Sweet victory ahead on debt relief? | csmonitor.com:
"The 10-year battle to wipe out the debt burden of the world's most impoverished nations is reaching a climax.
Hopes are running high that when leaders of the richest countries gather next month in Scotland, they will insist that two key players - The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - forgive billions of dollars of debt.
The logic behind debt relief is twofold: 1) Countries no longer indebted would have more money for education, health programs, sanitation, and services for the poor. 2) Many of these loans are so-called 'odious' debts, made by onetime dictators instead of elected representatives. Since the United States has already persuaded other countries to forgive loans made to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the logic goes, then debts made under other former dictatorships, from Nigeria to the Philippines, deserve similar treatment.
The US stance on Iraqi loans, plus repeated high-profile protests at international meetings of wealthy nations, have moved debt relief from the bottom of the international agenda to near the top.
In addition, thousands of people are expected to protest in Scotland July 2 to help keep President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the other leaders of the G-8 (the G-7 industrial nations plus Russia) on track to forgive billions of dollars of debt, primarily for poor sub-Saharan nations, when they meet four days later in Gleneagles, Scotland.
'Expectations have been raised very high,' says Mark Engler, an analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus, a New York think tank."
What's this....something good has come from the Iraq invasion? Alert George W., he should be draping himself in this, but alas, my guess is more promises with little to back it up.
"The gold....it's in the...."