G8 ministers back Africa debt deal

LONDON, England -- Finance ministers from the world's wealthiest nations have agreed to an historic accord to cancel $40 billion worth of debt owed by the world's poorest nations.

The Group of Eight (G8) ministers -- meeting for a second day Saturday in London -- backed a deal that includes an immediate scrapping of 100 percent of the debt belonging to 18 countries to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.

As many as 20 other countries could be eligible if they meet strict targets for good governance and tackling corruption, leading to a total debt relief package of more than $55 billion.

British Finance Minister Gordon Brown called the accord a "new deal" for relations between the rich and the poor countries.

Finance ministers from the United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and France agreed to the package ahead of a G8 summit July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland.

Hopes of an accord on debt relief were raised Friday with reports of an agreement between the United States and Britain on writing off debt owed by the 18 countries.

The countries are Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- current G8 president -- had demanded that poor countries' debts be cancelled and their aid doubled.

The debts would be written off by the lenders in an effort to allow the debtor countries to start fresh, get their books in order and eventually be able to borrow again for economic development, health, education and social programs, rather than simply to repay existing loans.

The G8 ministers discussed other issues Saturday, including concerns about the effect of high oil prices on the global economy, U.S. deficits, reform of Japan's financial sector and poor economic growth in European.

Chinese officials have been included in order for U.S. and European ministers to urge them to the float the yuan, which many see as being overvalued, leading to floods of cheap imports.

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow is urging his Chinese counterpart Jin Renqing to scrap the yuan's exchange rate peg to the U.S. dollar.
(CNN.com)

Childish Sensenbrenner Stamps His Feet and Ends Hearing

The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing Friday on the Patriot Act.

The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew those sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the panel, abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans. Sensenbrenner declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was irrelevant.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.

"We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it," he said.
(AP)

Froma Harrop: Lend your ears to Bill Clinton

KNOW WHAT THE Europeans need? They need Bill Clinton. The French and Dutch votes against the European Union constitution reflect a deep suspicion of political elites and their big plans. The workers fear being thrown on a cruise to the global economy, then sold up the river.

Clinton was a master at navigating between the demands of a modern economy and people's need for security. He is someone Europe's average Joes might trust.

Of course, Europeans must become more competitive. Their plush social benefits need revising. Employers must have more flexibility in hiring and firing people. And places like France should open the windows and let in some free-market breezes. But that doesn't mean that the French have to flood their market with low-wage workers from Eastern Europe and, as some would like, Turkey.

Clinton knew how to strike the right balance. As president, he supported freer trade and pushed for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He understood that government programs can provide the wrong incentives and endorsed welfare reform. But when the budget needed balancing, his tax increases were limited to the highest incomes.
(Providence Journal)

Nicholas D. Kristof: Sudan's policy of systematic rape

All countries have rapes, of course. But here in the refugee shantytowns of Darfur, the horrific stories that young women whisper are not of random criminality but of a systematic campaign of rape to terrorize civilians and drive them from "Arab lands" - a policy of rape.

One measure of the international community's hypocrisy is that the world is barely bothering to protest. More than two years after the genocide in Darfur began, the women of Kalma Camp - a teeming squatters' camp of 110,000 people driven from their burned villages - still face the risk of gang rape every single day as they go out looking for firewood.
(International Herald-Tribune)