G8, Emerging Powers Mobilize To Save Doha

Agence France Press reports, “G8 heads of state and government on Monday joined counterparts from five key emerging market countries, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, in a high-profile bid to rescue the Doha Round of trade negotiations. While there was no evidence that long-standing gaps in position had been narrowed, the encounter ‘put fuel in the tank, where there isn't very much at the moment,’ said a European source. …”

The Associated Press notes that “… trade ministers will meet in Geneva at the end of July in a last ditch effort to salvage the deadlocked Doha round of trade liberalization talks, they said. … They agreed to schedule two further ministerial meetings in Geneva in the final week of the month, when they will try to agree precise formulas for cutting industrial and farm tariffs and subsidies, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Tuesday. …” 

The Times (UK) adds that “… a European source said that if no consensus is reached by mid-August, the so-called Doha Round of talks - launched in 2001 but which foundered later could be suspended indefinitely. G8 leaders asked their trade chiefs and Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), who was also at the summit, to broker a settlement. …” 

EFE News Service writes that “the leaders of the world's economic powerhouses got an earful from the president of Brazil and chiefs of other nations demanding a fairer shake in global trade, beginning with drastic slashing of the huge agricultural subsidies paid to farmers in rich countries.

All of the G-8 members, according to Putin, were convinced that ‘it is impossible to address global financial and economic problems without countries such as China and India.’ … Lula dismissed the idea that developing nations ‘can be compensated with aid or trade preferences’ for the distortions generated by subsidies. ‘Poor countries do not need favors, but rather balanced conditions,’ he said. …” 

Germany To Host 2007 G8

The Associated Press writes that “next year's summit of the G8 major industrialized powers will be in Germany and, as host, Chancellor Angela Merkel already knows what she wants it to focus on: fighting poverty. Merkel said Monday that G8 nations will work on the details in the fall. She said the final agenda could depend on developments on several fronts, including Iran's disputed nuclear program and world trade. …  The 2007 summit is set for June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, Germany, one of the oldest seaside resorts on the country's Baltic coast in what used to be East Germany. …”

Reuters adds that “Merkel on Monday dismissed suggestions the G8 should expand to include new members. ‘The G8 is a group of countries that play a special role in the world economy, which also recognise certain principles,’ Merkel told reporters at the end of this year's G8 summit. ‘I see no need at the present time to change this. But I feel that this 'outreach' process should remain a part of the G8,’ she said, referring to a recent tradition of inviting non-members to G8 summits for talks on key issues. …” 

'Africa Is Open For Business,' Summit Told

“Stressing gains in financial stability and democratization, African heads of state meeting with hundreds of foreign business leaders called Monday for stepped-up investment in the continent,” reports Agence France Press.

“… Nigerian Foreign Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, kick[ed] off [the] four-day Leon H. Sullivan Summit, the seventh since 1991, attended by some 500 participants from the US, Africa and the Caribbean region. … Themed ‘Africa: A Continent of Opportunities -- Building Partnerships for Success,’ the gathering comes on the heels of the Group of Eight (G8) major industrialized countries' summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia… . Okonjo-Iweala advocated massive foreign and African investments in Africa to hasten the continent's economic and social development. …”

Dow Jones writes that “[speakers at the summit said] the African Diaspora can contribute to the development of the continent by investing in projects that address the problems facing the region. … Andrew Young, Chairman of the Leon Sullivan Foundation, a former Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, and an African-American and said that while in the past most Africans - both those of the Diaspora and those on the continent - had focused on the external market for their projects, the time had come for them to ‘think of the large market in Africa.’ …

The Associated Press notes that “former President Clinton told African leaders Monday that they need to strengthen their governments so that they can address long-standing problems of hunger and disease. … He also used the meeting to push cooperation agreements with African countries under which his foundation plans to provide HIV/AIDS drugs to Africans at low costs. …”

Agence France Press adds that “Nigeria on Monday signed a deal with the Clinton Foundation to facilitate the supply of affordable and high-quality drugs to fight the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging the country.  …”

Reuters reports that “African cotton producers would struggle to compete with growers in fast-emerging economies in Latin America and Asia if the US eliminated cotton subsidies, Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa, Florizelle Liser, said. Liser told [the] conference on Monday that low production yields, lack of proper irrigation and poor ginning systems hampered Africa's ability to compete. …”

The Associated Press notes that “… partnerships between the public and private sectors forged during the four-day summit will aim to quicken both economic and social development along the lines of the Sullivan Principle, an international business ethics code that urges corporate responsibility and was credited with helping end apartheid in South Africa. Sullivan, who died in 2001, first articulated the principle in the 1970s after becoming the first black board member of General Motors Corp. …

Donations arising from the summits, which began in Ivory Coast in 1991, have helped the Sullivan Foundation build 170 schools, bring 750 American teachers to Africa and distribute $20 million worth of books. In partnership with the World Bank, the foundation has trained more than one million people to build wells.”

AFX International Focus (France) further notes that “… World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is scheduled to address participants Tuesday. …”

EASSy Stakeholders Agree On Project Structure

“Following extensive dialogue and negotiations, the project structure of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the roles of the respective stakeholder groups have been agreed to,” reports Business in Africa (South Africa).

“Governments, Nepad e-Africa Commission, telecommunications operators and the Development Financial Institutions represented at the Nairobi meetings by the African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Agence Française de Développement, Société de Promotion et de Participation pour la Coopération Economique, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, KfW Entwicklungsbank, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation have all agreed to the project.

EASSy is an initiative to connect over twenty coastal and land-locked countries in East and Southern Africa. The countries are: Burundi, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The aim of the EASSy project is to increase accessibility to information and communication technologies by significantly reducing the current prohibitive cost of telephony and internet connectivity. Consequently, this would boost regional competitiveness and enable Africa to participate more actively in the global economy.

No Warning For Indonesia's Latest Tsunami Victims

The BBC (UK) notes that “the death toll from [the] tsunami that struck Java has risen to at least 300, relief officials say. Another 140 people are reported missing in the worst-hit area of Pangandaran. … Indonesian troops have arrived to help with the search for the missing and assist the hundreds of injured. … In addition to the dead, about 450 people have been injured and 52,700 people have been displaced, a spokesman for Indonesia's health ministry told the French news agency AFP. …”

“Indonesians fleeing the tsunami that lashed the south coast of Java [Monday] had no warning of their fate, with a country-wide early warning system not due to be in place until 2009, officials said Tuesday,” reports Agence France Press.

“Plans for such a system in Indonesia were drafted in the wake of the devastating 2004 Asian tsunami, but only two out of 25 planned sensor buoys have been deployed so far -- off Sumatra, not Java, officials said. Many people along the beaches hit by the waves on Monday afternoon said they did not even feel the 7.7-magnitude earthquake which would have alerted them to the possibility of a tsunami striking. …”

In two other countries affected by the 2004 tsunami, progress has been quicker. Thailand, popular for foreign tourists, has built warning towers on beaches across its southern coast to blare sirens and broadcast evacuation warnings in several languages if it receives a warning from regional agencies. Malaysia has positioned two buoys off its shores to give at least an hour's warning to coastal communities and is capable of transmitting tsunami alerts to the public by SMS, television and radio news, officials said. Sri Lanka has yet to install its own system, but relies on warnings sent by the Pacific center, which is based in Hawaii, and a similar institution in Japan, a tsunami official there said. …”

Also In This Edition: China, India Not Ready To Cut Emissions - UN Official; Briefly Noted...

“Developing countries are unlikely to commit to curbing their rising carbon emissions because they believe rich nations are not doing enough to tackle global warming, a top United Nations official said on Monday,” reports Reuters.

“British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Britain's Guardian newspaper last week he wanted to bring five fast-growing nations into the G8 group of industrialized countries to help secure a new global deal on climate change for when the UN Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gases runs out in 2012. The countries were China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. But any such grouping would not offer a quick route to persuading developing countries to tackle their emissions, Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told Reuters during an international climate change conference in Finland. 

‘There is a lack of credibility at this point in time because a number of developing countries, especially those that are growing rapidly, feel that the developed countries really haven't done enough and this is just a means by which the burden will be shifted onto (their) shoulders,’ he said. Before taking action to reduce their own environmental impact, developing countries are likely to put more pressure on the US -- which has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol -- to make a bigger effort to reduce its emissions, Pachauri said. They would also likely demand more help with technology to improve energy efficiency, and increased development assistance, he added.  …

China has become the second biggest source of carbon emissions in the world after the US. But across China and India, around 800 million people still do not have access to electricity, making it politically difficult for their governments to set limits on carbon emissions, Pachauri said. These countries are more likely to agree to less restrictive measures such as targets for the amount of electric power that will come from renewable sources, according to the climate change expert. 

Briefly Noted… Reuters writes that China plans to invest 1.4 trillion yuan ($175 billion) in environmental protection in the next five years, state media said on Tuesday, to curb water and air pollution so severe it causes riots and health problems.

AFX Asia (Hong Kong) reports that International Finance Corp., the World Bank's investment arm, plans to invest in China's securities industry as aggressively as it has in the banking industry, where it has spent almost $600 million in seven years, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an IFC official.  

The Associated Press writes that the European Commission on Monday said it was providing EUR 20 million ($25.3 million) in food aid for the most vulnerable Palestinians, and separately said it was giving money to buy fuel for power generators at water pumping and treatment plants. 

Reuters reports that a top US Treasury official said on Monday he was confident a fall meeting in Singapore will produce progress in reforming the International Monetary Fund to make it more representative. US Treasury Under Secretary Tim Adams said he expected small quota increases will be approved in Singapore for China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey and that would add momentum for a broader quota overhaul within the next two years.