Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised countries failed to reach an agreement on boosting development aid late last night in the face of US-European differences, European officials said. The deadlock came despite an impassioned appeal from former South African President Nelson Mandela for the G7, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, to take urgent steps to provide Africa with 100% debt cancellation and increased financial assistance. "The Americans are in a completely different frame of mind from the Europeans,' German secretary of state for finance Caio Kochweser said.