In a direct response to the terrorist attacks on London, world leaders of the G8 nations yesterday doubled their commitment to African relief and offered the Palestinian Authority some $9 billion.

The Palestinian Authority, particularly under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, was accused of siphoning off billions in foreign aid into private bank accounts. Arafat was one of the richest men in the world when he died last year.

The money was dubbed by the group an "alternative to the hatred" and came along with a pledge to address "global climate change."

"We speak today in the shadow of terrorism, but it will not obscure what we came here to achieve," British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the summit host, said as he closed the three-day Group of Eight summit. "It is in the nature of politics that we do not achieve absolutely everything we hope to achieve, but nonetheless I believe we have made very substantial progress indeed."

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

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.

Blair noted that all the G8 leaders, including Bush, took the unusual step of signing the final summit communiques as a way of demonstrating their determination to meet the new goals.

In a separate joint statement on terrorism, the leaders pledged new combined efforts against terrorism in light of the London bombings, including cooperation to improve the safety of rail and subway travel.

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