G8 leaders failed to recognize the urgent situation facing the world’s poor at their summit in Heiligendamm June 6-8, and instead backtracked on previous commitments made.

The G8 today announced their decision on “a commitment of $60 billion for AIDS, TB and malaria money.” But beneath the spin, dazzling the world with numbers, in fact they have just ‘reannounced’ their existing aid budgets, with only $3 billion in new money. This is miles off the 2005 promise of $50 billion new aid a year needed to halve poverty, and while important in the fight against HIV / AIDS, should be seen for what it is – a small step when we need a big leap.

So far, it has been looming from a far distance, the big top by the seaside. Like a hard-to-climb peak it overshadows the five dilapidated villas at the beach of Heiligendamm. Their chipped white paint only reminds of the Art Nouveau pearls they used to be. In the oldest beach town of Germany, where once hordes of tourists trailed their feet through the sand, there are now only screeching seagulls. The village has been closed off hermetically with a 12-kilometer-long barbed-wire fence. Marine cruisers are patrolling the seaside. Heiligendamm is a ghost town.