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Rev. David Duncombe, a United Church of Christ minister from Washington State , broke his 40 day fast during a prayer breakfast on Capitol Hill this morning, ending his nearly six week lobbying ministry for the Jubilee Act for Expanded Debt Cancellation and Responsible Lending. Rev. Duncombe was joined by Representatives Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO), each of whom broke their own one-day fasts for the legislation. The introduction of a new Senate companion bill sponsored by Senators Robert Casey (D-PA), Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) was also announced. Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and John Sununu (R-NH) are original co-sponsors of the legislation.

Rev. Duncombe had been leading the nationwide “Cancel Debt Fast,” organized by Jubilee USA Network, and was supported by some 14,000 Americans who also fasted and contacted their Members of Congress. The Fast resulted in a commitment to a fall hearing on the Jubilee Act (H.R. 2634) in the House Financial Services Committee, 20 additional House bill sponsors, and the introduction of a Senate companion bill.

“We welcome and fully support the legislation introduced today in the Senate, which would expand the promise of debt cancellation to more countries that need it to fight poverty,” said Neil Watkins, National Coordinator of Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of 80 faith-based, human rights, and development groups. “The bill also gets at some of the problems with the current World Bank and IMF debt relief initiative by cutting out economic policy conditions which hurt the poor and by taking action against unscrupulous vulture funds.”

The House and Senate versions of the Jubilee Act would:

* Cancel the debts of up to 26 additional nations not currently eligible for debt cancellation, provided that they demonstrate plans to spend the money wisely on poverty reduction;

* Cut harmful requirements that are delaying access to life-saving debt relief for countries like Haiti and Liberia ;

* Call on the Treasury Secretary to address the challenges presented by so-called vulture funds, one of which recently extracted $15 million from impoverished Zambia ; and

* Establish policies for responsible lending to avoid odious and unjust debt accumulation in the future, beginning with an audit of past odious debts by the Government Accountability Office.

During his 40 day ministry, Rev. Duncombe made 200 visits to Senators’ and Representatives’ Hill offices. “Most people who work on Capitol Hill never meet a starving person,” said Duncombe. “I don’t think risking your life is a bad thing if there’s a good chance you can save someone else’s.”

Other speakers at the morning event included: Dr. Stephen M. Colecchi, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Dr. Ulrich Duchrow, German Theologian; Ruth Messinger, President, American Jewish World Service; Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson, North American President, World Council of Churches; Jim McDonald, Vice President, Bread for the World; Ombeni Sefue, Tanzanian Ambassador the United States; Rt. Rev. Jean Zache Duracin, Episcopal Bishop of Haiti; Given Lubinda, Zambian MP; Hilary O. Shelton, NAACP Washington office; and Rabbi Michael Lerner, Tikkun.

During the 40 day fast, Jubilee activists in 33 states wrote messages to their Senators and Representatives on 8,000 empty paper plates calling for an end to hunger and poverty; some plates were delivered by Rev. Duncombe, others have been or will be delivered directly by constituents. More than 8,000 nuns from 150 different provinces also fasted for one or more days.

Debt relief provided to date by world leaders is an effective tool to fight hunger and poverty, but should be expanded, says Jubilee USA. Developing countries already relieved of debt have increased their own domestic spending on poverty reduction by 75 percent. For example, after Zambia ’s debts were canceled, the country’s education spending increased by 130 percent, enabling approximately 1.5 million children to return to school almost overnight.

Under the global compact between the rich and poor nations that was articulated in 8 millenium development goals (MDGs), about N99.9 billion has been spent in 2006 for the development of physical infrastructure.

Benefiting federal ministries secured in health N21.288 billion, education N18.22 billion, water resources N19.215 billion, power and steel N16.961 billion, works N9.855 billion and agriculture N9.400 billion. Others are, environment N1.485 billion, women affairs N1 billion, inter governmental affairs N990 million, housing and urban N495 million and the monitoring and evaluation gulped N1 billion.

In a compiled official documents of the millenium development goals MDGs operations and achievements made avaiable to LEADERSHIP by the head of communication Fatima Akilu, the debt relief funds had been used to reduce poverty.

The Government of Italy has pledged its support to Liberia’s fight for debt relief as the country continues its drive towards national recovery.

The pledge was made today in Rome when President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf officially met with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Prodi asked the President to send a delegation to follow up on talks with the view of having an exploratory means of bilateral co cooperation. He also pledged to send a delegation to Liberia after this initial step is taken. The Italian Prime Minster also committed his government’s desire to assist the A.M. Dogliotti Medical School.

For her part, President Johnson-Sirleaf solicited Italy’s support and went to arm’s length to talk about the considerable progress made so far by her government in tackling Liberia’s debt issue amidst the constraints faced by the country.

Earlier, President Johnson-Sirleaf met with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. Italy is governed by the parliamentary system of government which is characterized by a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government.

Also present at the meetings were Margibi County Senator Clarice A. Jah, Nimba County Representative Evans Koah and Liberia’s Ambassador to France His Excellency McKinley Thomas.

In a related development, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says a positive wind of change is blowing across the African continent, but adds that the good news which is gradually developing; do not get the attention it needs.

The President spoke today in Turin, Italy, when she addressed the United Nations Turin Retreat 2007. The retreat, which will run from August 31-September 2nd 2007, was convened by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to enable his senior most managers know each other better, exchange ideas, and reflect on the experiences to date and the challenges ahead of the Organization.

The Liberian leader chronicled the growing trends in democracies in Africa, saying that today the continent has 18 democracies and that 21countries have qualified for the first stage of debt relief. She also added that significant gains have been made in reducing the level of poverty in spite of difficulties. Speaking on Liberia’s current geo-political status, President Johnson-Sirleaf stressed that the 2005 elections marked a turning point in country’s history. She emphasized that her government will have to build Liberia’s human resource and capacity as well as ensure that the benefit of growth be equitably distributed for development to be sustained.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has addressed a major press conference in Monrovia, spotlighting among other issues, the recently passed national budget, sea erosion, security, unemployment, debt relief, infrastructure and the rehabilitation of roads as well as the repairs of bridges, particularly the Vai Town Bridge.

The President described the increment in civil servants salaries as a modest improvement in allocations and expressed the hope that more additions would be made as government revenue capacity expands. The current 2007/2008 budget reflects a monthly minimum wage of US $55-dollars for civil servants, a US 25-dollar increment from last year’s budget. Civil servants earned a monthly minimum wage of US $15.00 (fifteen dollars) prior to the ascendancy of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf government.

The President said in addition to the budget, Liberia has received significant amounts in resources from partners to supplement the activities government’s own budget can finance. The President named the institutions as the World Bank which has provided approximately 163-million dollars in grants; while the European Community has provided 15-million Euros. The President said support has also come from the United States, which, in addition to its contribution toward the country’s debt relief, has provided approximately 120-million dollars in programs for the fiscal year, while China has assisted with more than 40-million dollars.

An Executive Mansion release quotes the President as saying that government is also working towards establishing bilateral relations with many other partners supporting the country in its peace keeping operations, and noted that the figures covering the support are not reflected in government figures because contributions are channeled through the United Nations system.

On the issue of unemployment, the President expressed the hope that with the opening of the various mines, oil palm plantations and the forestry sector, employment opportunities will be available to more citizens and help reduce the unemployment rate, “so that those being affected will find employment in the private sector.” The President called on Liberians to take advantage of vacancies being advertised in local papers, cautioning that if Liberians to do not take advantage, the positions may be offered to non-Liberians.

The President of the Republic of Benin, Boni Yayi, has promised to intervene on behalf of Liberia for the international community to have consideration on waiving the country’s external debts, which is said to be close to a little over 3 billion US Dollars

President Yayi stressed the need for Liberia’s debts to be examined by both regional and international organizations, with the hope that it would be cancelled.

President Yayi made these remarks yesterday at the Foreign Ministry in Monrovia when he addressed the press on the last day of his two-day visit to the country.

Speaking on a number of issues through an interpreter, President Yayi said the country’s debt relief considering the huge debt burden the country is faced with.

Touching on what he said is the roadmap of the Ellen’s government, President Yayi said the government’s roadmap is very difficult to achieve.

He described the first agenda item of the government’s roadmap stressing that without peace there would be no development in neither in the country nor any other country on the continent for that matter.

President Yayi said another item on the government’s road map, is the issue of infrastructure, stressing that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has a very good vision in creating innovative approach in dealing with the issue. He further stated that the country’s roads, airports, energy, telecommunication among others need to be taken care of.

The French and Mozambican governments signed in Maputo on Monday an addendum to a “Debt reduction and development contract” of 2004 for a further relief of Mozambique’s debt to France.

Monday’s document signed between Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang and French Ambassador Thierry Viteau, extends for a further two years, until 2009, the initial agreement, known as C2D, that was for the period 2005-2007.

Viteau said at the ceremony that C2D represents a supplementary effort on the part of the French government to completely cancel the bilateral debt of Mozambique, as part of complementary measures in the context of debt relief to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC).

The island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, just off Africa’s west coast, has earned itself further debt relief by, amongst others, exercising good governance and maintaining a stable economy.

Sao Tome originally benefited from U$ 200 million in debt relief in December 2000 under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program, which helped bring down the country’s U$ 300 million debt burden.

In August 2005, Sao Tome signed on to a new 3-year International Monetary Fund (IMF) Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility program worth U$ 4.3 million

Last week, the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and the IMF agreed the country had made good progress to reach the completion point under the Enhanced HIPC initiative.

“To reach the completion point, Sao Tome and Principe met all the triggers aimed at maintaining macroeconomic stability, ensuring commitment to the national poverty strategy, strengthening public expenditure management, raising the quality of education, improving health outcomes and fighting malaria,” the World Bank said.

In addition Sao Tome and Principe took steps to improve governance, especially in its emerging petroleum sector, and to fight corruption through an on-going comprehensive judicial, administrative reform.

It becomes the 22nd country to reach the completion point under the initiative.

Debt relief under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative from all of Sao Tome and Principe’s creditors amounts to U$99 million in net present value (NPV). In addition, a topping up of enhanced HIPC assistance was approved in an amount equivalent to U$25 million in NPV terms, as of the Completion Point.

Total assistance under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative, including topping-up, is estimated to correspond to approximately US$263.46 million in nominal terms, said the Bank.

Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank Acting Country Director for Sao Tome and Principe, noted that “reaching HIPC Completion Point was a key milestone for the country which will have an important development impact as the funds that would have been used for debt servicing could now be deployed for poverty reducing expenditures.”

The June 7 editorial “Mr. Bush and Africa” marred an otherwise excellent case for the Bush administration to do more for Africa by committing more U.S. aid to debt relief by claiming that debt relief “has the perverse effect of tending to reward countries that borrowed imprudently in the past.”

However, the plain truth is that debt relief is no more a reward to borrowing countries than it is a punishment to lending countries. There can be no “imprudent” borrower without the simultaneous presence of an “imprudent” lender. Focusing on only one side of this equation as an argument against debt relief, as the editorial did, however fleetingly, misses the incontrovertible point. Both lending countries and the borrowing African countries (with their usually despotic governments) are equally liable for the economic, political and social mess that has resulted from mountains of debt plus bottomless poverty that makes up the typical African landscape today.

The poor will be with us always. And so, it seems, will the pop stars who plug in their guitars in hopes of subduing poverty and a host of other human miseries. Over the years, as they rocked, the fans gave: to Bangladesh, to African famine relief, to American farmers, to fight AIDS and apartheid, to end torture, to rebuild from calamities.

Funds were raised. Awareness was raised. People felt good (though it’s somewhat painful now to see clips of Bono and the Edge sporting mullets at Live Aid 20 years ago). And maybe it all mattered.

Now Bob Geldof, the patron saint of cause-rock, is back, teamed with fellow big-hearted Irishman Bono and British screenwriter Richard Curtis (”Bridget Jones’s Diary”), to promote Live 8, billed as the largest collective concert in history. Free shows commence tomorrow in 10 cities on four continents.

But send no money now: Geldof and company aren’t working for charity but instead to goad the leaders of privileged nations into doing more to wipe out extreme poverty and disease in Africa. It’s a campaign everyone can get behind — who, after all, is happy that 30,000 kids die every day worldwide because of poverty? Celebrities can pour their hopes for a better world into the cause — no more hunger, no more AIDS — and also weigh in on the vital importance of African debt cancellation. (Debt relief: It’s the new rain forest!)

MTV will give itself over to the occasion; AOL will stream everything live onto the Internet. Curtis’s new HBO movie, “The Girl in the Cafe,” will be on the air in 20 nations. It’s a comic romance set, improbably, at a G-8 summit, where a persistent young woman hectors British leaders into making heroic proposals to help the world’s poor: “We can’t allow this casual holocaust to take place on our watch,” says a character portraying Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer.

The pop-culture campaigners are rallying around a slogan: “Make Poverty History.” The push is on because next week, at a golf resort in Scotland, the most powerful leaders in the industrialized world will convene as the Group of Eight.

Live 8 organizers believe that intense celebrity summitry will help shape the agenda. “We’re not [bleeping] around here,” Sir Bob, who was knighted in 1985, said in an interview from London this week, during which he alternately lobbied President Bush (”Wouldn’t it be amazing if America would rescue Africa?”) and cursed skeptics who question whether anything will change after the final notes fade.

“We’re not ‘raising awareness,’ ” he said defensively. “We’re driving political policy. It’s about writing and implementing political policy toward the poorest people in the world.”

Full debt relief for the world’s poorest countries was finally in the bag. Or so it seemed two months ago when leaders from the Group of Eight major industrial powers, at their summit in Scotland, approved a plan to cancel the debts that 18 nations, mostly in Africa, owe to international lenders such as the World Bank.

But objections to the plan are emerging as it heads toward an official vote at the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund later this month. Most notable is an internal World Bank report that warns the plan could deplete the bank’s coffers so severely as to impair its ability to provide new aid for impoverished nations.

The report, obtained by The Washington Post, uses bureaucratic language to convey a dire message about the problems that the G-8’s plan could pose for the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank agency that lends about $9 billion a year to low-income countries. By potentially forgiving as much as $42.5 billion in payments owed by many poor countries over the next several decades, the plan “could reduce IDA’s financial capacity significantly,” says the report, which was discussed at a meeting of the bank’s executive board last week.

Critics of the plan, which include the governments of Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, are demanding substantial changes in the plan to guarantee that the World Bank is made whole for its losses. That, in turn, is arousing angry warnings from the Bush administration that the whole initiative could come unstuck.

“The deal to provide 100 percent debt cancellation is in jeopardy,” said Tony Fratto, the Treasury Department’s chief spokesman, who said he was “outraged” at the World Bank report. “There are individuals trying to chip away at it and see that it doesn’t happen.”

Debt cancellation was one of the key goals of the movement that mobilized behind the “Live Eight” concerts in early July aimed at prodding President Bush and other G-8 leaders to spare no expense in assisting the developing world. The movement had a powerful ally in the British government, which agreed that debt loads were keeping nations such as Tanzania, Uganda and Bolivia mired in poverty even after previous rounds of partial forgiveness. Many activists were pleasantly surprised when the Bush administration embraced that logic as well.

But the debt-relief bandwagon got hung up on the issue of who would bear the cost. The bulk of the loans in question were no-interest, 40-year loans granted by IDA, which gets its money mainly from two sources — repayments of prior loans and periodic infusions of cash from rich donor nations. Failing to provide IDA with additional donations to replace the revenue lost to debt relief would risk diminishing the World Bank’s role on the global stage — and that, some policymakers and experts suspected, was the Bush team’s true aim.

The G-8 summit communique issued in Scotland reflects a compromise on the issue that, according to the World Bank’s internal report, does not go far enough in protecting IDA. Although the communique contains firm commitments to cover the $1 billion that IDA would lose over the next three years, the report projects that losses would total $8.9 billion in the first decade, $17.6 billion in the second decade, $14.1 billion in the third decade, and $1.8 billion in the last decade if all 38 countries potentially eligible received full cancellation of their debts. (Only 18 countries so far have met the criteria for full relief, though more are expected to do so.)

The report acknowledges the G-8’s pledge that for the period after the first three years, “donors will commit to cover the full costs for the duration of the cancelled loans” by making additional contributions to IDA. But the pledge has no binding force, and there is no “benchmark” for gauging how much donors would have given before the supplemental contributions, notes the report, which proposes several options to more firmly ensure IDA’s future financing.

The Treasury’s Fratto blasted as “absurd” the fear that Washington would fail to honor its pledge to provide additional contributions to IDA, and he ridiculed the report’s assumption that debt repayments by poor countries are a reliable source of income.

“The World Bank’s analysis seems to give greater credence to the ability of a Niger to pay back its unsustainable debt than it does for the G-8 countries to meet their commitments,” Fratto said.

They were strangers to each other, but the thousands of people who gathered yesterday at the Washington Convention Center shared a sense of hope that they would get help to pay their utility bills.

Clutching windowed envelopes stuffed with overdue notices and speaking English, Spanish, Chinese and other languages, District residents applied for financial assistance and discounts that would keep the dial tone buzzing, the heat pumping, the water gushing and the electricity running in their homes through the winter months.

By late evening, 6,500 had sought help from officials at the Joint Utility Discount Day, an annual rite since 1986 organized by the DC Energy Office. This year, many residents already have been struggling with their heating bills even though the temperature has not dropped below freezing. Officials expect even more applications this year because of predicted higher fuel costs. Last year, more than 7,000 people applied for assistance, and 5,500 received help, according to the DC Energy Office.

“We have to find a way to help those who need the help,” said Herbert R. Tillery, the District’s deputy mayor for operations.

The District received $6.8 million in federal funds this year to operate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which annually offers “one-time” assistance based on emergency needs, annual household income and family size. For example, a single person making $13,965 would qualify. Last year, when federal funding ran out, the District contributed $1 million to the program.

Verizon, Washington Gas, Pepco, the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, the Office of the People’s Counsel, United Planning Organization and the Public Service Commission helped plan and sponsor the event.

At the Convention Center, it took patience and preparedness to navigate the winding lines inside the cavernous hall. All ears were listening to WASA employee Ivan Boykin, who used a microphone to call out the numbers in groups of 50, the sole cue for applicants to rise from the rows of chairs and line up at the front of the room.

Adrian King, 41, a slight man with glasses and applicant No. 1,609, stood quietly as he waited to advance. He said he heard an announcement for the event on the radio.

Britain plans to spend about $180.2 million more a year on debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries, the Guardian newspaper reported Saturday.

The British government said the money would go to more than 30 countries to help them repay debts to the World Bank and African Development Bank.
We intend to lead by example,” Gordon Brown, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, was expected to say in a speech Sunday, the Guardian reported.

Brown will reportedly call on the world’s biggest donors to do the same when he attends the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund next month.

Brown, who is chairman of the IMF’s top policy group, will repeat his long-standing call for the fund’s gold reserves to be revalued to release cash for debt relief, the paper said.

Under a 1971 agreement, most IMF gold is valued at $40 an ounce, or one-tenth of the current market price.

The IMF holds 103.4 million ounces of gold, one of the biggest stocks in the world, which is valued on its balance sheet at $8.5 billion.

“We cannot bury the hopes of half of humanity in the lifeless vaults of gold,” Brown is expected to say ahead of the ruling Labor Party’s annual conference, which opens Sunday.

The president of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, said Friday that the U.S. government had discussed a plan with him to cancel poor countries’ debt to global institutions.

Creditors are likely to forgive $80 billion to $90 billion of Iraq’s $120 billion debt owed to donor nations, World Bank President James Wolfensohn said on Wednesday.

Wolfensohn, speaking to business students at Stanford University, said $80 billion to $90 billion “has a fair chance for debt relief” but he did not offer any details or timing.

The World Bank head has said he believes most of Iraq’s major government creditors are willing to forgive two-thirds of Iraq’s debt. France, Germany, Japan and Russia have all promised big reductions.

Wolfensohn was in California for talks and meetings in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday and Los Angeles on Thursday to press for action to reduce global poverty.

“Madness is running over our planet,” he said, ticking off statistics on development assistance and defense budgets.

World development help is running at about $56 billion a year, while military expenditures are almost 20 times higher at more than $900 billion, Wolfensohn said.

Subsidies and tariff protections for world agriculture, including large commercial interests, reach about $350 billion a year.

“This is a huge frustration. We have to find a way to focus on poverty and development … but the big issue is indifference. People don’t care. Money is not flowing to where it is needed,” Wolfensohn told the students.

The World Bank is working to meet U.N. goals to halve by 2015 the proportion of people who earn less than $1 a day and go hungry, he said.

Another principal goal, Wolfensohn said, is to ensure that by 2015 children worldwide will be able to complete primary schooling.

“We must give people a better life and peace. If we don’t do that we have troubles that can’t be sorted out by military expenditures,” he said.

The World Bank head also said a donor meeting to begin a “needs assessment” for troubled Haiti will be held in three weeks.

It will include the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, U.S. Agency for International Development, and assistance agencies from France, Britain and other countries, a world Bank spokesman said.

The meeting would focus on urgent social and economic support for the impoverished Caribbean nation and gauge donor feelings since the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last weekend.

A more formal pledging meeting, which would include a new Haitian administration, would be held later.

Washington Post foreign policy reporter Peter Slevin comes to the Web to discuss the latest developments in U.S. foreign policy — from the State Department to the frontlines in Iraq, join Slevin every Thursday to discuss the diverse factors that shape U.S. foreign policy and how it impacts our lives and the world.

Editor’s Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Peter Slevin: Greetings, on a day when President Bush is away on Sea Island, Ga., at the G-8 Summit and the focal point of Washington is the Capitol Rotunda, where Ronald Reagan is lying in state until tomorrow’s funeral. Things continue busy, though, with the U.N. resolution on Iraq and today’s news of a reported Libyan plot against the Saudi crown prince.

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Alexandria, Va.: The Bush White House is portraying the U.N. resolution as a victory. Was it? Did they get what they wanted originally, or did they need to make some compromises along the way?

Peter Slevin: If it was a victory, it should carry an asterisk because the most important factor in the unanimity of the Security Council was the Bush administration’s willingness to give something up — to make concessions.

The resolution was quite different than the one originally submitted by U.S. and British diplomats. In fact, it was the fifth version that finally succeeded. It gave more explicit authority to the interim Iraqi government and provided many more details about the future than U.S. authorities had originally wanted to yield.

That said, it’s notable that the Security Council endorsed the interim Iraqi government by a 15-0 vote and, in the process, supported the beginnings of the Bush administration’s endgame in Iraq.

The Bush administration is pressing the United Nations to reward Sudan with a major package of international debt relief and reconstruction funds if the Islamic state signs a peace deal ending a brutal, 20-year civil war with the Christian-backed Sudan People’s Liberation Army in southern Sudan by the end of the year.

Sudan has not complied with Security Council demands over three months to disarm, arrest and prosecute Arab militia responsible for the mass murder of black Africans in the eastern province of Darfur, according to U.S. and U.N. officials. The United States has described the campaign as genocide.

The offer of financial aid marks a strategy shift by the United States, which had sought international support for two U.N. resolutions threatening to sanction Sudan if it failed to crack down on the militia, known as the Janjaweed. John C. Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that although the threat of sanctions stands, a Security Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, on Thursday and Friday will focus more on the “carrot” than the “stick.”

The United States changed course on Sudan after facing stiff opposition to sanctions, including a Chinese threat to block the United States from adopting a U.N. resolution punishing Khartoum over Darfur, according to a senior U.S. official involved in the discussions.

“Are we leaning on a rubber stick? Sure,” Danforth acknowledged in an interview. “It would clearly be extremely difficult to get a resolution that actually imposes sanctions in the Security Council adopted. We’re doing the best we can with that particular tool.”

Danforth is calculating that ending Africa’s longest-running war would lead to peace in Darfur, where Sudanese-backed militia have killed tens of thousands of people and driven more than 1.8 million from their homes. In the meantime, Danforth said, a force of 3,300 African peacekeepers being deployed in Darfur offers the best hope for stemming the violence.

Danforth is pressing the 15-nation council to adopt a resolution in Nairobi that urges international financial agencies, including the World Bank, to devise a plan to grant debt relief, reconstruction aid and development assistance to Sudan if an agreement is signed. One council diplomat said the relief package could amount to more than $100 million.

“We are absolutely not letting up one iota on the pressure with respect to Darfur,” Danforth said. “But it is widely recognized that the future of Darfur is also connected to the overall peace process, which would provide the basis for a political settlement for the entire country, including Darfur.”

The toughest critics of the United States in the council, including Algeria, China and Pakistan, have welcomed the new American approach. “We believe that this is the right path,” said Abdallah Baali, Algeria’s U.N. ambassador. “What we should try to do in Nairobi is, by our presence, to encourage them to come up with an agreement hopefully before the end of the year.”

The diplomatic shift comes as Sudan launched a series of violent raids on camps for displaced Darfurians, part of a campaign to forcibly relocate thousands of distressed civilians. Jan Pronk, the U.N.’s envoy to Sudan, said in a recent interview that armed forces linked to the Sudanese government have been unearthing mass-grave sites to cover up evidence of war crimes.

Pronk has expressed alarm that renewed fighting between Sudanese forces and the rebel Sudan Liberation Army threatens to plunge Darfur into anarchy. He told the council on Nov. 5 that rebel Arab militia are undertaking a recruitment drive in preparation for a new offensive. He also faulted the rebels for stepping up attacks in a bid to claim more territory.

The violence in Darfur began in February 2003, when the rebel Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against the government, citing discrimination against the region’s black tribes. The Sudanese government responded by recruiting, equipping and training Arab militias and sponsoring reprisal raids against the rebels and their supporters.

Last week, Sudan agreed in talks in Abuja, Nigeria, to halt military flights over Darfur and to increase access for humanitarian relief workers. But hours later, it launched a fresh raid on a camp for displaced civilians, beating residents and burning their shelters.

Critics voiced concern that Sudan’s government may be holding out the prospect of a peace deal as a way to distract international attention from atrocities in Darfur. John Prendergast, a Washington-based expert on Sudan at the International Crisis Group, said U.S. policymakers failed to expend sufficient political capital to halt the violence in Darfur a year ago because they feared it would undercut their efforts to promote peace between Khartoum and the country’s Christian-backed rebels.

“This is an eerie repetition of the mistakes that were made late last year, when President Bush sent Danforth to Khartoum as special envoy to offer [Sudanese President Omar Hassan] Bashir the carrot of coming to the State of the Union address if he would only sign on the dotted line,” he said. “If we take our eye off a deteriorating situation in Darfur, we will be reinforcing this same policy mistake of thinking that we can incentivize the path to peace. That is exactly the wrong message to send to Khartoum.”

He’s a saxophone player who grew up collecting Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books. He walks for exercise at least an hour a day. Aviation is his hobby: He’s a pilot who once built a mock-up of a cockpit in his house, and he has assembled more than 300 model planes.

There’s a lot that’s unusual about Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, including the fact that he became his country’s first cardinal when Pope John Paul II elevated him to that rank in 2001.

Rodriguez Maradiaga, who turned 62 in December, could draw votes in Rome because he represents the growing number and power of Latin American Catholics. In addition, he’s respected by conservatives and reformers alike, and many in the church see him as a potential bridge between the groups.

On many issues he is more flexible than many of his peers in Latin America, where conservative Catholicism is standard. But on issues of sexuality, his public statements have followed John Paul’s conservative line. He has suggested that the United States has exported liberal views on abortion and contraception to its neighbors, to their detriment.

Rodriguez Maradiaga, who was president of the Conference of Latin American Bishops from 1995 to 1999, has also been a crusader for debt relief for Third World countries. He has said millions of poor people are suffering as their governments struggle to pay back loans that were often squandered by corrupt leaders. “It is necessary to let Latin America breathe a little more and aspire to grow economically,” he once said. “And with such a great weight it cannot.”

Rodriguez Maradiaga has often condemned free-market economic policies promoted by the United States. “Neoliberal capitalism carries injustices and inequity in its genetic code. Latin America is poor, and its people are poor because they have been exploited by the rich,” he said.

Rodriguez Maradiaga speaks eight languages and holds degrees in philosophy, theology, clinical psychology and psychotherapy. Ordained a priest in June 1970 in Guatemala, he was installed as bishop in 1978 in Honduras and became archbishop of Tegucigalpa in 1993.

When he was elevated to cardinal, Honduras erupted in celebration. With church bells tolling and cheering people spilling into the streets, then-President Carlos Flores Facusse proclaimed: “His designation is motivation for Hondurans to have faith and hope that things will be better from this moment on.”

The Federal Trade Commission announced yesterday that three consumer debt-service companies have settled charges that they cheated financially strapped customers out of more than $100 million.

The agency said National Consumer Council Inc., of California, Debt Management Foundation Services, of Florida, and Better Budget Financial Services, of Massachusetts, agreed to pay more than $6 million in consumer refunds for falsely promising easy debt relief that left many consumers deeper in debt and sometimes forced them to file for bankruptcy protection.

“All three lied about who they were, what they could do for consumers and what they charged,” said Lydia Parnes, acting director of the FTC’s consumer protection division.

The action is part of an ongoing FTC campaign against unscrupulous credit-counseling and debt-management firms. As consumer debt has increased, so have the number of credit-counseling firms. An estimated 9 million Americans contact such firms annually, often after seeing ads on late-night cable television. About 2 million consumers are on active credit-repair programs at any one time.

The commission’s action comes as Congress considers a new bankruptcy law that would require consumers to seek credit counseling before they file for bankruptcy. That’s one of the reasons the agency is looking at debt-service firms, Parnes said. “We’re concerned there are folks out there engaging in unscrupulous practices.

“If there are other companies out there that think they can deceive consumers, we’ve got three words for them: Give it up.”

The Internal Revenue Service has also been investigating nonprofit credit-counseling firms to see whether they are misusing their tax-exempt status. The tax agency is auditing 48 credit-counseling agencies — accounting for about half of the industry’s assets — and has notified several firms that it intends to revoke their tax-exempt status, according to an industry expert who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of his ties to the industry. One firm has already lost that status.

Last week the FTC settled a lawsuit against AmeriDebt, a Maryland-based credit-counseling firm that it alleged collected nearly $200 million in hidden fees from consumers. The settlement basically reaffirmed the firm’s bankruptcy plan, in which it closed and transferred all existing accounts to a third company.

The agency is continuing its suit against AmeriDebt founder Andris Pukke. Last week, the commission sought summary judgment, seeking $170 million from Pukke in consumer redress. John B. Williams, an attorney representing Pukke, said statistical evidence will show that AmeriDebt’s “benefits to all consumers far surpassed” that amount. He said the firm was able to reduce clients’ interest rates as well as to get rid of late fees and interest charges for manycustomers.

The companies whose settlements were announced yesterday were put under court receivership last year, effectively shutting them down.

The FTC charged last May that National Consumer Council promoted its services nationally to consumers through a telemarketing campaign that violated the agency’s do-not-call rules because it was a bogus nonprofit operation. FTC officials said the council collected more than $84 million from 44,000 consumers. According to the settlement, the firm and some defendants have agreed to pay about $5 million in redress. An additional $24 million, held in consumer escrow accounts, has already been returned.

Last July, the agency charged Debt Management and its affiliates with falsely representing that they could reduce consumer debts by 50 percent and reduce or eliminate interest on debts, while deceiving consumers into paying upfront fees as high as $1,000. FTC officials said the firm collected $11 million from 21,000 consumers. The settlement calls for the company’s assets to be liquidated and two of its top officials to pay $258,000 to the court-appointed receiver.

Last November, the commission charged Better Budget with falsely claiming it could reduce consumer debt by 50 to 70 percent for a monthly fee of $29.95 to $39.95, plus 25 percent of any money a consumer saved in a settlement with a creditor. FTC officials said nearly 10,000 consumers paid about $12 million to the firm. Its settlement requires the company and its principals to turn over assets totaling about $1.3 million to a court-appointed receiver.

The Bush administration will seek $950 million in federal aid for the areas affected by the Asian tsunami, nearly tripling a previous commitment of $350 million that was announced when the administration was under fire for what critics called a sluggish response to the crisis.

U.S. citizens have provided $800 million in private donations since the disaster struck on Dec. 26, officials said. The new supplemental budget request, which appears to have bipartisan support in Congress, stemmed from detailed assessments of the long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation needs for the 12 countries affected by the tsunami, which killed more than 280,000 people and displaced 750,000.

The commitment, which U.S. officials said was the most generous humanitarian pledge in U.S. history, would put the United States at the top of the list of donors to the disaster. Australia has pledged $810 million, followed by $660 million from Germany, $624 million from the European Union and $540 million from Japan.

“We will use those resources to provide assistance and to work with the affected nations on rebuilding vital infrastructure, re-emerging economies and to strengthen their societies,” said Alan P. Larson, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs.

More than a third of the money — $339 million — will be devoted to constructing roads, schools, water-distribution systems and other projects. The tsunami was caused by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra’s Aceh region, and officials said many bridges and roads through Aceh were destroyed even before the waves wiped out coastal areas.

An additional $168 million will be aimed at helping victims get back to ordinary life, such as providing funds for food and housing. The administration also budgeted $35 million for tsunami warning systems.

Some of the new aid may help fund debt relief for some of the affected countries, officials said, as well as reimburse the Defense Department for the use of 26 ships, 43 fixed-wing aircraft and 16,000 military personnel in the early days of the crisis, officials said. At a White House briefing, Larson said the specifics still needed to be worked out and the allocation of the $950 million would be adjusted depending on the decisions on debt relief.

A three-month moratorium on debt payments by affected countries — who owe more than $270 billion — was announced by major creditor nations after the disaster struck.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told reporters the U.S. military delivered about 10 million pounds of food and 400,000 gallons of water during the rescue operations, and military hospital ships treated almost 2,500 injured.

Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, said the relief effort was linked to the administration’s long-term goal of promoting democracy in the Muslim world. “This challenge comes to a country that stands to be in the forefront of that movement,” he said. “Above and beyond the humanitarian considerations, which would be compelling enough, we have an enormous interest in seeing this succeed.”

The announcement came a week before a high-level delegation, headed by former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, goes to the region at the White House’s request.

The State Department estimated this week that 33 Americans were killed or presumed dead in the tsunami, in either Thailand or Sri Lanka.

The end of the Second World War brought with it one of the greatest successes in world economic history: the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Led by Congress and fired by Harry Truman’s conviction that a prosperous Europe would be a stable Europe, the plan pumped billions into the devastated Continent and produced a rapid snap-back. The lesson for the rest of the world seemed obvious: with enough money and vision, it was possible to build vibrant economies even on the ruins of a bombed-out Continent.

So it was no surprise when, in the early 1950s, that logic began to work its way into development efforts around the world. By the end of the Eisenhower Administration, government programs were lending millions to developing countries. The borrowing picked up in the 1970s, when many of these same nations–happy to pay higher interest rates in exchange for cash–turned to global banks for loans. Gleaming skyscrapers and industrial plants sprouted–all bought with money to be repaid when these nations exploded into international markets.

The only thing that detonated was a debt bomb. The Marshall model didn’t work in places like Mozambique and Peru. These countries were missing the vital social infrastructure, to say nothing of the legal and business background, that sped Europe’s regeneration. By the late 1990s, the debt of these countries had reached absurd proportions. Today, for instance, every man, woman and child in Guinea-Bissau owes global lenders $964–a problem for a nation where per capita income is $160 a year. At last year’s G-8 economic summit in Germany, the world’s richest countries adopted a plan to help bail out these nations. They will return to the issue at this week’s summit in Okinawa.

The most serious impact of these bad loans isn’t the cost of writing them off. Rather it’s that the borrowing countries are afflicted with nearly untreatable cases of what economists call “debt overhang,” a fiscal disease by which loan repayments inhibit every sort of national economic activity. That makes the markets much less attractive to export-hungry U.S. companies. Debt relief, which at first blush looks like charity, is mostly a way to stimulate growth.

Since last year’s summit, there has been a slow acceleration of forgiveness. And the 2001 U.S. foreign-aid bill, which passed the House last week, would provide for an additional $238 million. President Clinton complains that even that sum isn’t enough, but Congress is reluctant to up the ante because, in part, it fears that too much forgiveness will invite future profligacy. Further deals, Clinton says, are a chance for the U.S. to share its prosperity with the rest of the world–and to ensure that prosperity continues.

It may seem odd that the Secretary of the Treasury of the richest nation on earth is obsessed with poverty. But Larry Summers has used his stint in government not only to boost the U.S. economy but also to push policies designed to eradicate global poverty. Top on his list these days: debt relief for highly indebted poor countries. He explained the plan to TIME’s Adam Zagorin:

Debt relief is a moral imperative. The U.S. should not stand for the proposition that poor countries where as much as half the adult population will contract AIDS must pay back every last dollar of principal and interest. That would be wrong. Last year I visited health clinics in Bolivia where children were getting vaccinations for the first time because money had been freed up by debt relief. The only thing holding back further relief for places like Bolivia is the U.S. Congress. And remember, debt relief is not charity. It is what the toughest financial institutions do when they make bad loans. It is also in the political and security interests of the U.S. to support the poorest countries in their struggle to join the world economy.

What is the difference, in economic terms, between a country facing an insuperable debt burden and, say, the U.S.?

Take Mozambique, from which I just returned. It has a huge debt overhang that deters private investment as well as an even greater social-resource gap that prevents spending even as much as $10 per person on health care or providing schools for the next generation.

But what happens to all the people who made the loans?

Even the toughest private lenders write off their bad debts. That’s what governments–and private lenders–need to do with bad loans they have made. Debt reduction clears the way for new private investment so these countries can begin to grow. No U.S. taxpayer money will go to any private bank.