China is possibly on the verge of wanting more money in return for this (or getting too powerful, so western countries would rather not fund them anymore) the west is looking for new places to get their cheap labour from. If they can stabilise the situations in the third world, for example by making their economies viable, then that makes them a far better place for global corporations such as Nike to get their trainers made for almost no money.

Cynical? Me?

Still, at least it will mean that money will eventually be going into the country, and the lack of communism will mean that eventually the money will filter down to the workers.

Despite my cycnism, this is still great news.

About time.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund offered loans to so many of the world's poorest countries during the 60s and early 70s at very low interest rates that most were succered in - only to see the WB and IMF raise the interest rates to severely crippling levels later on in the late 70s and throughout the 80s and 90s, so much so that these poor nations were only able to afford to pay the interest on the loans and not the debt istelf - nor were they able to lower taxes (as some people have suggested they were doing), or spend money on those silly little things like health and education, or on public services like water and electricity, or on housing projects, or on job creation, or on areas like crime, law and order.

Personally I think that it is about damn time that this crime is being brought to an end, most of the countries that are being targetted in this initiative have already repaid their initial debt many times over just on these artificially high interest rates.

I would also hope that these massive international financial bodies will also be more responsible in whom they lend money to. In the past they have paid billions to support dictatorships where they knew and chose not to care that the money was being pocketed by corrupt and often oppressive regimes... all that mattered was that the country in question would be bound to making future payments - becoming a ready source of continuous income. Burma, Indonesia, Zaire (aka Democratic Republic of the Congo), Haiti, Liberia... the list (unfortunately) goes on. Perhaps this will stop.

I disagree with Mata though. He wasn't being cynical, he was being realistic in his apraisal of the situation. Paul Wolfowitz the new head of the WB has welcomed the G7 proposals saying that he hopes this will usher in a new era of free markets...

From the BBC website:

The US neo-con adgenda is to open up poor markets to US trade - something which many EU countries are pressing for as well, but neither the US nor the EU want to open their own markets to African trade. Trade from poor countries in Africa has been on a decline and is estimated to be worth much more than aid handouts from the rich West, but opening our borders to fair trade isn't yet on the political adgenda. And as China blossoms economically new sources of ultra cheap labour will be desperately sought after by sweatshop hungry US and EU based Transnationals.

Hopefully Bush's neoliberal agenda won't scupper this. And hopefully, as OFK points out, they won't just hand all this money over to corrupt oppressive dictators and assume something good will happen.

But I'm happy about this. It sets a good precedent, just when I was worried that Europe was taking something of a neoliberal bent...

*sits in the cynical boat with Mata*

First off, yes, it's fantastic that the developed world is attempting to tackle the problem of third-world debt.

Secondly, until I know the details of the debt relief, I'm sceptical. I've read some things (can't remember where, but it was probably in the Guardian, or maybe Z mag) that suggest that while Country A may say that it will provide X million dollars of debt relief, they plan to give that money in place of aid monies. So the third world country ends up no better off. Until I hear concrete details of the implementation of the relief, I reserve my judgement.

I'm just very very sceptical, especially of Tony and George. Who, being a quarter of the G8 between them, will have a big effect on the outcome.

And lo, our cynicism is historically well-founded

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Colum...1505927,00.html

Yes, this is what I'm worried about. That this debt relief will be a Trojan Horse hiding imperialism and capitalism to be enforced on Africa...

Amazingly, I am still a little shocked that my cynicism was with good reason. I thought that all surprise at the height of commercialist interest over altruism had been stamped out of me by years of seeing western governments pursuing the money rather than the best interests of people, but apparently there was still a glimmer of hope left in me that allows be to once again be disappointed by the leading nations of the world.

It wouldn't kill us or our economy to not have all these strings attached. Unfortunately there are people literally being killed in these third world countries because of the poverty. Ugh. It amuses me when we speak of people in history as being inhumane or cruel by virtue of the fact that they lived in less "civilized" times. People are still human. We're just cleverer about being inhumane.