Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Sunday Morning
G-8 Summit Under Way
Aired June 01, 2003 - 10:29 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with the G-8 Summit that's now under way. While President Bush and other world leaders get down to business, protesters are already on the march, and violence has marred the gathering. CNN's Robin Oakley is with us from the site of the summit, Evian, France, on Lake Geneva. Hello, Robin.
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Sophia. Traditionally, these G-8 summits are a form of group therapy really. The leaders of the eight countries involved can get together and discuss their common problems and usually find that there's somebody with a worse version of the problem than they've got.
But this time perhaps, it is going to be more like an anger management clinic because, of course, the eight leaders here were divided four against four on the war in Iraq, and the first test, really, of how that was going to play out in terms of their personal chemistry was the greeting of President George Bush by the summit host, President Jacques of France. And their handshake was cordial enough, but it there wasn't a great deal of eye contact between the two men, and there was certainly no embracing and kissing on both cheeks, which is you saw between president Chirac and a number of the other leaders that he brought here.
And there is quite a worry among the U.N. and the aid organizations and so on that this summit will look back too much to Iraq and not sufficiently forward to the problems of the world economy and particularly to the problems of the developing countries to debt relief in Africa and the provision of clean water and issues like that.
But President Chirac has tried to assure the developing world that there will be such a focus by inviting here not just the G-8 leaders, but 11 leaders of less developed countries including India, China, Malaysia, South America. They all look looked happy enough during the class photo just a little while ago, and that was a chummy enough occasion.
But the very fact that they've been brought here to demonstrate that this isn't just a rich man's club, doesn't seem to have cut any ice with the demonstrators out in the streets of Lausanne and Geneva in nearby Switzerland and in Animas (ph) here in France. Those demonstrators, some of them, only a minority, it has to be said, turning to violence, but yet again, a G-8 summit has been marred by that violence. Sophia?
CHOI: I'm wondering what the body language and the reception was with Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor. I know there was a big rift there. In fact, President Bush refusing to talk to him for about six months.
OAKLEY: Well, indeed. The two haven't had a discussion for six months, and it seems really that President Bush holds things against Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany rather more so than he does against President Chirac of France. It's partly, I understand, because he feels that Gerhard Schroeder gave him a personal assurance when they met last year that he wasn't going to use the issue of the Iraq war and the feelings that it had had stirred in Germany as an election counter, but Gerhard Schroeder did then do that.
Of course, it would be much more difficult for President Bush to snub President Chirac here because he is the host of this summit and, in a way, he's already doing so because he's not spending very long here. He's leaving early, before all the other leaders do, tomorrow President Bush is, to carry on with the Middle East peace initiative, going on to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to pursue that.
But Gerhard Schroeder is clearly a little bit nervous about his relations with President Bush, saying that people shouldn't spend too much time measuring how long their handshake takes. Sophia?
CHOI: With the world watching, I'm sure there is going to a lot of playing for the camera out there. Robin Oakley reporting live from the summit in Evian, France. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 1, 2003 - 10:29 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with the G-8 Summit that's now under way. While President Bush and other world leaders get down to business, protesters are already on the march, and violence has marred the gathering. CNN's Robin Oakley is with us from the site of the summit, Evian, France, on Lake Geneva. Hello, Robin.
ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Sophia. Traditionally, these G-8 summits are a form of group therapy really. The leaders of the eight countries involved can get together and discuss their common problems and usually find that there's somebody with a worse version of the problem than they've got.
But this time perhaps, it is going to be more like an anger management clinic because, of course, the eight leaders here were divided four against four on the war in Iraq, and the first test, really, of how that was going to play out in terms of their personal chemistry was the greeting of President George Bush by the summit host, President Jacques of France. And their handshake was cordial enough, but it there wasn't a great deal of eye contact between the two men, and there was certainly no embracing and kissing on both cheeks, which is you saw between president Chirac and a number of the other leaders that he brought here.
And there is quite a worry among the U.N. and the aid organizations and so on that this summit will look back too much to Iraq and not sufficiently forward to the problems of the world economy and particularly to the problems of the developing countries to debt relief in Africa and the provision of clean water and issues like that.
But President Chirac has tried to assure the developing world that there will be such a focus by inviting here not just the G-8 leaders, but 11 leaders of less developed countries including India, China, Malaysia, South America. They all look looked happy enough during the class photo just a little while ago, and that was a chummy enough occasion.
But the very fact that they've been brought here to demonstrate that this isn't just a rich man's club, doesn't seem to have cut any ice with the demonstrators out in the streets of Lausanne and Geneva in nearby Switzerland and in Animas (ph) here in France. Those demonstrators, some of them, only a minority, it has to be said, turning to violence, but yet again, a G-8 summit has been marred by that violence. Sophia?
CHOI: I'm wondering what the body language and the reception was with Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor. I know there was a big rift there. In fact, President Bush refusing to talk to him for about six months.
OAKLEY: Well, indeed. The two haven't had a discussion for six months, and it seems really that President Bush holds things against Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany rather more so than he does against President Chirac of France. It's partly, I understand, because he feels that Gerhard Schroeder gave him a personal assurance when they met last year that he wasn't going to use the issue of the Iraq war and the feelings that it had had stirred in Germany as an election counter, but Gerhard Schroeder did then do that.
Of course, it would be much more difficult for President Bush to snub President Chirac here because he is the host of this summit and, in a way, he's already doing so because he's not spending very long here. He's leaving early, before all the other leaders do, tomorrow President Bush is, to carry on with the Middle East peace initiative, going on to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to pursue that.
But Gerhard Schroeder is clearly a little bit nervous about his relations with President Bush, saying that people shouldn't spend too much time measuring how long their handshake takes. Sophia?
CHOI: With the world watching, I'm sure there is going to a lot of playing for the camera out there. Robin Oakley reporting live from the summit in Evian, France. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
