AFP on G7/G8 meetings

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

G8 offers 'crumbs of comfort' to debt-laden poor: Jubilee 2000
Date: Thu Jun 10 12:40:18 CDT 1999

   LONDON, June 10 (AFP) - The leading industrialised nations will offer
meagre crumbs to the world's heavily-indebted impoverished nations at next
week's summit of G8 leaders, a debt-relief pressure group charged on
Thursday.
   Jubilee 2000, which is campaigning for all unpayable debt shackling the
poorest nations to be written off, said that world leaders were preparing an
offer which would be worth less than two pounds (three dollars, 2.8 euros) a
year per person in the world's 52 heavily indebted countries.
   In a pamphlet entitled "Crumbs of Comfort," the group warned that a final
offer from the world's richest countries would "deliver the equivalent of
just five loaves of bread each year to the average person living in the
poorest countries".
   Jubilee 2000 said that "the elephant of the G8 will produce a mouse" at
the Cologne summit, due to start next Friday, citing intelligence within G8
governments and analysis of proposals from Britain, Germany and the United
States.
   "We had been promised that Cologne would produce proposals for a real
exit from indebteness for the poorest countries. We are now informed the
announcement is likely to be disappointing."
   The Cologne summit is due to consider how to proceed with the so-called
1996 HIPC Initiative for heavily indebted poor countries.
   In another criticism of foot-dragging over the initiative, Commonwealth
Secretary Chief Emeka Anyaoku sent a letter to German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder urging swifter action on debt relief at next week's summit.
   "There is widespread concern that the current HIPC framework is
inadequate and will be unable to deliver real exit from the debt problem in
a timely manner," Anyaoku's letter said. "The proposals that have emerged so
far do not go far enough in tackling the problems."
   Jubilee 2000 said there was a world of difference between a
50-billion-dollar relief package broached and the actual offers on the
table.
   Of particular disappointment was the fact that rich nations would
probably not agree to write off any debt before 2000, and were more likely
to erect tough three-year qualification standards for debt relief with
strict economic conditions, the group said.
   It said that debt would still be assessed in the light of a country's
export earnings and not on governments budgets, which would compare sums
spent on debt servicing to those spent on health and education.
   Jubilee  2000 said that a human chain would be organised in London this
Sunday and in Cologne next Saturday at which a petition signed by seven
million people would be presented.
   "A billion people in the world's poorest countries can live no longer on
a few crumbs of comfort. It is time to drop the debt," it said.



Third World debt, Kosovo to dominate G7 finance meeting on Saturday
Date: Fri Jun 11 09:10:34 CDT 1999

   FRANKFURT, June 11 (AFP) - When G7 finance ministers gather here for a
one-day meeting on Saturday, the hottest topic under discussion is likely to
be financing for the reconstruction of the Balkans.
   The meeting is being held to prepare for the summit of government leaders
and heads of state of the world's most industrialised countries in Cologne
next week.
   But also high on the agenda will be the issue of debt relief for the
world's poorest countries.
   And the ministers are also expected to discuss the global economic
situation, currency movements, and ways to improve the global financial
rulebook to better prevent and resolve future financial crises.
   Exchange rates, and particularly the recent slide of the euro against the
dollar, have dominated the news this week and will certainly be discussed by
the finance ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and
the United States.
   But a high-ranking German goverment official said on Friday that no
statement would be issued on this on Saturday.
   The official was also clear that no statement would be issued on the
thorny question of Third World debt, even though an agreement was expected
to be reached at the G7/G8 summit in Cologne on June 18-20.
   Following preparatory meetings in Paris earlier this week, the positions
of the different G7/G8 nations on debt relief for the poorer nations had
moved a lot closer, the official said.
   The finance ministers would clear up the points still outstanding on
Saturday, but then leave it up to the heads of state and government leaders
to announce the terms of the agreement at the Cologne summit.
   Another key topic for discussion will be the state of the global economy.
   US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said on Thursday that Washington would
press Europe and Japan to help correct global economic "imbalances" and pull
their weight in shoring up a global recovery.
   The need for Europe and Japan to spur domestic economic momentum -- and
thereby relieve pressure on the United States -- will figure prominently the
meeting on Saturday, Rubin said.
   "It is critically important that Europe and Japan do their part because
the international system cannot sustain indefinitely the large imbalances
created by disparities in growth and openness between the United States and
its major trading partners," he said.
   But following the ending of hostilities on Thursday, Kosovo will probably
be the hottest topic, with EU and the US thrashing out who will bear the
brunt of the cost of rebuilding the region.
   The state secretary for the foreign ministry, Guenter Verheugen, said in
a radio interview on Friday that it was "clear" that Europe would carry the
biggest burden.
   "It's not yet been decided who will finance what and by how much, but
it's been clear from the start that it was a European war and that Europe
would bear the brunt," Verheugen said.
   US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had also said as much on
Thursday.    Speaking at a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Cologne,
Albright said: "The US clearly bore the bulk of the military campaign, we
had the technology that should and did take the lead." But it was "now
completely appropriate for the Europeans to take the lion's share of paying
for the reconstruction."
   On Thursday, US President Bill Clinton had warned the people of
Yugoslavia Thursday that they will receive no US reconstruction aid while
President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power.
   "As long as your nation is ruled by an indicted war criminal," Clinton
had said in a televised speech, "we will provide no support for the
reconstruction of Serbia."
   Clinton, however, said the United States was "ready to provide
humanitarian aid" to Yugoslavia and "help to build a better future for
Serbia" but only when its government "represents tolerance and freedom, not
repression and terror."


Debt-relief pressure group to form human chain in London on Sunday
Date: Fri Jun 11 10:00:32 CDT 1999

   LONDON, June 11 (AFP) - Debt-relief pressure group Jubilee 2000 is hoping
that at least 50,000 people will form a human chain in London Sunday, to
plead for the cancellation of Third World debt ahead of next week's G8
summit.
   The demonstrators are due to link hands along the Thames, after having
taken part in a rally at Trafalgar Square, in the heart of the British
capital, to be addressed notably by US human rights activist Jesse Jackson.
   Sunday's protest will be staged five days before the summit of the
world's seven leading industrialised nations (Germany, Canada, US, France,
Britain, Italy and Japan) plus Russia, from June 18 to 20 in Cologne in
Germany.
   Jubilee 2000 said that a human chain would also be organised in Cologne
next Saturday at which a petition signed by seven million people would be
presented.
   The international pressure group is campaigning for all unpayable debt
shackling the poorest nations to be written off under the slogan "drop the
debt".