Thursday's transport system bombings in London as Group of Eight -- Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Britain and Russia -- work groups got underway, allowed Bush to set the fight against terrorism firmly back on the agenda.

"The war on terror goes on," said Bush, as he condemned the bombings of three underground trains and a bus which have killed at least 50 people, and injured around 700.

"On the one hand, we have people here who are working to alleviate poverty, to help rid the world of the pandemic of AIDS, working on ways to have a clean environment," said Bush. "And on the other hand, you've got people killing innocent people."

The summit's host, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the closest international ally the US president has, left the summit to hurry back to London following the attacks on the British capital, returning to Scotland late Thursday evening.

In the weeks prior to G8, President Bush had given just enough leeway to the most delicate subjects to allow him to reach accords allowing him to keep the essential points of his positions.

On the matter of global warming, the G8 declaration on climate change mentions the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases and recognizes that, "Climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe."

It notes that "uncertainties remain in our understanding of climate science", abstaining from setting reduction goals, unlike the Kyoto protocol, in response to US wishes not to see the fight against global warming undermine world economic growth.

Bush also managed to get references to human activity as the main cause of climate change omitted in the declaration, though he did recognize, for the first time in an international forum, that it plays a role.

"On the climate text, we're very pleased with how that turned out," said Bush's advisor for international affairs, Faryar Shirzad.

The United States is the only G8 member country not to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

Concluded in 1997, the protocol became active in February 2005, aiming for greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 5.2 percent from around 30 industrialised countries versus emissions in 1990.

The protocol expires in 2012.

On aid to Africa, Bush announced before the summit a 1.2 billion dollar plan to fight malaria, promising to double some 4.3 billion dollars of US aid to 8.6 billion by 2010.

Washington did not want precise figures to be written into the G8 declaration but finally agreed that the G8 and "other donors" would commit to increasing aid to Africa by 25 billion dollars by 2010 -- double that of 2004.

The G8 also pledged that public development aid favoring all poor countries would increase by 50 billion dollars by 2010.

Shirzad said that the figure had already been reached thanks to commitments announced for the period through 2010 and was not a pledge of extra funds.

The final declaration does not mention the goal for wealthy countries to bring their public aid contributions to 0.7 percent of GDP.

While Americans may be the biggest givers -- putting 19 billion dollars a year to public development aid -- they are among the least generous when compared with GDP, since it amounts to only 0.16 percent.

Given the size of US economic power, the Bush administration believes that the 0.7 percent threshold is unrealistic.

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