As leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations assembled for their summit at the Gleneagles golf resort and police scuffled with protesters across a wide swath of Scotland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to tamp down expectations for a breakthrough on aid to Africa and global warming.
For Blair, the host of this year’s Group of Eight summit, it was a roller-coaster day. A few minutes before noon Wednesday, he received word that London had been selected as the site for the 2012 Olympics, beating out its closest rival Paris by four votes.
“I’ve been trying to work on the G-8 stuff, but I have to say that my mind has been in two places today,” said Blair, who arrived in Scotland after a long flight from Singapore, where the International Olympic Committee made its announcement.
Earlier in the day, Blair learned that President Bush was not budging in his opposition to Britain’s call for G-8 countries to double aid to Africa to $50 billion by 2010 and to increase foreign aid to poor nations to the equivalent of 0.7 percent of national incomes by 2015.
Bush, during a stopover in Denmark on his way to the summit, said African countries would have to curb corruption and demonstrate good governance to get increased aid.
Human role in global warming
“I don’t know how we can look our taxpayers in the eye and say, this is a good deal to give money to countries that are corrupt,” Bush said. “We want to make sure that the governments invest in their people, invest in the health of their people, the education of their people, and fight corruption.”
Bush yielded slightly on the issue of global warming, acknowledging the role that pollution may be playing in altering the Earth’s climate.
“Listen, I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer, and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem,” Bush said.
Yet Bush remains firmly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for timetables on the reduction of greenhouse gases and has been embraced by all the other G-8 nations. Instead, the White House insists it is intent on “getting beyond Kyoto” with agreements among industrial nations to curtail pollution without placing restrictions on the United States or developing nations that could hamper their economies.
“See, I think there’s a better way forward,” Bush said Wednesday. “I would call it the post-Kyoto era, where we can work together to share technologies, to control greenhouse gases as best as possible.”
While aides tried to hammer out a statement that would paper over the significant differences, Blair insisted publicly that he would push hard for a breakthrough.
“I feel a genuine sense of moral urgency. Now is the moment,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp. “Do you get everything you want in negotiations like this? The answer is no.”
The G-8’s other members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
Rock stars have say
Bush, Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin had what was described as a “working meeting” with Bono and Bob Geldof, the rock celebrities who have mobilized popular support for African aid.
The meeting lasted about 40 minutes. The rockers and the world leaders discussed the priorities of expanding education for girls, overcoming malaria and increasing trade, among other issues, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
At a news conference afterward, Bono, frontman for the Irish group U2, said Bush indicated the U.S. was willing to help struggling African agricultural sectors by cutting back subsidies to American farmers if the European Union matched those proposals with its own subsidy cuts.
If the mood inside the summit was one of forced cordiality, on the outside it was downright hostility as thousands of riot police battled with anti-globalization demonstrators in the pastoral fields that surround the famous golf resort. The demonstrators numbered about 3,000. There was a similar number of police.
More Top Picks Best Muffin Pans
The protesters, who have become a regular feature at these summits, tried to breach a 5-mile-long security fence that sealed off the resort. They were beaten back by police with riot shields, batons and dogs.
Earlier in the day, in the city of Stirling, about 15 miles from Gleneagles, several protesters blocked highways and rail lines leading to the summit site, threw stones at police and smashed the windows of a Burger King. Police arrested more than 50.
In the nearby town of Bannockburn, the protesters, wearing hoods and masks, smashed car windows and charged police lines with shopping carts. During a march later in the day, several hundred demonstrators broke through police lines and again charged the security fence.
Early Thursday, police encircled a campground near Stirling used by some 5,000 protesters, The Associated Press reported. Police said the move was aimed at preventing more violence.
———-