The need to fulfill promises of increased aid for Africa, and a general agreement between the United States and Russia on an approach to Iran's nuclear program took center stage as leaders from the Group of Eight industrial nations met Monday in Japan, The Associated Press reported.

President Bush, attending his last summit as a sitting U.S. president, underscored the importance of providing aid for Africa, calling on wealthy nations to provide mosquito netting and other aid to prevent needless deaths, the AP reported.

Basic items - - even equipment as basic as mosquito netting - - can reduce mortality rates in sections of Africa. Mosquito netting prevents children and others from dieing of bites from disease-carrying mosquitoes.

In 2005 the G-8 pledged to increase global aid to $130 billion, and increase assistance to Africa to $50 billion. ONE, a nonpartisan group working to end extreme poverty, predicted that the U.S. and the United Kingdom will meet their commitments, while France, Italy, Germany and Canada are off the mark, Bloomberg News reported Monday.

Increased global food aid likely

Economist Glen Langan, whose specializations include agricultural economics, said increased aid for food and agricultural development will likely be announced by G-8 leaders at the summit, or soon thereafter, due to the rising cost of food's impact on poorer nations. "The aid will be targeted to meeting basic needs first, but with an eye toward directing some funds to self-sustaining agriculture," Langan said, adding that Africa "has the potential to achieve food production gains greater than South America."

The Bush administration opposes a United Nations draft proposal calling on developed nations to make binding emissions cuts of 25%-40% by 2020, Bloomberg News reported Monday.

A U.N. draft document will call for industrialized nations to implement those cuts as part of a proposal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, Reuters reported Monday. Representatives from 187 nations are meeting in Bali for global climate talks.

Environmental and international group leaders hope to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, with the new U.N. agreement, preferably by 2009. The United States is the only developed nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol. U.S. senior climate negotiator Harlan Watson said Monday that the U.S.'s "principal difficulty with having any numbers in the text to begin with is that it might prejudge outcomes,'' Bloomberg News reported.