Live 8 stirs world to ride tidal wave of justice

IT was a day when hope and history rhymed, when, to paraphrase, the-once-in-a-lifetime longed for tidal wave of justice rose. And we all believed in miracles and cures and healing wells.

The momentum born of Live 8 will peak in Gleneagles, Scotland, in two days time when the heads of the world’s eight leading industrial nations gather to deliberate climate change, the world economy and the debt of African nations.

After a weekend of rock stars working to mould the global philanthropic spirit into a force to be reckoned with, the eight heads of state are under increasing public pressure to cancel African debt, scrap trade tarrifs and double financial aid.

When the G8 summit opens at the Gleneagles Hotel on Wednesday, it will be asked to rubberstamp an African aid and debt package brokered by British Chancellor Gordon Brown at a pre-G8 meeting of finance ministers last month. It will include writing off €46 billion of debt owed by mainly African countries, with rich countries picking up the interest.

Live 8 organiser Bob Geldof said yesterday he is confident world leaders at the G8 summit will listen to the call for more action to tackle global poverty.

He said the Live 8 concerts, which were watched by an estimated five billion people and protests had been “full of hope and possibility and life”.

Much of the public campaign to Make Poverty History will focus on Scotland this week. Today, CND will blockade the Faslane nuclear submarine base west of Glasgow and anti-capitalist activists, the Wombles, are planning an anarchist carnival on Princes St in Glasgow.

Tomorrow, a mass protest will take place at the Dungavel Detention Centre for asylum seekers in Lanarkshire, from which staff and detainees have been transferred “for the safety of everyone” according to the British Home Office.

A march to the gates of the Gleneagles Hotel will take place on Wednesday as well as a Live 8 gig in Edinburgh. Geldof has called for one million people to descend on the city.

On Thursday, a protest group will attempt to storm one of Gleneagles’ five golf courses and a day of action on the causes of global warming will coincide with the close of the summit on Friday.