Nothing is gonna happen, Bob Geldof has stoped sleep-walking and gone into hiding!
Its business as usual-manufacturing of famines(its Niger now) to create jobs for the likes of Christian Aid, Caratas, Oxfam .etc.

We thank all dissenters for having not slept-walked with Bob Geldof and his state nannies!

Welcome to E-News from the World Development Movement, Issue 11.

On July 2nd, the largest ever march against poverty took place in
Edinburgh. Over 225,000 joined the Make Poverty History march at the
beginning of the G8 summit in Scotland to demand total unpayable debt
cancellation, an end to free trade injustices and more yet better aid.
Many WDM supporters came to the march and attended other activities held
during the week of the G8 summit. Congratulations to you all!

The G8 meeting raised big hopes. Given the G8's previous track record,
WDM was concerned that the final agreements would be nowhere near
sufficient. WDM had already welcomed the G7 finance ministers deal on
debt reduction, and little new came out of the summit. In the end, we
had to conclude that "A historic breakthrough was promised, instead we
saw a tiny step".

Since the end of the summit, WDM has continued its campaigning, exposing
an attempt by some European countries to make major modifications to the
summit's debt deal. As part of the Make Povery History campaign, we will
focus on getting Fair Trade not Free Trade on the agenda at the World
Trade Organisation.

Highlights of the week include:

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY RALLY:
02 July 2005
Campaigners took to the streets of Edinburgh, forming a human white band
around the city.
 http://www.wdmscotland.org.uk/campaigns/g8/index02.htm

G8 COUNTER-CONFERENCE:
03 July 2005
Nearly a thousand people attended a WDM co-sponsored Counter-G8 Summit
and heard speakers including George Monbiot, Walden Bello, Caroline
Lucas and The Yes Men challenge the legitimacy of the G8 and the free
market model.
 http://www.wdmscotland.org.uk/campaigns/g8/index03.htm

WDM ACTIVISTS ARRESTED:
05 July 2005
WDM campaigners from Brighton dramatically scaled a 150ft crane towering
over Edinburgh to call for an end to the government's attempt to co-opt
the aims of the Make Poverty History campaign and twist them to their
own advantages. After a 12-hour stand-off with the police, they
descended and were arrested.
 http://www.wdmscotland.org.uk/campaigns/g8/brightonarrest.htm

GLENEAGLES PROTEST:
06 July 2005
After numerous roadblocks, diversions and delays set up by the police,
10,000 people including WDM campaigners marched to Gleneagles on the
opening day of the G8 Summit.
 http://www.wdmscotland.org.uk/campaigns/g8/gleneagles.htm

WDM'S RESPONSE TO THE G8 FINAL COMMUNIQUE:

Our initial response to the G8 can be found at
 http://www.wdm.org.uk/news/presrel/current/g82005final.htm

For a complete roundup of all the press releases produced during the
week, plus hundreds of photos, visit:
 http://www.wdmscotland.org.uk/campaigns/g8/index.htm

LEAKS REVEAL IMF THREAT TO ALREADY WEAK G8 DEBT DEAL:
15 July 2005
Leaked documents show European representatives at the IMF are suggesting
major modifications to last week's G8 debt deal.
 http://www.wdm.org.uk/news/presrel/current/IMFleaks.htm

PJ:
The official story of the G8 is at www.g8.gov.uk.

Thanks peeps. I'll check that lot out.
In peace and solidarity,
PJ

If you go to :

 http://redpepper.blogs.com/ you can see the latest reactions. If you go to the original link for the post below -  http://redpepper.blogs.com/g8/2005/07/in_their_own_wo.html#more - you'll see the links to the full responses. We are working on getting more African responses.


What the mainstream NGOs said


Make Poverty History – the coalition praises itself and the UK government but condemns other G8 governments for falling way short of its demands. In a nutshell, MPH asserts that the G8 has “not met the challenge of trade justice”, the “debt deal is a small step compared to the giant leap that was called for” and while the commitment on aid is “a step forward, it is far from the historic deal that millions around the world have been demanding”.

Global Call to Action Against Poverty – the international coalition of MPH was more scathing in its rhetoric, stating that the “people have roared but the G8 has whispered”. G-CAP was particularly upset with failure to get anything on trade and responded to the promise to deliver $50bn extra aid by 2010 as “like waiting 5 years before responding to the tsunami”.


Oxfam – regarded as the main pro-government force within both MPH and G-CAP, its statement was unsurprisingly balanced, praising the G8 for what it had achieved but expressing disappointment that more could not have been put on the table. It admitted that the summit’s outcome had “fallen short of the hopes of the millions around the world campaigning for a momentous breakthrough.”

Bono and Geldof – despite being lobbied by NGOs not to over-praise the G8 deal, the two-man Irish rock-poverty NGO could not contain their excitement. Geldof called it “without equivocation the greatest G8 summit there has ever been for Africa”. Even their friends inside MPH found this too much.

The One Campaign – the celebrity-splatted US version of Make Poverty History, which is dominated by Oxfam USA and Bono and Bill Gates DATA charity, did not raise a single word in criticism. It described the G8’s pledges as “a positive step forward in a comprehensive debt-aid-trade deal to reduce extreme poverty in the poorest countries.”

CAFOD – the Catholic development aid agency could not hide its disappointment and said the G8 had “failed to deliver”.

Stop AIDS Campaign – generally welcomed the G8’s promises on AIDS treatment but remained unconvinced that the new hopes would not be “dashed by insufficient funding”.

Tearfund – the Christian relief and development agency took the Oxfam line and praised the G8 for taking “another step towards dealing with poverty. while expressing dismay that more could not have been achieved. It remains hopeful that G8 leaders are now serious about doing more.

Jubilee Debt Campaign – the normally diplomatic body could barely contain its anger at the failure of the G8 to make any progress on June’s G7 finance ministers deal and implement the Commission for Africa's recommendations. It argued that the “G8 debt deal is not 100 per cent debt cancellation” as demanded by campaigners, “immediately benefits only 18 countries” and “reinforces the harmful economic policy conditions enforced through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative”

Action Aid – they tend to blow with the wind but when the G8 deal was announced, they stuck to their policy guns and criticized the summit’s outcomes: "What Africa needed from the G8 was a giant leap forward, all it got was tiny steps. The deal that has been announced falls way short of our demands. We have some aid, but not enough, some debt relief but not enough and virtually nothing on trade. Once again Africa's people have been short-changed".

Other responses from conservative NGOs include:

Care International
Concern International

Voices from the left and South

Jubilee South – the radical Southern-based network of debt justice campaigns and movements predictably criticised the G8 deal on debt: “The multilateral debt cancellation being proposed is still clearly tied to compliance with conditionalities which exacerbate poverty, open our countries further for exploitation and plunder, and perpetuate the domination of the South.” Other comments can be found here and here.

Christian Aid – they have been moving increasingly to the left in recent times and their response reflected this hardening. “This will not make poverty history,” the NGO said, adding it was “a vastly disappointing result. Millions of campaigners from all over the world have been led to the top of the mountain, shown the view and now we are being frogmarched down again.”

Stamp Out Poverty – generally backed the critical voices like War on Want and WDM in condemning the small amounts of aid offered and called on governments to introduce "[n]ew sources of revenue like the currency transaction tax" to boost spending in developing countries.

Friends of the Earth – the respected international environmental NGO and critical voice inside Make Poverty History, stated that the G8’s final statement on climate change “shows that leaders are still divided and have made no real progress in the fight against climate change... While the leaders carry on talking, the world continues warming.”

War on Want – one the leading voices of dissent within Make Poverty History did not sit on the fence and instead came out fighting. The labour movement’s development NGO said that the G8 had “given less than 10% of our demand on debt cancellation and not even a fifth of what we called for on aid. On trade, the G8 has hardened its stance, forcing more countries to open their markets and threatening millions with the misery of poverty. When the moment came to act, the G8 turned their backs on the world’s poor.”

World Development Movement – they have been quiet of late, but when the communiqué came, they joined War on Want in condemnation, calling the G8 statement “an insult to the hundreds of thousands of campaigners… a disaster for the world’s poor. The agreements on trade, debt, aid and climate change are nowhere near sufficient to tackle the global poverty and environmental crisis we face.”

50 Years is Enough – the US economic justice network welcomed any debt cancellation but warned that the G8 did not go far enough and criticized the conditionality attached: “By retaining the HIPC structure, the G8 perpetuates the requirement that countries submit to demands for economic disarmament in favor of promoting the interests of foreign capital before they can get the consequential debt considered for cancellation.”

Sustainable Energy and Economy Network – organized a huge sign-on letter to the G8 of over 120 civil society groups from across the world criticizing the G8 action plan on climate change for entrusting the World Bank with the role of providing financing for clean energy. The letter stated that “the World Bank is one of the leading public financiers of fossil fuels and has made a miniscule commitment to renewable energy, contrary to statements by the Bank…”.