Bolton and Wolfowitz success! Blair, Bono and Sir Bob suckered?

Poor nations lose in watered-down UN document

· Final draft a bland version of Gleneagles promises
· No new money for aid and debt relief

Ewen MacAskill in New York and Larry Elliott
Wednesday September 14, 2005
The Guardian

Campaigners and diplomats who favoured a bold approach put much of the blame for the failure on John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, who introduced hundreds of late changes to the original document.

Mr Bolton said he was pleased with the final draft: "This is not the alpha and omega and we never thought it would be."

The US ambassador, who had argued that UN reform was too important to be done in a rush, said: "It was only ever going to be the first step."

Tony Blair, the poodle has been properly spanked on his bottom. Irish rock star U2's Bono and Sir Bob Geldof are now shown to be the suckers they really are.

Here is a statement by Bono and Sir Bob Geldof which you will find on Sir Bob Geldof's site

Reactions from Bono and Geldof to G8 Summit

GLENEAGLES, Scotland, July 8 The following reactions by Bono and Bob Geldof were released today:

Reaction from Bono, lead singer of U2 and co-founder of DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa):

"A mountain has been climbed only to reveal high peaks north of us. But for this moment, let's stop and look back at just how far we've come. The world around us has changed. What does $50 billion mean to the poorest of the poor, $25 billion of which is going to Africa? As examples, it means the financing is in place to halve deaths from malaria by 2010. Six hundred thousand people will be alive to remember this G8 in Gleneagles who would have lost their lives to a mosquito bite. Three thousand Africans - mostly children - die every day from malaria. Every country who delivers a credible plan to put their children in school will have the money to do so.

"If the words are followed through, 9 million people across the globe will have access to lifesaving AIDS drugs, which brings us to the most important lesson learnt over the past weeks. The world spoke, and the politicians listened. Now, if the world keeps an eye out, they will keep their promises. It is down to the hundreds of thousands - indeed millions - who have assembled on this issue to make sure they don't just sign the cheque, but that they cash it. If an Irish rock star can quote Churchill, this is not the end of extreme poverty, but it is the beginning of the end."

On the US:"We always want more on the numbers but there's no questioning the man's commitment to Africa. His money on malaria has been matched leaving this President in the enviable position of leading the charge against the world's most wanted killer diseases-HIV and malaria. I wish he would have matched the European challenge on overall assistance. He has a great idea for every country with a credible plan to put African children in school but by today's numbers, the Europeans are mostly paying for it."

It emerged today that the article By Paul Blustein, Washington Post Staff Writer exposed that Cancellation for 18 Nations Seen by Some as Damaging Institutional Capacity

Full debt relief for the world's poorest countries was finally in the bag. Or so it seemed two months ago when leaders from the Group of Eight major industrial powers, at their summit in Scotland, approved a plan to cancel the debts that 18 nations, mostly in Africa, owe to international lenders such as the World Bank.

But objections to the plan are emerging as it heads toward an official vote at the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund later this month. Most notable is an internal World Bank report that warns the plan could deplete the bank's coffers so severely as to impair its ability to provide new aid for impoverished nations.

It becomes evident that the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as the head of the World Bank was not just for casual reasons, but was a clear strategy by the neocons to ensure that all aspects of helping the poorer nations would also be scuttled at the right time and at the right place.

No wonder, when you enter the term "miserable failure" in Google, the result is predictable!