African press accuses G8 of 'hypocrisy'

"A choir of hypocrisy and humbug"

Africa's newspapers accuse G8 leaders in Genoa of humbug and imposing "global apartheid". But they also call on Africa to help herself.

Kenya's Daily Nation says G8 leaders go through this annual ritual and "promise a mountain but habitually deliver a molehill".

[Globalisation] is dictated by the rich nations, making the poor countries, once again, sitting ducks for the might of the multinationals

Zimbabwe's Daily News

At last year's summit, the G8 came out "with beautiful, self-righteous do-good resolutions which made them feel nice and caring, but poor countries... are even poorer than they were," the paper says.

It calls the G8 a club of "opulent idlers" who barricaded themselves from demonstrators protesting the dark side of globalisation.

The writer draws parallels between African countries and Kenyan street families. "Everyone talks of the need to ... alleviate their poverty, but nobody wants to get anywhere near them."

Appropriate noises

Another Daily Nation commentary describes the G8 as a "choir of hypocrisy and humbug" who had "built a steel cage behind which they will issue high-sounding humbug, a word of which they will not mean" .

Spurred on by self-interest, some countries dish out billions of dollars each year on subsidies that blunt the competitive edge of African exports

The Star, South Africa

It says the G8 will make all the "appropriate noises about poverty". But to safeguard the economic interests of their people, G8 leaders will "refuse to see that the concentration of riches in a few countries and the deprivation of the majority... is a recipe for disorder".

The commentary warns that the result was the mass migration of Africans to Western nations and the burgeoning trade in trafficking human beings.

Those who do not head for the West, "sit back in impotent, eloquent fury and look at the oily smiles of well-fed middle aged men mouthing platitudes".

Global apartheid

In South Africa, The Star comments: "Spurred on by self-interest, some countries dish out hundreds of billions of dollars each year on subsidies that blunt the competitive edge of African exports into their markets."

The paper singles out the Prime Minister Tony Blair as one of the less selfish members of the global elite.

The fever of profit burns those making profit and those losing it

Libya's Al-Shams

South Africa's Business Day says the important question is whether the G8 will respond to the world's majority "or whether it is merely a vehicle for exercising minority rule within a system of global apartheid".

Zimbabwe's Daily News says globalisation is dictated by the rich nations, "making the poor countries, once again, sitting ducks for the might of the multinationals".

But "What would Zimbabwe do if its debt was cancelled?" questions the paper. "Buy more arms for the army? More jet fighters for the air force? Or repair all the dilapidated school buildings in the rural areas?"

In Algeria's El Moudjahid, Tahar Mohamed writes that the problems imposed on the planet by globalisation are felt mostly in Africa "because it is most fragile and vulnerable to globalisation trends".

The paper says the participation of the five African leaders in the talks would challenge the international community on the situation. The Africa Recovery initiative tabled by five African leaders in Genoa "should ensure that Africa is no longer marginalised and in the danger zone".

In Egypt Jamal Zayda writing for Al-Ahram challenges leaders to understand what globalisation is about. "They welcome it, sign it shyly, and yet they do nothing to protect themselves against being burnt with its fire."

Libya's Al-Shams says Muammar Gaddafi had predicted anti-capitalism protests when he wrote about the revolution in 1969.

"Is it not time for the this world to come back to its senses?" the editor writes. "The fever of profit burns those making profit and those losing it," the commentary concludes.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.