21st Century Vision

Debts Written Off?

A HISTORIC deal to write off the debts of the world’s poorest 30 countries totalling a potential $55 billion (£30 billion) was announced yesterday by Gordon Brown.

The agreement struck by the G8 in London will see debts owed to the West by the nations, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, written off and the money diverted to health, education and other improvements, according to the chancellor.

The deal will see the immediate write-off of $40 billion of debt owed to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and African Development Bank by 18 “heavily indebted poor countries”. They include Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Although this decision is welcomed and has been welcomed by many, there is still some doubt as to whether this is new money or money transferred from existing aid budgets. If it is new money then it will be a decisive step forward. If it is taken from existing aid budgets then it will be merely robbing Peter to pay Paul!

We wait to see the details of this agreement.

G8 scientists & Climate Change

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An unprecedented joint statement issued by the leading scientific academies of the world has called on the G8 governments to take urgent action to avert a global catastrophe caused by climate change.

The national academies of science for all the G8 countries, along with those of Brazil, India and China, have warned that governments must no longer procrastinate on what is widely seen as the greatest danger facing humanity. The statement, which has taken months to finalise, is all the more important as it is signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, which has warned George Bush about the dangers of ignoring the threat posed by global warming.

It was released on the day that Tony Blair met Mr Bush in Washington, where the American President was expected to reaffirm his opposition to joining the Kyoto treat to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

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Changing planet revealed in atlas

An atlas of environmental change compiled by the United Nations reveals some of the dramatic transformations that are occurring to our planet.

It compares and contrasts satellite images taken over the past few decades with contemporary ones.

These highlight in vivid detail the striking make-over wrought in some corners of the Earth by deforestation, urbanisation and climate change.

The atlas has been released to mark World Environment Day.

World Poverty Is A Trade Issue

The full picture of how the multibillion-dollar American farm subsidy system - coupled with Britain's appetite for cut-price clothes - is destroying Africa's cotton farmers was revealed by aid agencies yesterday – reports The Independent.

T-shirts available in UK supermarkets for less than £2 are made from American cotton and produced in Chinese sweatshops for the British market, undercutting small producers in some of the world's poorest countries.

American cotton farmers receive $3.9bn (£2bn) a year in Government subsidies - more than the entire GDP of Benin and three times the annual amount the US gives in aid to Africa, according to the charity Oxfam.

But more than 60,000 farmers in Benin have stopped growing cotton in the past five years because they cannot compete against such massive market distortions that keep the price of cotton artificially low.

In 2002 alone, the GDP of Benin fell by 1.4 per cent and export earnings by 9 per cent as a direct result of subsidies and the falling price of cotton.

The west African country - 161st out of the 177 poorest countries in the world - depends on cotton for 60 per cent of exports.

Once known as "white gold" in west Africa because of its earning potential, cotton is now leaving many farmers in debt because of the low prices - and there is nothing else they can grow on their barren land.

The World Trade Organisation ruled last year that America's cotton subsidy system was illegal and set a 2 July deadline for it to announce reforms.

But aid agencies believe that the Bush administration has little intent of scrapping the system and called for Britain to put pressure on the US president at next month's G8 summit.

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Europe's Popular Protest Movement

Paul Reynolds , the BBC’s World Affairs Correspondent today argues in the light of the “no” vote in the Dutch referendum that The European Union now has its own popular protest movement.

It is showing itself in many different ways, but it shares one thing - distrust of the political elite. A combination of factors have led to the no votes in France and Holland including anti globalisation sentiment, the fear of eroding national independence, the feeling of remoteness between government and citizens and the over riding fear that politicians no longer respond to citizen need. All this is fuelling the no vote and politicians ignore it at their peril.

It has expressed itself in a vote against a proposed European Constitution but it is much wider than that and is about disenchantment on a global scale. When people feel frustrated and out of touch with their democratic heritage, then they will revolt against political establishments in all sorts of ways. Somehow we have got to restore rational democracy where individuals count or else democracy will be nothing bu an alternative way to rebel.

Philip Reynolds says that it is worth looking again at the so-called Laeken Declaration, made by European leaders at a summit in December 2001 in the royal suburb of Brussels after which it is named.

This declaration began the process of drawing up the constitution. You can judge the constitution by it.

The key passage reads: "Within the union, the European institutions must be brought closer to its citizens. Citizens undoubtedly support the union's broad aims, but they do not always see a connection between those goals and the union's everyday action.

"They want the European institutions to be less unwieldy and rigid and, above all, more efficient and open.

"Many also feel that the union should involve itself more with their particular concerns, instead of intervening, in every detail, in matters by their nature better left to member states' and regions' elected representatives. This is even perceived by some as a threat to their identity."

Has the constitution done that?

For some it might have. For others, it has clearly not.

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