G8 Leaders Wrap Up Protest-Marred Summit

05/04/2001| IslamWeb

GENOA, Italy (AP) - Closing out a protest-marred summit, President Bush and other world leaders failed Sunday to resolve sharp differences over global warming but found accord on ways to alleviate global poverty. (Read photo caption below).The leaders also vowed to go forward with their annual meetings, which started nearly three decades ago, despite violent clashes at this year's session between police and protesters that led to one death.
The leaders papered over their differences on the Kyoto global warming treaty, which the United States opposes, and the other countries are moving to implement. The final document left out any mention of another contentious issue, Bush's plan to build a national missile defense system.
Bush's missile shield has divided the allies and sparked tensions between the United States and Russia, which says it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The issue was on the agenda for a Sunday afternoon meeting between Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Bush and Putin, meeting inside the Palazzo Doria Spinola dating to 1541, shook hands and posed briefly for photographs beneath the palace's ornate pillars and frescoes. Wearing nearly identical navy blue suits with slate-blue ties, Bush draped his left arm around Putin's back.
At the summit, there was intensive behind-the-scenes lobbying over the global warming issue led by French President Jacques Chirac, who urged Canada and Japan not to give in to U.S. pressure to abandon the treaty.
But the United States was just as adamant that the current accord, reached in negotiations in the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto in 1997, would harm the U.S. economy by forcing American industries to cut back too severely on their emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases suspected of causing a gradual warming of the earth's atmosphere.
The other nations have insisted they will push forward with the effort to implement the Kyoto treaty. Some delegations had the impression that the United States would present its alternative U.S. plan in time for a September U.N. conference on the issue.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush ``never gave such an indication'' to his counterparts, noting that U.S. officials may not finish reviewing potential alternatives before the fall.
The communique addressed the overall summit theme of attacking poverty with the leaders' pledging to pursue economic initiatives ranging from lowering trade barriers for poor nations to studying ways to deal with the severe poverty rampant throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Many of the proposals addressed the concerns raised by protesters who have forcefully made their presence known at various global economic gatherings beginning with global trade talks in Seattle in 1999.
More than 430 were injured and one protester was shot and killed by police in violent clashes between police and protesters.
Early Sunday, police made a sweep of a school used as a headquarters by demonstrators, seizing iron bars, baseball bats, and bricks. Italian state television said 40 protesters were injured and 50 were detained.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, the host for next year's summit, said it would be held in Kananaskis, a remote Canadian mountain resort about one hour's drive from Calgary, Alberta.
In addition to moving to an out-of-the-way place, the leaders also pledged to reduce the size of their delegations to about 30 to 35 people from each country, far below the hundreds who showed up in Genoa, returning the summits to their original format of the leaders getting together for freewheeling discussions on global problems.
The leaders agreed their annual get-togethers help coordinate economic policies and seek solutions to global poverty.
On trade, the summit leaders endorsed the launch of what they called an ambitious new round of global trade talks. However, there was no hint in their final statement that they had made any progress in resolving deep divisions over what should be included in the new negotiations.
Europe objects to opening its highly protected agriculture sector to foreign competition while the United States has been fighting to keep U.S. trade laws that provide protection to the steel industry and other business sectors threatened by cheaper foreign imports.
The leaders reached out to developing nations, promising to do more to open up their markets to their products. The issue will be tackled at a World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar in November.
The leaders also promised to search for ways to broaden the debt relief they are providing for the world's poorest nations.
The leaders also agreed to intensify efforts to promote food safety - a major issue in Europe after disputes with the United States over genetically modified foodstuffs and the spread of mad cow disease.
The communique highlighted the summits biggest achievement, creation of a new global health fund to combat AIDS and other infectious diseases in poor countries, with an initial 1.3 billion in contributions.
The leaders also endorsed moves by drug manufacturers to make medicines more affordable.

PHOTO CAPTION:
A group photo showing heads of state from the eight most industrialized countries together with other heads of state at the end of the first day of talks during the G8 summit in Genoa, northern Italy, Friday, July 20, 2001. African head of states appealed Friday to the leaders of the industrialized world to back a new African development initiative. From left first row, George Bush of the U.S., Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Francisco Flores of El Salvador, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Alpha Oumar Conare' of Mali, Italy's President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Jacques Chirac of France, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Second row starting third from left, EU Commission President Romano Prodi, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, Jean Chretien of Canada, Tony Blair of Britian, Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, Kofi Annan of the U.N., James Wolfenson of the World Bank and Gro Harlem Brundtland of the World Health Organization. (AP Photo/ Enrico Oliverio -- Ufficio Stampa Presidenza della Repubblica)