G8: $20B to Support Arab Spring

The Hill reports:

President Obama and the other leaders of the Group of Eight issued a declaration of support for the so-called Arab Spring on Friday, pledging as much as $20 billion to political and economic reform efforts in Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region.

The changes there, the leaders said in their declaration, “have the potential to open the door to the kind of transformation that occurred in central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

“We hear the voice of the citizens, support their determination for equality and stand by their legitimate call for democratic, open societies and inclusive economic modernisation,” the declaration said.