G8 summit: Swiss alps, Disneyland tour also options...

Next G8: Star Cruise

The summit will also include paragliding, water sports, bungee lessons

With passing time, experts now concur that French premier, and (hyper)active G8 member Nicholas Sarkozy has started looking – and behaving – eerily similar to Sylvester Stallone [Go ahead, give it a try; identify sweet Nick in the photograph]. Funnily, this behavioural similarity extends to the whole G8 belt [US, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Canada, Italy, Russia and Ethiopia... er, alright, if you caught us on this, read on, you seem to be interested], with almost every member contributing his Shylockian best to behaving like a spoilt celebrity during every summit, finally achieving nothing. So we did what we do best [no no, not that; Bush does that better] – we analysed the progress report of the past few summits to decipher what exactly has been achieved in terms of contribution to least developed nations!

G8 summit in Birmingham, England, 1998: Protesters for the first time were formally allowed to give a written letter, which requested G8 to work on the heavy debt burden of the third world. Letter accepted, case dismissed! Nothing much was discussed, leave of course the letter.

Cologne, Germany, 1999: To prove that they were worried about poverty, an ‘officially’ undisclosed amount was sanctioned. According to World Bank, the ‘sanction’ was so small that it wasn’t enough to even provide five bread loaves per person per year per poor country.

Okinawa, Japan, 2000: Aid amount invested in projects: Close to nil; evidently because of billions spent on militarisation of north-east Asia.

Genoa, Italy, 2001: Progress on debt cancellation: Nil! Massive protests took the blame, rather than the G8 members.

Kananaskis, Canada, 2002: Among many important issues, NEPAD [New Partnership for Africa’s Development] was also on agenda. $64 billion was requested, but only $6 billion was sanctioned. The reason? Russia requested – and was presumably given – $20 billion for the upkeep of the Russian nuclear stockpiles.

Evian, France, 2003: “Iraq has WMDs! And everybody better contribute to kill that damn nuke-bomber Saddam!” We told you, Bush churns out gas better!

Georgia, USA, 2004: Main agenda: Extending the controversial Heavily In-debt Poor Countries [HIPC] initiative for debt-relief and to vaccines development. Achieved: Magnanimous relief to Iraq’s $120 billion debt on US insistence.

Gleneagles, Scotland, 2005: This summit, like all years before, was again aimed to provide $50 billion debt-relief to Africa [Nothing new! Nothing achieved!].

Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2006: For the first time in recent history, the G8 leaders proactively agreed on energy security, fighting diseases and encouraging education. Oh yes, it didn’t at all mention them providing any financial assistance!

Heiligendamm, Germany, 2007: Top agenda: Africa! Promises made in 2005 [in Scotland] of $50 billion aid to Africa: More or less overlooked!

Creditably, developed nations in all have donated around $2.5 trillion since 1960 to LDCs. However, official estimates confirm that even this falls short of the required – and so called ‘promised’ – aid amount by a mammoth $3.5 trillion. As per the World Bank, it will cost developed countries just 2.8 cents per person per week to meet the promise. But we believe the first world still hasn’t understood the cheapness of life’s existence for the poor.

Having said that, we have a strategy for poor beleaguered Nick. We suggest that instead of being uselessly exposed to global criticism year after year, the G8 should officially confirm that leaders would meet simply to have a good time. After that, hand over the event management to our team [please, we insist]! Disneyland, Star Cruise, bungee lessons, paragliding, you name it guys, we’ll have that for you. And what about least developed countries? Goddamn those Africans...