Help for Africa from the G8

With a last-minute pledge from Japan, Blair won a key victory, announcing that aid to Africa would rise from the current $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010.

In a separate joint statement on terrorism, the leaders pledged to new joint efforts to combat terrorism in light of the London bombings. Among those commitments was cooperating in ways to improve the safety of rail and subway travel.

Blair lost his push to get all summit countries to commit to boosting foreign aid to an amount equal to 0.7 percent of national income by 2015. Instead, a summit document said the European Union had agreed to that support but did not mention the United States.

President Bush had refused to be bound by the 0.7 percent target. The United States is currently giving 0.16 percent of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G-8 countries.

AP Reports on this development from the G8 meeting in Scotland