Sherry Darling
New Yorker
Thus far it doesn't look like Bono's there. I'll keep ya'll posted. Meanwhile, write that letter to Bush! And O'Neill! And your rep! Check the link in my sig (Bono's Angels) for ph #'s, addresses, and a sample letter to cut and paste.
And those of you who pray....would ya?
Mideast Worries Impinge on G-8 Summit
Leaders Reject Bush's Position on Arafat
advertisement
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 26, 2002; Page A19
CALGARY, Alberta, June 25 -- Leaders of the world's major industrial nations gathered tonight in a remote Rocky Mountain resort 60 miles west of here for a two-day summit at which the planned focus on topics of long-term international concern seemed in danger of being overwhelmed by more immediate worries about the Middle East.
Even before President Bush arrived at Kananaskis Village this afternoon after a brief stopover in Arizona to view raging wildfires, his Monday speech setting out a framework for Middle East peace was hovering over the summit.
Most of the leaders of the Group of Eight -- the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia -- had already issued statements distancing themselves from Bush's insistence that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, be replaced before serious peace negotiations with Israel can begin.
"It is for the Palestinians to elect their own leaders," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said as he departed London today for the summit. Like Blair, governments in Berlin and Paris said they appreciated Bush's commitment to work toward a final Middle East settlement. They agreed on the need to end the violence, reform the Palestinian Authority and end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
But like Blair, they also made a point of saying the future of any Palestinian leader, including Arafat, was up to the Palestinians themselves. President Vladimir Putin of Russia had expressed the same sentiments before Bush's speech.
Several of the leaders, along with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, reiterated the importance of holding an early international conference on the Middle East, an idea originally promoted by the Bush administration but left unmentioned Monday by Bush.
European officials said that these U.S. allies, who have worked closely with the administration on the Middle East in recent months, are likely over the next two days to press Bush for a more detailed explanation of his plan, even as he lobbies them to get behind it.
Asked tonight whether he condoned new Israeli military incursions, Bush said he would "continue to remind all parties they have responsibilities. That if there's a true desire for peace, they ought to work for that peace. Listen, everybody's got a right to defend themselves, but there also has to be a decision toward a way forward," Bush told reporters after a brief meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
When a reporter asked Chretien whether he supported Bush's position that there would be no Palestinian state with Arafat in power, Bush interjected: "If I might say what I said yesterday. I said the Palestinians need new leadership, elected leadership" as well as transparent financial institutions. "In order for there to be hope," he said, "there needs to be the emergence of the institutions necessary for a peaceful Palestinian state to emerge."
Chretien said, "I don't have a specific point of view" on Arafat. "I think it might be a good thing; I don't want to comment on that. But I just say that we need a quick election there and to produce the best leadership."
From the start, Chretien wanted this meeting to be different. In response to the havoc that anti-globalization protesters created at last year's gathering in Genoa, Italy, Canada opted for a small and isolated meeting place.
Only one road leads to Kananaskis and no one is allowed to travel it without the permission of the thousands of military and police security personnel who are guarding it. For the more serious potential threats of the post-Sept. 11 environment, the two-lane highway is lined with antiaircraft batteries.
Leaders cannot bring the massive entourages of past summits. Each government is allowed only 25 rooms in the 410-room resort; all other aides must stay behind in Calgary, along with the international media.
Chretien had hoped that the new format would work against the usual pattern of the crisis of the hour scuttling a carefully planned agenda, which this year stresses the global economy, terrorism and African development.
"He wanted to get away from the pomp and circumstance of past meetings and all of the time wasted getting in and out of cars, traveling through congested streets," said Robert Fowler, the senior Canadian diplomat who has coordinated much of the agenda.
Bush also met tonight with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan; he expects to talk privately with Blair on Wednesday and Putin on Thursday. The Canadians hope it is in these private meetings, and in free-flowing mealtime discussions, that the leaders will talk about the Middle East, if they must.
As for the official agenda, there is plenty to talk about, and to disagree about.
Wednesday's sessions focus on terrorism and the global economy. On terrorism, the leaders will talk about coordinating efforts to make their transportation systems safer and discuss a Bush administration proposal to fund the disposal of Russian nuclear materials. Bush will have an opportunity to brief his fellow heads of government on the status of the U.S.-led war against terrorism and to either calm their concerns that a military attack against Iraq is imminent or persuade them to support his new preemptive military doctrine.
Concern will be expressed about the Japanese economy, and about whether the dollar is too strong, or may become too weak. His position on the dollar, Bush said tonight, "is that it will seek its own level based upon market forces."
The Europeans and Canadians are also prepared to do battle over what they see as the hypocrisy of an administration trade policy that talks about free markets and then imposes heavy tariffs on steel and lumber and approves hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for U.S. farmers.
The subsidy issue is also relevant to Thursday's sessions on African development. The presidents of South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Senegalwill ask the G-8 leaders to commit to a plan that the Africans presented at last year's summit. Called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, the plan asks for increased aid, debt reduction and investment in exchange for pledges of "good government" and detailed education and health care initiatives, along with a new, peer-review system under which Africa's 53 nations promise to monitor one another's progress and take action to rectify their failings.
The Africans estimate that the continent will need an additional $64 billion a year in aid and investment to achieve their goals by 2015. A number of developed countries committed significant resources to development in Africa and elsewhere during an international development conference held in March in Monterrey, Mexico.
? 2002 The Washington Post Company
And those of you who pray....would ya?
Mideast Worries Impinge on G-8 Summit
Leaders Reject Bush's Position on Arafat
advertisement
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 26, 2002; Page A19
CALGARY, Alberta, June 25 -- Leaders of the world's major industrial nations gathered tonight in a remote Rocky Mountain resort 60 miles west of here for a two-day summit at which the planned focus on topics of long-term international concern seemed in danger of being overwhelmed by more immediate worries about the Middle East.
Even before President Bush arrived at Kananaskis Village this afternoon after a brief stopover in Arizona to view raging wildfires, his Monday speech setting out a framework for Middle East peace was hovering over the summit.
Most of the leaders of the Group of Eight -- the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia -- had already issued statements distancing themselves from Bush's insistence that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, be replaced before serious peace negotiations with Israel can begin.
"It is for the Palestinians to elect their own leaders," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said as he departed London today for the summit. Like Blair, governments in Berlin and Paris said they appreciated Bush's commitment to work toward a final Middle East settlement. They agreed on the need to end the violence, reform the Palestinian Authority and end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
But like Blair, they also made a point of saying the future of any Palestinian leader, including Arafat, was up to the Palestinians themselves. President Vladimir Putin of Russia had expressed the same sentiments before Bush's speech.
Several of the leaders, along with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, reiterated the importance of holding an early international conference on the Middle East, an idea originally promoted by the Bush administration but left unmentioned Monday by Bush.
European officials said that these U.S. allies, who have worked closely with the administration on the Middle East in recent months, are likely over the next two days to press Bush for a more detailed explanation of his plan, even as he lobbies them to get behind it.
Asked tonight whether he condoned new Israeli military incursions, Bush said he would "continue to remind all parties they have responsibilities. That if there's a true desire for peace, they ought to work for that peace. Listen, everybody's got a right to defend themselves, but there also has to be a decision toward a way forward," Bush told reporters after a brief meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
When a reporter asked Chretien whether he supported Bush's position that there would be no Palestinian state with Arafat in power, Bush interjected: "If I might say what I said yesterday. I said the Palestinians need new leadership, elected leadership" as well as transparent financial institutions. "In order for there to be hope," he said, "there needs to be the emergence of the institutions necessary for a peaceful Palestinian state to emerge."
Chretien said, "I don't have a specific point of view" on Arafat. "I think it might be a good thing; I don't want to comment on that. But I just say that we need a quick election there and to produce the best leadership."
From the start, Chretien wanted this meeting to be different. In response to the havoc that anti-globalization protesters created at last year's gathering in Genoa, Italy, Canada opted for a small and isolated meeting place.
Only one road leads to Kananaskis and no one is allowed to travel it without the permission of the thousands of military and police security personnel who are guarding it. For the more serious potential threats of the post-Sept. 11 environment, the two-lane highway is lined with antiaircraft batteries.
Leaders cannot bring the massive entourages of past summits. Each government is allowed only 25 rooms in the 410-room resort; all other aides must stay behind in Calgary, along with the international media.
Chretien had hoped that the new format would work against the usual pattern of the crisis of the hour scuttling a carefully planned agenda, which this year stresses the global economy, terrorism and African development.
"He wanted to get away from the pomp and circumstance of past meetings and all of the time wasted getting in and out of cars, traveling through congested streets," said Robert Fowler, the senior Canadian diplomat who has coordinated much of the agenda.
Bush also met tonight with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan; he expects to talk privately with Blair on Wednesday and Putin on Thursday. The Canadians hope it is in these private meetings, and in free-flowing mealtime discussions, that the leaders will talk about the Middle East, if they must.
As for the official agenda, there is plenty to talk about, and to disagree about.
Wednesday's sessions focus on terrorism and the global economy. On terrorism, the leaders will talk about coordinating efforts to make their transportation systems safer and discuss a Bush administration proposal to fund the disposal of Russian nuclear materials. Bush will have an opportunity to brief his fellow heads of government on the status of the U.S.-led war against terrorism and to either calm their concerns that a military attack against Iraq is imminent or persuade them to support his new preemptive military doctrine.
Concern will be expressed about the Japanese economy, and about whether the dollar is too strong, or may become too weak. His position on the dollar, Bush said tonight, "is that it will seek its own level based upon market forces."
The Europeans and Canadians are also prepared to do battle over what they see as the hypocrisy of an administration trade policy that talks about free markets and then imposes heavy tariffs on steel and lumber and approves hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for U.S. farmers.
The subsidy issue is also relevant to Thursday's sessions on African development. The presidents of South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Senegalwill ask the G-8 leaders to commit to a plan that the Africans presented at last year's summit. Called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, the plan asks for increased aid, debt reduction and investment in exchange for pledges of "good government" and detailed education and health care initiatives, along with a new, peer-review system under which Africa's 53 nations promise to monitor one another's progress and take action to rectify their failings.
The Africans estimate that the continent will need an additional $64 billion a year in aid and investment to achieve their goals by 2015. A number of developed countries committed significant resources to development in Africa and elsewhere during an international development conference held in March in Monterrey, Mexico.
? 2002 The Washington Post Company
Last edited:
