G-8 Reaches Africa, Climate Deals

In Shadow Of London Bombings, Leaders Pledge $50B For Africa

(CBS/AP)  World leaders wrapped up an economic summit shaken by terrorism, agreeing Friday on an "alternative to the hatred" — aid packages for the Palestinian Authority and Africa and a pledge to address global climate change.

One by one, the leaders of the G-8 signed their summit communiqué, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair declaring that the bombings in London "will not obscure what we came here to achieve."

"We are convinced the politics that we represent will win and will triumph over terrorism," said Blair, the summit host, to close the three-day gathering.

"It isn't all that everyone wanted but it is progress – real, achievable progress," he said.

With a last-minute pledge from Japan, Blair won a key victory, announcing that aid to Africa would rise from the current $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010.

In a separate joint statement on terrorism, the leaders pledged "to new joint efforts" to combat terrorism in light of the London bombings. Among those commitments was cooperating in ways to improve the safety of rail and subway travel.

"Compared to previous G-8 meetings, the Scotland summit was a success because pledges of Africa aid, debt-cancellation and billions of dollars for the Palestinian Authority far exceeded expectations," said CBS Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk.

Blair lost his push to get all summit countries to commit to boosting foreign aid to an amount equal to 0.7 percent of national income by 2015. Instead, a summit document said the European Union had agreed to that support but did not mention the United States.

President Bush had refused to be bound by the 0.7 percent target. The United States is currently giving 0.16 percent of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G-8 countries.

Blair ticked off a list of accomplishments from a meeting that nonetheless produced less than he had hoped going in. The major failure was in the area of global warming, where staunch opposition from President Bush thwarted Blair's efforts to get a U.S. commitment to firm targets for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the earth's atmosphere.

Aside from the massive increase in aid for the African continent, leaders signaled support for new deals on trade, endorsed cancellation of the debt of 18 of the world's poorest nations, pledged universal access to AIDS treatment, renewed their commitment to a peacekeeping force in Africa and heard African leaders promise to move toward democracies that follow the rule of law, he said.

"All of this does not change the world tomorrow — it is a beginning, not an end," Blair said, with leaders of the G-8 and five African nations standing behind him. "And none of it today will match the same ghastly impact as the cruelty of terror. But it has a pride and a hope and humanity at its heart that can lift the shadow of terrorism and light the way to a better future."

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo thanked the leaders for focusing on Africa and for "their resolve not to be diverted by these terrorist acts."