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Debt relief a poor response to calls from those with loudest voices

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'It is the rich countries hearing the voice of the poor'

Gordon Brown,

British Chancellor of the Exchequer

I WOULD ORDINARILY have missed it except that every day, the front page of As Seen From New York, a daily American news magazine, is posted in the men's room of the Foreign Correspondents' Club and, while otherwise occupied, my eye chanced on a headline - 'G-7 weighs debt write-off for poor'.

How heart-warming. The finance ministers of the Group of Seven countries have decided to wave their magic wand and, poof, just like that, the world's poorest countries are to be forgiven debts of US$70 billion owed to big multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.

I am sure you will approve. Let us give these struggling countries, mostly in Africa, a needed break, a new start, a chance to begin again. In fact, just to show how much support this measure will have, let us put it to a referendum.

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