Iain Duncan Smith - remember him? ;-) - urged that if there was going to be debt relief it absolutely HAD to be contingent on conditions of 'good governance' so that corrupt african dictators didn't pour all that money down the drain.

Clare Short reassured him that debt relief is contingent on such conditions, under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HPIC), and that these countries must stick to the conditions for 3 whole years before they qualify for rebt relief.

What she didn't say is that these conditions include all the usual neo-liberal poison such as wrenching open markets, privatisation, and all the rest of it.

Meanwhile, Rod Liddle (some journalist - don't know what paper but I'd bet money it's the Times) moaned that "we've got to stop saying that!!" (refering to the notion that the colonial legacy might have something to do with Africa's poverty today). "It was 50 years ago!!". And he urged that we need to be interfering MORE not less in Africa's democracy, trying to help them have real democracy. Someone from the audience disagreed and said that all we really need to do is stop sabotaging democracy in Africa and most of our interventions have been concerned with stopping democracy, not promoting it.


Did anyone watch newsnight as well? Bono was chatting happily to Jeremy Paxman. Looking very optimistic he said that India and China are really starting to prosper and that he really believed that in 20 years time Africa would be where those countries are now. Wasn't sure what to make of that.

Newsnight also mentioned the leaked G8 climate declaration. It starts thus:

[our planet is warming]

It was explained that the brackets mean that not all the countries could agree on the bit about the fact that our planet is warming.

And it looks like there'll be no agreement on cutting down on emissions.

looking pretty gloomy.

Well, I'm a nice peaceful protester and I'm a bit worried that if the G8 don't deliver on the climate and on being nicer to africa (and I agree that rather than help africa what's most important is that our governments stop FUCKING IT OVER) then some nasty evil black bloc types might decide to go on the rampage. And that would just be counter-productive wouldn't it. Surely polite lobbying is the best tactic...