More Good News/Bad News

[andrewducker]

    * Trade discussions in Hong Kong later this year should yield an end date to agricultural subsidies.
    * Britain is to host a 1 November meeting on climate change, to assess progress.
    * $3bn agreed for Palestinian Authority for investment in infrastructure.
    * Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo described the deal as a "success".
    * G8 commits to training 20,000 peacekeepers for Africa.
    * African leaders to commit to democracy and good governance as part of the deal.
    * Debts of the 18 poorest countries to be forgiven.
    * Universal access to anti-HIV drugs in Africa by 2010.
    * US now accepted global warming was an issue.

But on the other hand, there's still a lot of debt out there and an awful lot of work to do, and the date for ending agricultural subsidies will doubtless be in about 10 years and phased out over a further 20.

Still, at least the problems are being acknowledged and movement is being made in the right directions.

Comments

[code-delphi.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree, and so would any Australian if they actually thought about it. Fact is, as a nation we're basically ignorant of world history; even our own national history pretty much glorified the antics of our colonial/explorer ancestors over the last two hundred years, ignoring the existing aboriginal civilisation (which had a richness and diversity that is only now being revealed). Their slaughter was also generally glossed over; what happened to them as a race is absolutely appalling.

Anyway, given that, Africa got zero coverage in our schooling, and gets very little in our media.

I really didn't mean to give the impression that helping Africa out of its hole isn't a good thing, though it seems that making the aid effective is extremely complex and different for each country... I certainly hope that it's more along the lines of conveying the skills, expertise and initial infrastructure to allow the African nations to become self-sufficient, as opposed to just shipping them food. Help them to help themselves. It appears they're not going to get the debt relief they were hoping for, I gather.