The world's wealthiest nations formally agreed on Saturday to cancel at least US$40 billion of debt owed to international agencies by the world's poorest lands, most of them in Africa.
After late-night talks in London, the finance ministers of the Group of 8 industrialized nations announced that the deal, long in negotiation, had been intended to avoid damaging the ability of international lenders like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to continue helping other poor countries.
"This is a historic moment," said John Snow, the US treasury secretary, one of the participants. "A real milestone has been reached."
The deal on Saturday was expected to ease the 18 poorest countries' annual debt burden by US$1.5 billion. They are Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. All must take anti-corruption measures.
Gordon Brown, the British chancelor of the exchequer, asked at the news conference whether debt relief was also conditional on good government practices by the recipients, said part of the deal was for poor countries to use the money they saved on debt servicing for health, education, or the relief of poverty.
The agreement came after months of negotiations in which the US had been pressing the other G8 countries -- Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia -- to agree that the solution to poor countries' indebtedness was to cancel their debt burden completely, rather than seek simply to ease it by taking over interest repayments.
"It is my hope today that this reform will conclusively end the destabilizing lend-and-forgive approach to development assistance in low-income countries," Snow said. In the future, he said, "grants would be used to ensure that countries do not quickly reaccumulate unsustainable debts."
The agreement, which followed talks in Washington last week between US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was struck less than four weeks before the G8 leaders hold a summit meeting at Gleneagles, Scotland. Blair is the current chairman of the G8.
Brown said G8 countries had agreed to compensate the World Bank and the African Development Bank in particular for forfeiting interest payments on poor countries' debt, so those groups would have the income to make new loans to other countries.
"We could not contemplate a situation," he said, where debt cancelation for some poor countries was made at the expense of other poor countries.
also see story:
G-8 says `vigorous action' needed to counter slowdown
INVESTIGATION: The case is the latest instance of a DPP figure being implicated in an espionage network accused of allegedly leaking information to Chinese intelligence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member Ho Jen-chieh (何仁傑) was detained and held incommunicado yesterday on suspicion of spying for China during his tenure as assistant to then-minister of foreign affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Ho was implicated during its investigation into alleged spying activities by former Presidential Office consultant Wu Shang-yu (吳尚雨). Prosecutors said there is reason to believe Ho breached the National Security Act (國家安全法) by leaking classified Ministry of Foreign Affairs information to Chinese intelligence. Following interrogation, prosecutors petitioned the Taipei District Court to detain Ho, citing concerns over potential collusion or tampering of evidence. The
Seventy percent of middle and elementary schools now conduct English classes entirely in English, the Ministry of Education said, as it encourages schools nationwide to adopt this practice Minister of Education (MOE) Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) is scheduled to present a report on the government’s bilingual education policy to the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee today. The report would outline strategies aimed at expanding access to education, reducing regional disparities and improving talent cultivation. Implementation of bilingual education policies has varied across local governments, occasionally drawing public criticism. For example, some schools have required teachers of non-English subjects to pass English proficiency
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
NEGOTIATIONS: The US response to the countermeasures and plans Taiwan presented has been positive, including boosting procurement and investment, the president said Taiwan is included in the first group for trade negotiations with the US, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, as he seeks to shield Taiwanese exporters from a 32 percent tariff. In Washington, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in an interview on Fox News on Thursday that he would speak to his Taiwanese and Israeli counterparts yesterday about tariffs after holding a long discussion with the Vietnamese earlier. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday postponed punishing levies on multiple trade partners, including Taiwan, for three months after trillions of US dollars were wiped off global markets. He has maintained a 10 percent
RSS