live8

I can’t help but be a little disappointed over the G8 summit and the end result of what the Live8 protesters have been trying to achieve in asking the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations to actively strike at poverty by releasing the debts of the poorest nations on Earth, in exchange for agreements that will see the money being spent instead on schools, medical care, etc. There is so much support for this move and yet, of course, as expected, it didn't pan out.

I know, I know, they doubled aid to Africa and I should be glad about that...yet the debts remain - loan these countries never get rid of because they can only afford to pay the interest, not the capital- and foreign aid is spent by the First World business that win tenders, so yeah, I don't think we've quite crossed the line into not being self-serving, even if some of that aid reaches the right people in the right way.

I can’t envision the G8 summit ever coming to any such kind of agreement. When will this change? When is it that we finally turn around to the rest of the world on whose backs we have made our wealth and say, ‘you know what? We actually do care about you.’ What’s wrong with us being the first to say that greed is not good, no matter what Reagan thought?