Bono's Pissed

By Cernig

Only Britain and Japan are living up to their promises on global poverty made at the Gleneagles Summit two years ago.

It's not just the credibility of the G8 that's at stake," Bono said in an interview with the Guardian to coincide with the release of a report from his Data organisation detailing the slow progress since the Gleneagles summit of 2005. "It's the credibility of the largest non-violent protest in 30 years. Nobody wants to go back to what we saw in Genoa, but I do sense a real sense of jeopardy."

Attempts by Tony Blair to inject a fresh sense of urgency into the G8 have been frustrated by other rich nations. At a meeting in Berlin of senior G8 officials - known as sherpas - to prepare the ground for next month's G8 meeting, Britain's representatives received short shrift when they raised the issue of aid budgets. "We only made those promises because we felt sorry for Tony Blair after the terrorist attacks on 7/7," the Russian sherpa said, referring to the terrorist attack on the day before the Gleneagles agreement was signed.

...The ambitious target signed up to in 2005 was to double global aid by 2010, with half of that £25bn increase earmarked for sub-Saharan Africa...The figures released by Data yesterday showed that G8 assistance to sub-Saharan Africa has increased by $2.3bn since 2004, but to be on track for the 2010 target it should have increased by $5.4bn. To compound the problems, Data reported that only small increases in aid are in the pipeline for this year and next.

...Bono said yesterday that the G8 could not let the campaigners down. "Telling lies to Bob and me is one thing. Putting their signature on a G8 communique and lying to their citizenry is another matter. Breaking promises to the most vulnerable people on earth is real infamy."

What Bono said.

Let's see a Dem presidential candidate make this an issue, please?