G20: "It''s a Gloomy Summit"

Dystopian Nightmare: Eyewitness Decries Police Repression at G20 Summit as 100,000 Take to Streets

Mass demonstrations have erupted across Hamburg, Germany, as world leaders gather for the G20 summit, where President Donald Trump is meeting with other world leaders. About 100,000 protesters took to the streets and have staged sit-ins in an attempt to disrupt the first day of the summit. Police fired water cannons, pepper spray and stun grenades to disperse protesters. Key issues on the G20 agenda include climate change, trade and North Korea. Protesters who gathered say the G20 has failed to solve many issues, including climate change and global economic disparities. We speak with philosopher Sre?ko Horvat, who is taking part in the G20 alternative summit, known as the Global Solidarity Summit. He is the co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement, also known as DiEM25.

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Protests, Clashes Hit G20 Summit City
MAIL&GUARDIAN ONLINE (ZA): Protesters smashed shop windows and threw rocks at police on Thursday as police used pepper gas and batons to disperse marches against capitalism at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Protesters wore bandannas and goggles and held aloft a large black sign declaring "No hope in capitalism" and another saying "Kick Capitalism While It Is Down."

One sign simply said "I'm mad as hell."

Protests -- usually against some aspect of capitalism -- have often marked summits since trade talks in Seattle in 1999, when demonstrators ransacked the centre of the city, targeting businesses seen as symbols of US corporate power.

"We have seen police use rubber bullets, batons and gas," said Noah Williams, a spokesperson for the anti-capitalist Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project.

Officials said there were 15 arrests -- one for inciting a riot, four for aggravated assault and 10 others for failing to disperse.

Late on Thursday evening, several hundred protesters took to the streets near the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh campus. Police discharged gas and pellet-filled "beanbags" and protesters broke windows at a McDonald's, a Rite Aid pharmacy, a Subway sandwich shop and a FedEx store.

By midnight, hundreds of police in riot gear moved down Forbes Avenue. With no obvious protesters in sight, they sprayed pepper gas on passersby and even students looking down from the balconies of their residences above the avenue.

"We were just looking, then there were loud sirens and then it was hard to breath and I was coughing up a lung," said student Dustin DeMeglio (19) who was watching as police moved by his apartment building.

Earlier, a crowd broke windows at Boston Market and KFC fast-food restaurants, a BMW dealership and a Fidelity Bank in the area, about a 1,6km from the fenced-off convention centre where the G20 talks were taking place.

Police in body armour with plastic shields threw pepper gas canisters and fired beanbags to disperse the protesters. >>> Michelle Nichols and Jonathan Barnes | Friday, September 25, 2009

Obama Is Losing Friends
THE TELEGRAPH: President Obama is losing friends - and the G20 will be a further test, writes Toby Harnden in Washington.

Photo of Obama courtesy of Die Presse
When he visited Europe last July, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, stood before 200,000 in Berlin's Tiergarten park to declare his "global citizenship" and call on the "people of the world" to "come together to save this planet". It was heady stuff, and the rapturous reception was one befitting a new political messiah after eight wilderness years. Back in the United States, the young senator ended his stump speeches with a vow to "change the world". Americans craved affection from abroad. Europeans were eager to fall in love.

But that was eight months ago, and the innocence of that summer has started to evaporate. Mr Obama has become the first black man to occupy the White House, but the world is in the grip of the worst economic depression since the Thirties, with no path back to prosperity in sight.

While the troop surge in Iraq that Mr Obama so vehemently opposed has succeeded beyond his imaginings, the "good war" he championed in Afghanistan is spiralling downwards and there are dark mutterings on the Left about it becoming his Vietnam.

For all the mutual goodwill, the transatlantic policy battle-lines are drawn. The Americans want additional economic stimulus measures to be taken across the globe. The Europeans are preoccupied with a supra-national financial regulation structure.

Mr Obama's demands for more European boots on the ground in Afghanistan have already been rejected by the French and Germans.
As the new American commander-in-chief embarks on his first extended foreign trip in Air Force One, stopping in London for the G20 summit, Strasbourg for a gathering of Nato, and going on to Prague, Ankara and Istanbul, the sheen is already wearing off his shiny new presidency at home.

The leak-proof, supremely well-organised campaign and the post-election transition that was hailed as being one of the smoothest in history are over. They have given way to an at times stumbling administration that struggles to fill the cabinet, botches its message and has all but abandoned the bipartisanship candidate Mr Obama promised.

Far from changing the world, Mr Obama has barely looked over his shoulder at it. The person he has entrusted his foreign policy to is Hillary Clinton, a bitter campaign rival whose diplomatic credentials he once mocked. To appoint her Secretary of State was perhaps an ominous sign, a move designed to keep her from challenging him domestically.

During his first, chaotic weeks in power, Mr Obama's focus has been almost entirely domestic. Key diplomatic posts remain empty. No ambassador is in place in London or Paris. Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, has grumbled that it has been almost impossible to organise next week's G20 summit in Docklands because White House officials are missing in action. "There is nobody there," he says. "You cannot believe how difficult it is." Can Obama Win Us Back? >>> Toby Harnden, Washington | Friday, March 27, 2009

G20 Rabble-rousing Professor Is Suspended ahead of Summit
MAIL Online: The university professor masterminding mayhem at the G20 summit in London was suspended from his job yesterday.

The dramatic move came after anarchist Chris Knight threatened violence against the police in a series of inflammatory declarations.

The 66-year-old former member of Labour's extreme left-wing Militant Tendency warned that 'all hell will break loose' if demonstrators meet police aggression.

Knight, a lecturer in anthropology at the University of East London, confirmed that an effigy of disgraced former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin would be among those strung up at the protests and warned bankers to stay away.

He said of Sir Fred, whose house was attacked earlier this week: 'To be honest, if he winds us up any more I'm afraid there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts.'

Last night, his employers said in a statement: 'Professor Chris Knight has been suspended from his duties at the University of East London, pending investigation. In order not to prejudice this process we cannot make any further comment.'

In recent days, Knight has given media interviews warning of his plans to ignite a revolution in the capital to coincide with the G20 meeting. >>> By Michael Seamark | Friday, March 27, 2009

MAIL Online: 'White, Blue-eyed Bankers Have Brought World Economy to Its Knees': What the Brazilian President Told Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown’s efforts to broker an £80billion bailout for world trade on a trip to Brazil hit a stumbling block tonight when the country’s president lashed out at ‘white, blue-eyed’ bankers for bringing the world economy to its knees.

Mr Brown watched on uneasily as his host, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, launched a bizarre tirade in which he warned that next week’s G20 summit in London would be a ‘spicy’ affair.

President Lula said it was completely unfair that the poorest people in the world were suffering most for the mistakes of wealthy, Western financiers.

‘This was a crisis that was fostered and boosted by irrational behaviour of people that are white, blue-eyed, that before the crisis looked like they knew everything about economics,’ he declared.

‘Now they have demonstrated that they don’t know anything about economics.’

President Lula, head of Brazil’s main left-wing party, said that ‘no black man or woman, no indigenous person, no poor person’ had been in any way culpable for the global banking crisis.

‘I’m not acquainted with any black banker,’ he said. ‘The part of humanity that’s responsible should pay for the crisis.’ >>> By James Chapman | Friday, March 27, 2009

Summit Shows Times Have Changed
BBC: The G20 summit in Washington was a striking event first of all for who was there.

Global economic meetings used to mean the G7 and then the G8.

It was a rich-country affair with Russia invited in during in the 1990s - but that was to tackle international political issues, not for the sake of a contribution to the economic discussions.

How times have changed. A global economic problem needed a presence from developing country leaders.

The G20 was already up and running as a forum for finance ministers with the big developing economies as members - China, India, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and others.

And so they came to Washington, as countries hit by the developed world's financial crisis and, in some cases, as countries that might be able to help fix it.

Co-ordinated response

The communique issued after the summit is not on its own going to change the world.

The political machinery of the global economy is not going to be turned upside down, although those big developing countries at the summit are beginning to get a tentative grip on the levers. >>> By Andrew Walker, BBC News, Washington | November 16, 2008

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Dubya and Abdullah by Gaslight!
Here we go again! The Prez and the King of Saudi Arabia enjoying a quiet stroll together hand-in-hand. How sweet! Who said we are experiencing a clash of civilizations? Photo courtesy of Die Presse
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