G8 pledges 'peanuts' to Africa

A security-shrouded summit of the world's richest nations ended today with failure to deliver an effective rescue package for Africa - and failure to neutralise Russia's decaying nuclear weapons stockpile.

Tony Blair flew back from the G8 gathering in Canada proclaiming a big advance in help for the poor of the African continent after agreeing extra aid worth £4.3 billion.

Aid agencies, however, dismissed the deal as "peanuts". And there was clear disappointment among the African leaders who had been permitted to attend the summit's final day The real winner at the summit, which also included America, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, appeared to be President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

He not only gained the guarantee of a permanent place at the table as a fully fledged member of G8 and the right to host the 2006 summit, but also a pledge of up to £13billion to secure his ageing arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

President George Bush, fearful that the weaponry could fall into terrorists' hands, promised £6.5billion over the next decade to help guard the hardware with the rest of the G8 countries matching that amount.

In return, President Putin promised to give Western arms experts access to missile sites and the points at which nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines will be dismantled.

Outside experts, however, were extremely sceptical as to whether the money would effectively spent. They also voiced doubts as to whether even the most stringent checks could insure against the possibility that small but highly dangerous quantities of plutonium might be smuggled out as well as fears over the leak of technical know-how.

An end-of-summit statement said that among the "priority concerns" were the destruction of chemical weapons, dismantling of nuclear submarines and "the disposition of fissile materials and the employment of former weapons scientists".

On Africa, the summit communiquÈ was largely limited to vague pledges to help improve the continent's schools, combat Aids, cut debt, improve farming and train peacekeepers.

The £4.3billion promised extra cash, however, was less than a tenth of the amount for which African leaders had pleaded to halve poverty, cut child deaths and give every child primary school education by 2015.

In return for what is now on offer, Africa's leaders will be required to boost democracy and cut corruption-Christian Aid said the money pledged was not even new, since it had already been agreed at a United Nations conference in March. The organisation also said that it would merely restore aid in Africa to its 1990 levels.

A spokesman for Mr Blair, however, said the summit marked a significant and substantial step forward but added: "We never said this was the end of the road. We always said this was the first step."