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As Gordon Brown prepares
to look back at the pledges made in 2005’s Gleneagles summit, a group of leading charities has come together to call for urgent action to turn the pledges made in 2005 into
reality.Charities and campaign groups in the UK will call on the Government to put pressure on the G8 summit to deliver on:
debt cancellation and more and better aid
trade
justice
healthcare, education, water and sanitation for all
firm plans to prevent catastrophic climate change and address its impacts
Patrick Watt from ActionAid said:
"The millions who got involved in the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005 won major commitments from the world’s richest countries, but now we need to see much more determined action
to match those words. We’re looking for cast-iron guarantees of action at this year’s summit across aid, debt relief, world trade and climate change."On June 2 thousands
will attend a major event at Westminster to call on Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (the President of this year’s summit), to make the G8 summit a good one for the world’s
poorest people. The event will centre around a mass moment, where campaigners will join up along the Thames to call for justice for millions around the world living in poverty.In the lead up to
the event the campaign is also calling on people right across the UK to raise their voices against poverty via a new website, launched today at www.yourvoiceagainstpoverty.org.ukMatt Phillips from Save the Children said: "Two years on from the Gleneagles summit 5,000 children
die every day from drinking dirty water. More than five million people living with HIV/AIDS still do not have access to medicines. As the clock ticks, peoples' lives are
lost.""At the same time we have seen that where progress has been made on the commitments made in 2005, this has made a real difference. For example as a result of debt relief
measures agreed 4 million people in rural Zambia now have access to free healthcare."The OECD said this week that across the G8 aid levels have fallen by almost 9%. However, the UK has
bucked the trend and seen its overseas aid levels rise by 12.6%, something which campaigners attribute to the success of 2005’s Make Poverty History campaign. "The UK
government was presented with a huge public mandate to increase their overseas aid, and the initial signs are good," said Patrick Watt from ActionAid. "The UK must continue to lead
from the front. It must meet its own pledges in full and on time, in order to demonstrate leadership to the other G8 countries." CAFOD’s Helen Wolfson said: "G8
countries, especially Germany - as this year's G8 President - must deliver on the promises they made at Gleneagles in 2005. We are deeply concerned at the moment that some countries may fail to
meet those commitments - the world can’t wait for action!"
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The International Red Cross delivers water to the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp where Lebanese soldiers are facing Fatah al-Islam militants in northern Lebanon May 30, 2007. Jihadists battling the Lebanese army in north Lebanon were either on their way to or from Iraq, Palestinian political sources believe, a sign that the shadow of Sunni militancy there has started to fall over Arab countries nearby. Many of the Fatah al-Islam militants had originally come to Lebanon to train for Iraq, the main front for al Qaeda in its battle with the United States, a Palestinian source in Lebanon said. Some had already fought there.
