(8 Dec 2007) SHOTLIST
1. German Chancellor Angela Merkel walking towards group photograph event
2. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi walking
3. Mid shot of leaders getting into position, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (bottom left), Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe (bottom right)
4. Various wide shots of leaders in position
5. Pan right of leaders standing
6. Mid shot of leaders standing, including Mugabe
7. Mid shot of leaders standing, including Gadhafi
8. Wide of leaders in position
STORYLINE
European and African leaders arrived for the first day of talks at a milestone summit in Lisbon on Saturday.
The summit hopes to set aside postcolonial grievances and build a new strategic alignment that will bring rewards for both continents.
Almost all the leaders from the 27-nation European Union and the 53-member African Union are in Portugal for the talks, with representatives participating in a group photograph before the first plenary session.
Europe is mindful its influence is waning on a continent that is set to become one of the world's big new markets and wants to lock Africa into a closer relationship that will foster trade.
Africa, meanwhile, intends to win greater European support to raise the continent's standard of living.
Despite recent economic growth, around 40 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa still live on less than 1 US dollar a day.
European countries have in recent years preferred to deepen their ties with developing nations such as India and Brazil as relations with Africa have become stuck on issues such as human rights, corruption and political instability.
African countries resent what they perceive as finger-wagging lessons from their former colonial rulers now in the EU.
Portugal, current holder of the EU's rotating presidency and the former colonial power of five African nations, has pushed hard in recent months to make a fresh start in relations between the two continents.
But human rights concerns in Africa have dogged preparations for the two-day meeting.
The leader of one of Europe's most powerful economies, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is staying away because of the attendance of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
UK Labour peer Baroness (Valerie) Amos is instead the UK representative.
London is one of the sharpest European critics of Mugabe's regime.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also refused to attend the first EU-Africa summit in Cairo seven years ago because of Mugabe's presence.
Britain and other EU countries have accused Mugabe of economic mismanagement, failure to curb corruption and contempt for democracy.
Zimbabwe is subject to EU sanctions, including a travel ban on Mugabe and other members of his regime.
The Darfur crisis has also strained relations.
In that western region of Sudan, four years of bloodshed between ethnic African rebels and Arab militias allegedly backed by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum have left an estimated 200-thousand dead and driven some 2.5 (m) million from their homes.
The EU is still Africa's biggest trading partner, amounting to 218 (b) billion US dollars last year, and Africa is the EU's biggest aid recipient, taking about half of what the bloc hands out each year.
The EU plans to expand aid for roads, bridges and telecommunications to 8.2 (b) billion US dollars in 2008-2013, up from 5.5 (b) billion in 2002-2007.
That aid could ease access to Africa's growing middle class and its appetite for consumer goods.
Joint measures to tackle climate change and control migration between Africa and Europe are also on the agenda.
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