Europe

G-8 leaders meet without ailing Bush

(AP)
Updated: 2007-06-08 18:28

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany _ The leaders of the Group of Eight met with African leaders on their summit's concluding day Friday, agreeing on a US$60 billion package to fight disease in Africa as diplomats worked behind the scenes on a possible deal with Russia over Kosovo's future.

The leaders held their joint session in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, Germany, without US President George W. Bush, who was ill and stayed in his room after meeting privately with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The others, chaired by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, met with the presidents of Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria. Earlier, Germany's development minister said in Berlin that G-8 leaders had approved earmarking an additional US$60 billion to fight the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Anti-poverty activists complain that the world's richer countries have not kept the promises the G-8 made to increase annual aid to poor countries by US$50 billion at the Gleneagles summit in Scotland in 2005.

"It was a very candid and open discussion," Merkel said afterward. "We said that on behalf of the countries of the G-8, that we are aware of our obligations and we would like to fulfill the promises that we entered into and we are going to do that."

Sarkozy said he and Bush discussed the Serbian province of Kosovo _ and that the leaders would talk more about the subject Friday. He said their deputies worked late into the night to find agreement on the province's future.

The United States and the European Union back a U.N. resolution to give the predominantly ethnic Albanian province supervised independence. Kosovo has been under U.N. supervision since a NATO-led air war in 1999 to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Serbia, however, considers Kosovo its historic heartland, and has resisted ceding the province. The Russians, Serbia's traditional ally, say they oppose any solution imposed over Belgrade's objections.