G 20 News and Updates - This could get ugly!

[Brocke]

LONDON

Thousands march on London ahead of G20

28/03 15:56 CET

VIDEO
http://www.euronews.net/2009/03/28/thousands-march-on-london-ahead-of-g20/

‘Put People First’ – that was the message tens of thousands of protesters wanted to spell out as they hit the streets of London.

With demonstrations taking place across Europe, the event marked the start of action ahead of next week’s G20 summit in the British capital.

Groups as diverse as trade unions, aid agencies as well as environmental and religious activists gathered to demand more action on jobs, poverty and climate change.

Hannah Sell from the Socialist Workers party said:
“The message that we want to send to the G20 is that ordinary people should not have to pay for this capitalist crisis. The leaders of the G20 are bailing out the banks, saving the finance system but there is nothing effective being done for ordinary people.”

Organisers of the London march said the event would pass off peacefully, but authorities took no chances, putting a big security operation in place.

[Brocke]

GERMANY

Anti-G20 protesters march in Germany

28/03 19:05 CET

VIDEO
http://www.euronews.net/2009/03/28/anti-g20-protesters-march-in-germany/

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Berlin and Frankfurt in Germany.

Carrying a coffin, symbolising the death of capitalism, the marchers’ motto was “We won’t pay for your crisis”.

Among those who took part were anti-globalisation activists, members of trade unions, environmental groups and the left-wing opposition party Die Linke.

They attacked what they said was the German government’s mismanagement of the financial crisis and called for another market system, which redistributes money from the rich to the poor.

The largely peaceful protest quickly turned ugly, with scuffles breaking out between riot police and protesters. Police said a number of the demonstrators were arrested.

[Brocke]

[Novus Ordo]

[mr anderson]

ABC News - G20 protestors stage London march - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5uUTKEadh8

SBS World News - G20 protesters fired up - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlP5JE_kFpQ

Brown calls for global unity on crisis

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1013466/Brown-calls-for-global-unity-on-crisis

28 March 2009 | Source: AAP

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for global unity and major reform of the IMF to tackle fallout from the financial crisis, ahead of a key G20 summit in London next week.

"We cannot solve the problem of global financial instability without there being a global solution," Brown told centre-left leaders and policy makers at a conference in the resort town of Vina del Mar, west of Santiago, on Friday.

"We must reform the International Monetary Fund, (and) we must have an institution that can deal with the problems of the environment," Brown said five days before hosting a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialised and developing nations on the global crisis.

"It is absolutely clear that the global institutions that we built in the 1940s are quite incapable of dealing with the problems that we have now."

Brown said that 100 million people had been thrust into poverty as a result of the crisis and 30 million more people would be unemployed.

"Perhaps the worst statistic of all is the World Bank reporting that half a million children will die simply because they won't have enough to live on," he told participants at a two-day Progressive Governance conference.

"I think that we can show that globalisation need not be a force for injustice but can be a force for justice on a global scale."

Host and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet also called of major reform of the IMF to make economic cooperation work.

"We need to coordinate the effort of countries on plans for fiscal stimulus," Bachelet said.

During a separate meeting in Brazil on Thursday, Brown and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva proposed to create a $US100 billion ($A141.98 billion) global fund to boost trade amid the world cash crunch.

Lula, US Vice President Joe Biden, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg also attended the Chile meeting, as well as Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner.

The conference was organised by Policy Network, an international think tank initiated 10 years ago by former US president Bill Clinton, with past meetings in Washington, Berlin, Stockholm, London, Budapest and Johannesburg.

Biden was due to take part in an official visit to Chile on Saturday before travelling to Costa Rica.

During his first Latin America trip, the US vice president was expected to sound out regional leaders ahead of the Summit of the Americas next month in Trinidad and Tobago, which will be US President Barack Obama's first major regional gathering.

"These meetings are an important first step toward a new day in relations and building partnerships," Biden wrote in an op-ed published Friday in 11 Latin American newspapers.

His tour comes as decades-long US influence wanes in the region, with the United States focusing elsewhere in recent years, while Latin American countries have grown stronger and expanded relations with countries such as China, Russia and India.

[Biggs]

G20 protesters face police with Tasers
David Leppard and Steven Swinford

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article5993139.ece

SCOTLAND YARD is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt this week’s G20 summit in London.

The centrepiece of the security plan will be hundreds of officers from the Metropolitan police territorial support group, who are routinely armed with speedcuffs, extended batons and CS gas spray.

The Met confirmed yesterday that they will be supported by officers equipped with Tasers on stand-by should trouble break out.

“There will be an armed response vehicle element to this operation and [those officers] will be carrying Tasers,” said a spokeswoman.
Related Links
What do we want? Everything ... and now
Brown gambles on spin at summit

The Met’s admission that Tasers could be used for the first time in the UK during riots came as protest groups claimed police had contacted them to warn that a day of protest in the City on Wednesday would be “very violent”.

All police leave has been cancelled and 10,500 officers, including reinforcements from other forces, will be deployed in the biggest policing operation undertaken in London.

Demonstrations intended to bring the capital’s financial centre to a standstill on Wednesday and disruption to the G20 summit at the ExCel centre in Docklands on Thursday will provide the first big test for Sir Paul Stephenson, the new Met commissioner. He will be aware that the protests provide an opportunity to show the world that London is up to the security and public order challenges of the 2012 Olympics.

With yesterday’s TUC march, a state visit from the president of Mexico tomorrow and the arrival of 40 delegations including 19 heads of state for the G20 summit on Thursday, the week presents a series of complex operational challenges the like of which the Met has not seen in recent history. The organisers of the protests – an alliance of environmental campaigners, anti-capitalist and religious groups – insist they will be peaceful. However, police fear that anarchist elements are likely to stir up trouble.

Police expect up to 1,500 protesters to converge on the Bank of England on Wednesday. At 12.30pm, other demonstrators are expected to “swoop” on the European Climate Exchange centre in Bishopsgate, where they plan to erect pop-up tents, makeshift toilets and even a bicycle-powered cinema, marking the start of a 24-hour Climate Camp.

WHO’S DEMONSTRATING

London Anarchists: have appealed for people to join in “direct action” similar to that seen at previous anti-globalisation protests

Whitechapel Anarchists: London group which praised the attack on the home of Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced bank boss

Class War: veteran anarchists who are encouraging supporters to “burn a banker”

G20 Meltdown: A new organisation which will host a carnival at the Bank of England

Climate Camp: environmentalists behind direct action at Heathrow airport and power stations in North Yorkshire and Kent

Climate Rush: group against airport expansion who have “rushed” parliament

People and Planet: student network campaigning to end world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment

Stop the War Coalition and CND: anti-war protesters against Iraq and Afghanistan wars

[Biggs]

POLICE 'UP FOR IT'  EHH, I BET THEY ARE

Fears police tactics at G20 protests will lead to violence

• Met warns of G20 clashes and says officers 'up for it'
• Protest groups raise concerns as thousands set to march
Paul Lewis, Sandra Laville, John Vidal
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 March 2009 18.39 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/27/g20-protest

Tens of thousands are expected to protest in London this week. Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/ Dai Kurokawa/epa/Corbis

Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to march through London tomorrow ahead of the G20 summit, amid mounting concern that over-aggressive police tactics may incite violence when world leaders gather to discuss the global economic meltdown.

Yesterday, the Metropolitan police was understood to have contacted a number of protest groups warning that the main day of protest, Wednesday, 1 April would be "very violent", and senior commanders have insisted that they are "up for it, and up to it", should there be any trouble.

The force has refused to rule out the use of anti-terror legislation, with Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met commissioner, conceding that the week ahead, in which President Barack Obama will lead a cortege of other world leaders to the UK, will be the Met's greatest challenge.

Senior officers insist there is intelligence that some activists demonstrating against climate change, capitalism, war and globalisation are intent on violence and will try to disrupt the summit. They say that some troublemakers who were active in the 1990s have emerged once more, and that chatter between groups shows they are forging alliances to take their message to world leaders. Some protesters have also promised to storm buildings, taking out their anger over the collapse of the capitalist economy with direct action designed to bring London to a standstill.

However, David Howarth, a Liberal Democrat MP who is leading a parliamentary group of observers at the protests next week, said: "I am increasingly worried that what the police are saying about the protests will end up in a self-fulfilling prophecy. By talking up the prospect of violence they will put off peaceful demonstrators and start to attract other sorts."

Andrew Dismore MP, who chairs the joint common human rights, said police language in recent days had been "not very helpful".

"The police have a duty under the Human Rights Act to facilitate protest and not frustrate it. If they act in a confrontational way and use confrontation language, they will start to provoke the kind of behaviour they are seeking to prevent. There may well be a fringe element that want to incite violence. But that doesn't mean police should criminalise every protester."

The direct action group Climate Camp – which is organising a mass overnight camp in the Square Mile on Wednesday night – claimed yesterday that it had tried to talk to the Met, but its efforts at dialogue had been ignored. Lawyers acting for the group contacted City of London police on 10 March. In correspondence seen by the Guardian, solicitors said they were "willing to liaise" and requested names and contact details of officers.

Subsequent requests have been made with the Metropolitan police. An email sent from the Met on Tuesday said their request had been forwarded to the operation command unit for consideration.

"We've been constantly frustrated by our attempts to talk to the police about the 1st of April," said Climate Camp's Liz Shaw. "They don't return our letters, they say that they'll call us back, and they prevent us from attending public meetings they are speaking at. Surely they would want to enter into some sort of dialogue with us in advance of the event."

Last night Scotland Yard denied that it had received any communication from the group and said it had been looking forward to hearing from them.

The police operation over the next week will involve thousands of officers from six forces. Commander Bob Broadhurst of the Metropolitan police, who is in overall charge, admitted his officers would be at full stretch.

They face the multiple challenges of protecting visitors such as Obama, who is on his first presidential trip to Britain, and allowing the public to demonstrate.

The first test may come tomorrow at the Put People First march to Hyde Park, which is organised by a coalition of more than 100 trade unions, churches ,charities and campaign groups marching under the banner "jobs, justice and climate".

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber will say at the rally: "It is right to be angry as there is nothing inevitable about this recession … Today is the birth of a powerful progressive voice."

There was also anger tonight over the cost of the summit after Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown disclosed the bill for staging the conference stands at £19m.

But Gordon Brown yesterday urged voters not to be cynical about the outcome of the G20, saying he had not travelled the globe this week simply to publish a communique.

Downing Street aides suggested that there may be a follow-up G20 summit in six months, which may also revisit the issue of whether there should be a further international co-ordinated stimulus in 2010.

Lord Malloch-Brown, Gordon Brown's G20 envoy, said yesterday it was "likely" there will need to be a stimulus in 2010, adding the test of the summit will be whether the recession is shallower and shorter than it would have otherwise been.

[Dok]

I want pics?? I want to see the wizards and the multi colored horses.

[Brocke]

Five activists arrested in G20 'bomb plot' as London goes into lockdown for world leaders

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:47 PM on 30th March 2009

Five people suspected of terrorist offences are being questioned by police today in connection with an alleged plot to target the G20 summit.

Three men and two women have been arrested under the Terrorism Act in Plymouth over the last three days after officers uncovered a cache of weapons and suspected extremist material during a house search.

They are being questioned over claims they planned to target the meeting of the world's most powerful political leaders in London later this week.

The five were held after officers found weapons, imitation weapons, suspicious devices and 'material relating to political ideology' during a house search, a police spokesman said.


Defence: Workers board up shop fronts in the City of London
as activists converge on the capital. Five people have been arrested on
suspicion of terrorist offences in connection with a plot against the G20 summit

The arrests will heighten tensions ahead of this week's summit in London.

A massive police operation is in place to protect the world leaders, including President Obama who is due to arrive in the capital tomorrow.

The alleged plot was uncovered after officers conducted a series of raids following the arrest of a 25-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage on Friday evening.

As police searched his home they found the weapons and suspected extremist material.

Several suspicious devices were also seized and sent for detailed forensic examination.

Three people at the property were arrested for drugs offences. Further investigations led police to a 19-year-old man who was arrested yesterday.

All five have now been detained under the Terrorism Act.

The men, aged 25, 19 and 16, and two women, both aged 20, who all live in Plymouth, remain in custody, a police spokesman said.

Scotland Yard officers are liaising with investigators in south-west England over the suspected plot.

One source said the group are political activists who may have aspired to disrupt the G20 summit but not to injure or kill.

It is understood search teams have found a small number of suspicious devices that indicate any action would have been on a small scale.

   
Demonstration day: These posters appear to encourage protesters
to cause chaos on the streets of London on Wednesday

The devices found have been sent for further forensic examination and police have not ruled out further searches as the net widens.

Police said the investigation is not linked to any particular religious group and centres around 'political activity involving British nationals'.

Scotland Yard has issued warnings that protesters are planning to bring the City of London to a standstill with high-profile protests.

The G20 summit, to be held at the Excel arena in London's Docklands, has been described by senior officers as the capital's most challenging police operation for a decade.

Several thousand officers will be on duty when the leaders of the world's 20 richest countries, including US President Barack Obama, descend on the capital.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'We would stress that the investigation is at a very early stage and that speculation regarding the capability, intention or motivation of those arrested is unhelpful.


On patrol: Two mounted police officers ride in
front of the Bank of England in the City of London

'At the current time we have no information to suggest a change to the threat picture facing either the demonstrations or G20.

'The Metropolitan Police has said that we are seeing an unprecedented level of activity amongst protest groups not seen since the late 1990s, involving some individuals we have not seen on the protest circuit for some time.

'However, while these individuals are talking about what they would like to happen, we are unsure of how much of this is achievable or simply aspiration.'

A police source said: 'Three men and two women are being held. Items have been seized which would come under the Explosives Act rather than bomb-making equipment.

'It would seem they were in possession of material which would not have the potential for causing injury so much as disruption.'

London is bracing itself for demonstrations ahead of the summit.

Residents who live near the Excel Centre, where Gordon Brown, President Obama and other leaders are meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, have been told they must carry two forms of ID, including one with a photo, to ensure they can pass roadblocks.

     
Clean-up operation: Officials have been clearing away rubble from
central London as any debris would provide would-be troublemakers with ready-made weapons

Scotland Yard said it regretted having to introduce the measure, but it was needed to ensure public safety at the east London site.

Thousands of activists from across Europe are today travelling to London in a bid to disrupt the meeting of world leaders.

Police fear hardcore activists from Italy, France and Germany who are intent on causing chaos are converging on the capital via Eurostar or coach.

Riot precautions are already underway as hotels and businesses in much of central London board-up their premises in case anarchists target symbols of wealth.

Red phone boxes have been removed and rubble cleared from building sites.

A massive security operation is also in progress to protect Mr Obama on his first visit to Britain as president.

An unprecented entourage numbering more than 500 people is to accompany the American leader when he arrives in London on Tuesday, to ensure his safety, and his ability to operate as head of state 3,000 miles from the White House.

Such a group has rarely surrounded a foreign leader on a visit to these shores since the days of the Roman emperors.


Security operation: Barack Obama steps off Air Force One,
 which is scheduled to land at Stansted Airport on Tuesday

Security is an acute concern for Mr Obama's advisers as he arrives for the G20 conference.

A repeat of the relaxed scenes for the G8 summit in Birmingham in 1998 when the then-President BillClinton shared a bowl of chips with local pub-goers during an impromptu walkabout appears out of the question.

Assassination attempts are feared possible not only from Al Qaeda, and its Britain-based supporters, but also from extreme racists enraged by the election of a black president.

As a result, 200 of the U.S. state employees accompanying the president will be members of the secret service, prepared at all times to take a bullet to save Obama's life.

The president is due to fly in to Stansted airport in Essex  on Tuesday in his official jet, Air Force One - which boasts technology to protect its communication systems from nuclear fallout and  radiation, as well as a gym to keep the president fit.

A helicopter, Marine One, will then fly Obama to London - possibly amid decoy helicopters to confuse assailants - where he is staying at the U.S. Ambassador's fortified residence at Regent's Park in North London.

When travelling around London, the new president will be encased inside Cadillac One, his heavily fortified official car, complete with bullet-proof windows, night vision cameras, and pump action shotguns in case of emergency.

And surrounding him at all times, as unobtrusively as possible, will be his mini-army of secret service agents, sporting Ray Ban sunglasses, and communicating with each other by shirt-cuff radios and earpieces.

If the worst were to happen - along with previous successful assassinations of presidents there was a failed attack on Ronald Reagan in Washington DC in 1981 which left a press secretary paralysed by a gunshot - a White House medical team is on hand, too.

Rather than being entrusted to the National Health Service, Obama would be cared for a specially picked unit of surgeons and nurses, carrying them with supplies of type AB blood.

A total of almost 300 officials from state departments will also be on hand, to ensure the president can, from London, cope with any sudden crisis.

But two individuals among the group are perhaps more significant than any others. One is an unnamed military officer carrying the codes necessary to launch a nuclear missile attack.

The other is Obama's personal aide Reggie Love, who often starts the day by exercising with the president and ends it watching sports matches with him, in between operating the president's BlackBerry and handing him chunks of nicotine gum.

He will also be handing the president the basketball he will require for his daily game on the ambassador's court.

First Lady Michelle Obama will also have her own team of eight staff, including a press officer, a secretary, and her own detachment of bodyguards.

One US government source said: 'When the president travels, the White House travels with him, right down to the car he drives, the water he drinks, the gasoline he uses, the food he eats.

'America is still the sole superpower and the president must have the ability to handle any crisis, anywhere, any time.'

To guarantee the president's trip runs smoothly and safely, security officers have already made three reconnaissance trips to Britain, with special sweeps for electronic bugs and lethal bacteria at key locations last week.

Assuming all has gone to plan, Obama is due to leave early on Thursday or late on Friday - accompanied by his massive team.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165669/Five-activists-arrested-G20-bomb-plot-London-goes-lockdown-world-leaders.html#

[Brocke]

Stock markets plummet over fears Brown will fail to get G20 countries agreement on action

By Michael Lea
Last updated at 5:42 PM on 30th March 2009

Fears about the outcome of the G20 meeting sent stock markets plunging across the world today.

The FTSE 100 Index slid more than 3 per cent, while in Asia the Nikkei lost more than 4.5 per cent and the Hang Seng plummeted by 4.7 per cent amid concerns there would be no agreement over how to tackle the world financial crisis.

European stock followed the downward spiral this morning, a trend accelerated on the news there would be no U.S. government bail-out for General Motors.

The Footsie eventually finished down 135.9 points at 3762.9 - or 3.5 per cent.

In America, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 200 points while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was off 2.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, the key plank of Gordon Brown's global 'grand bargain' was torpedoed just days before the crucial G20 summit.

World leaders have lined up to rule out a second fiscal stimulus package of tax cuts and spending sprees to boost their stricken economies.

There were even suggestions yesterday of a German-inspired 'dirty tricks' campaign after what was claimed to be a draft of Mr Brown's favoured communique was leaked to a German news magazine as a part of an apparent attempt to kill it off.

The Prime Minister has championed the idea of another spending spree as part of a 'global new deal' - along with banking reforms, a crackdown on tax havens and measures to avoid protectionism.

But as he flew back into Britain yesterday for the summit after a whistlestop tour of three continents, it became clear that the central part of his plan - on which he has staked huge political capital - had been scuppered.

It also represents a defeat on the world stage for U.S. President Barack Obama, who has also called for a fiscal stimulus.

Any detailed discussions on such measures will now come at a follow-up summit later this year, probably in Asia.

Yesterday Mr Brown's Cabinet colleagues took to the airwaves to lower expectations about the outcome of the one-day talks in London, as No 10 aides suggested that it could take a year to see any fruits of the meeting.

There was also a notable shift of emphasis by the Government away from fiscal stimulus to other areas - such as new rules on tax havens and extra money to support developing countries - where deals are almost certain.

In response to the criticisms, British ministers have also insisted that it is up to each country to write its own budget.

Chancellor Alistair Darling said yesterday: 'We have got to be realistic. We should not be overly optimistic that everything will get sorted in one day.'

Foreign Secretary David Miliband also conceded that there would be no fresh fiscal intervention. He instead emphasised the need to reform the international financial system.

'It is not about rabbits out of hats,' he told the BBC. 'This G20 summit was never about writing national budgets. It is about the international financial architecture.'
G20

But when Mr Brown unveiled the Government's G20 blueprint last month, he insisted: 'Every part of the world must be part of the stimulus to the economy... and I believe one of the features of our discussions at the G20 is how all countries can come together to do that.'

However, preparatory meetings for the summit revealed deep divisions and the spending plans were soon downgraded.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend: 'I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money.'

Spanish finance minister Pedro Solbes added: 'In these conditions I and the rest of my colleagues in the eurozone believe there is no room for new fiscal stimulus plans.'

And asked about new tax cuts and spending by the BBC yesterday the Australian leader Kevin Rudd revealed that details would come at a further summit.

He said it 'was never the intention' to commit to a new package this week.

The Chinese ambassador to London, Fu Ying, also warned that Beijing 'cannot write a cheque'.

She added: 'People should remember that China indeed is still a developing country. We are running the largest fiscal deficit we have ever seen in 20 years.'

The extraordinary interventions from world leaders are another blow to Mr Brown, who is still reeling from the warning by Bank of England governor Mervyn King that the UK cannot afford another big fiscal stimulus package in next month's Budget.

The Prime Minister received an opinion poll boost in October when his bank rescue package was widely copied but those gains have been wiped out since then.

Any talk that the G20 summit would be a new Bretton Woods - the 1944 conference which shaped the modern global financial system - has also disappeared.

Lord Mandelson told Sky News there would be no 'overnight' success. 'The time to judge the outcome of the G20 summit is in a year's time,' he said.

Further evidence that the UK had been forced to scale down its ambitious stimulus plans came yesterday with the reported leak of a draft of the final agreement to be signed off by world leaders at the end of the one-day gathering.

The communique, obtained by German magazine Der Spiegel, apparently showed that the UK backed a £1.4trillion worldwide spending boost. However, Downing Street said the paper was an 'old document with out of date figures'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165726/Stock-markets-plummet-fears-Brown-fail-G20-countries-agreement-action.html#

[Brocke]

That's right, keep the idea of a global currency alive and at the same time dismiss it as "too early". At the speed thing are moving right now they will be begging for this global currency next week!


G20 not ready yet for new world currency debate
Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:37pm EDT

By Brian Love - Analysis

PARIS (Reuters) - This week's G20 summit will demonstrate how fast the balance of power is shifting from the old U.S.-led economic order toward emerging market nations, although it is way too early for a productive debate about a new world currency.

Beijing is pushing for more power in key institutions such as International Monetary Fund and, more dramatically, China and Russia are both saying it is now time to consider shifting away from a dollar-dominated world.

While the immediacy of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression may leave little room for conclusive discussion at the summit, Beijing and Russia have already opened the debate about a more fundamental shift in the global economic order.

In one sense, their timing is right, because the entire world is hit by a crisis that snowballed out of the United States.

In another, it is awful because nobody at the G20 summit really wants to fray financial market nerves any further.

"The rich countries are going to have to move over and make room," says Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the Washington-based IMF. "It's not a battle that's won in two hours but it can start at this G20."

Moscow has called outright for the G20 to start looking for alternatives to the dollar as the world's main reserve currency, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev renewed that call over the weekend.

"It is quite obvious that the existing currency system has not coped with the existing challenges," he told the BBC in an interview, relayed by the Kremlin website. www.kremlin.ru

China, key because it is owner of the world's biggest stock of foreign exchange reserves, went public with much the same argument in a speech delivered last week by central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan.

Does all that mean the idea will start to gain traction any time soon?

Not at the London summit in any case, it seems.

According to an aide of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it will simply not be discussed by leaders, if only because the summit aim is above all to reassure scared financial markets and voters, not dent the dollar.

"It might be a good thing in the longer term but right now it is perhaps best the dollar doesn't drop too much," said the official.

As for the merits of a new reserve currency though, there is no shortage of economists who think it could make sense.

A UN panel published a report last week which said that an alternative reserve currency system based on the SDR, a unit of account used by the IMF, could help contribute to global financial stability and strength.

Indeed, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who headed the panel, believes such a replacement currency system could feasibly start to be phased in within as little as 12 months, even if he acknowledged that was unlikely.

Stephen Green, a China economist at Standard Chartered bank, says Zhou's speech was a milestone.

"Whether or not the reserve currency question progresses beyond an intellectual debate, it's clear that China has decided the time is ripe to become proactive in the debate," Green said in an investment research note to his bank's clients.

The problem is that despite reaching out to the emerging economic powers, the West is also in essence saying power imposes obligations and that means 'pay up if you want to play up', whether it is China, Russia, Brazil, or Saudi Arabia.

British prime minister and summit host Gordon Brown said as much during a G20 promotion pit-stop in New York recently.

Countries that had built up massive currency reserves, such as China, could afford to put them to better use, he said.

"We've got 7 trillion (dollars) of reserves around the world. Probably for the sake of financial stability you need maybe only half of these reserves. The rest can actually be far more effective in being used to get growth into your economies."

"If we could find an insurance policy which guaranteed for these countries action in the event of their currency being in difficulty, that in my view would satisfy half the problem that is being raised by China and Russia," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52T63D20090330

[Brocke]

Can you say "False Flag"!


Ahead of G20 summit, council told to switch off illegal £15m CCTV network




The security operation at this week's G20 summit was thrown into chaos last night when it emerged that the entire network of central London's wireless CCTV cameras will have to be turned off because of a legal ruling.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has ruled that Westminster council's mobile road cameras - a third of the authority's CCTV network - "do not fully meet the resolution standards required" and must be switched off by midnight tomorrow.

The blackout begins on the eve of the summit, when world leaders arrive in the capital and protesters take to the streets.

The council only discovered last week that images from its newly installed £15m traffic cameras do not meet the quality required under the Traffic Management Act, which comes into force on 1 April.

In an urgently drafted letter seen by the Guardian and hand-delivered to the transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, on Friday, the council warns its entire network of wireless cameras will need to be shut down unless the minister finds a way to give special dispensation. "This would have a serious impact on our ability to manage our road network safely, as well as impeding our community protection efforts," the letter states.

It adds: "We are seeking authorisation from DfT as a matter of urgency to enable Westminster to continue using its digital CCTV network."

The 60 cameras in question use the latest digital technology and transmit images using Wi-Fi. While they are primarily for traffic enforcement, according to the council the cameras are "an essential additional tool" to tackle crime and disorder, and have been fixed to strategic locations across the capital ahead of the summit.

The 24-hour live footage from the cameras, which monitor roads around the West End, Belgravia, Trafalgar Square, Knightsbridge, Oxford Street and London's main bridges, is also accessible to police and the intelligence services.

A further 160 "permanent" CCTV cameras run by the authority are unaffected. However, security officials believe a shutdown of the mobile road cameras could hamper the G20 security operation, which will require police to secure the safe passage of dozens of motorcades carrying delegations VIP diplomats and leaders.

"Frankly, it couldn't have come at a worse time," a source said. "These are not just parking enforcement cameras, they're for public order and we've got the G20 world leaders coming. This is a complete disaster."

Under the legislation, traffic cameras must be capable of recording at 720 x 576 pixels, an analogue broadcast standard.

Westminster's wireless network of road cameras, introduced last year, is the only fully digital traffic enforcement system operating in the UK, and is regarded as one of the most advanced in the world. But its picture quality is only 704 x 576 pixels. The DfT's enforcement branch, the Vehicle Certification Agency, has ruled it does not comply with the law.

DfT lawyers were last night frantically exploring a way to exempt Westminster from the legislation. A department statement said: "To ensure local authorities have a fair and transparent way of detecting unlawful drivers, any recording device must meet minimum requirements."

The council last night confirmed that - barring an 11th-hour U-turn - it would have to switch off the network tomorrow to comply with the act.

Danny Chalkley, the council's cabinet member for environment and transport, said in a statement: "The DfT's position is ludicrous and stuck in the dark ages.

"[This] could result in millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being needed to replace the current cameras, all because of a tiny difference in image resolution on the TV screen."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/30/cctv-london-government-transport-g20

[Irobot]

Thanks for all the great info. Yes indeed, it may get ugly.

Does anyone have a live video /audio stream link to news or indy sites

covering this?

[Brocke]

Climate change experts call on G20 members to commit to action

    * Patrick Wintour and David Adam
    * The Guardian, Tuesday 31 March 2009

A last-ditch effort is being made to insert clearer green commitments into the global economic recovery package. The move comes amid fears amongst some British government officials that the G20 summit is in danger of missing a unique opportunity to prevent the world from being locked into irreversible and catastrophic climate change.

Gordon Brown yesterday promised that a commitment to tackle the environment will be one of the five tests of the communique due to be released following the summit on Thursday, adding "there were long hours of hard negotiations ahead".

Number 10 counselled caution insisting that the main climate change event of the year will be at Copenhagen in December, when the UN hopes to reach a global deal to replace the Kyoto agreement.

The draft G20 communique leaked at the weekend makes only the smallest reference to climate change, and appears to be vague on the subject of how green the $2tn (£1.4tn) stimulus package agreed by world leaders should be.

This provoked the eminent climatologist James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to tell the Guardian: "If this is the best they can do, then their 'planet in peril' rhetoric is probably just that - empty rhetoric."

Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, also voiced concern about the limited commitment to a low-carbon economy: "I think it [low-carbon recovery] deserves a higher profile. Everybody seems to be focusing on short-term recovery and getting long-term regulation of the banks right. I haven't heard anything that suggests the green recovery and climate change are a major part of the [G20] agenda."

He added: "It would be a missed opportunity while they're talking about the economy not to talk about how to transform it to low carbon."

Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group, which works with major businesses and governments to promote a low-carbon economy, said: "What is lacking from the statement as a whole is timetables, targets and amounts. It lacks specifics on anything."

Some senior British officials privately believe the framing of the G20 stimulus package to ensure it has a large green element will be as decisive in the battle against climate change as the outcome of the UN talks on climate change in Copenhagen.

British ministerial sources insisted last night that there will be no mention in the communique of what proportion of the new jobs stimulated by the economic recovery package will be low-carbon roles. They suggested that any mention of green jobs might be seen as a form of covert protectionism by some members of the G20.

British officials said yesterday they regard it as essential that during the summit China gets a clear message from countries such as South Africa, Mexico, France, Germany, Britain and the US that they are all committed to tackling climate change and that China will not be put at a disadvantage if it shapes a low-carbon recovery.

Lord Stern, the government's former climate change adviser, yesterday tried to increase the pressure on the G20 by arguing that the worst recession since the 1930s gave the world the opportunity to lay the foundations for growth over several decades, based on low-carbon technology and energy efficiency.

He said the argument that the first priority was to deal with the current economic crisis and postpone action on climate change was "wrong and should be confronted".

He called for the G20 leaders to send out a signal that the "difficult" work of getting the specifics of a deal in place needed to be done. "This is an opportunity to have a green recovery that lays the foundations of growth for the next two to three decades."

A report by HSBC found that the US, Europe, China and South Korea lead global "green" spending plans after committing $300bn-$500bn to boost low-carbon technologies under wider plans to boost the global economy.

Green spend accounts for about 15% of the total economic spending of $2tn-$3tn

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/31/g20-summit-climate-change

[Nile]

If some sort of attack does happen, that security camera loophole will be so friggin' obvious.

[abrhim]

we the camera blackout taking place, this could be an opprotunity to test out some rather nasty crowd control tactics.  the prototype of what's to happen all over maybe...hope those people remember there cameras and get the proper footage out.  Good luck to the People on that side of the ocean, godspeed.

[gEEk squad]

======================================================

"If you demonstrate against somebody that we like...
I'll slip on my wig and see if I can start a riot...
[Remember the wigged/hatted provocateurs at all the rallies; remember the one with the hat pushing AJ when he confronted Malkin?]
transform you into an angry mob...
and all your leaders go to jail for my job...
 'I Am The Owl'"

- The Dead Kennedys.

======================================================

[tritonman]

I am going to have to give that song a listen to.  What is the name of the song?

[Brocke]

I am going to have to give that song a listen to.  What is the name of the song?

I Am The Owl by The Dead Kennedys
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/I_Am_The_Owl/823071

[abrhim]

or if the cameras are shut off, it may be a good time for englands overly surveilled to thin out the camera numbers, just don't film it...i really wonder what this is going to be like...the people are pissed. 

seriously someone over there needs to set up some indy live stream.  Or see to it that any real footage of what goes on gets out to the media/internet/jones/the concerned part of humanity.

[Brocke]

World Bank offers trade boost ahead of G20

Tue Mar 31, 2009 3:05pm EDT
By Sumeet Desai and Lesley Wroughton

LONDON (Reuters) - The World Bank announced a $50 billion program on Tuesday to counter a decline in global trade and Britain called on G20 leaders to supply "the oxygen of confidence" to drag the world economy out of recession.

Leaders of the world's largest and developing economies meet in London on Wednesday and Thursday to try to chart a way out of the worst global crisis since the 1930s, caused by a freeze in credit after bank loans went bad.

The scale of the problem was underlined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which said the economies of its 30 members would shrink by 4.3 percent in 2009, shedding 25 million jobs this year and next.

Japan, the world's second largest economy, announced plans for its third stimulus package and Japanese media predicted it would aim to create 60 trillion yen ($612 billion) worth of demand and 2 million jobs.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the summit host, said leaders should aim to save or create 20 million jobs and must act together to increase the potential impact of their actions.

"Leaders meeting in London must supply the oxygen of confidence to today's global economy and give people in all of our countries renewed hope for the future," he said.

The run-up to the summit has been marked by divisions between the United States and continental Europe over its focus, and skeptics have questioned how much it can achieve.

The Americans want more spending, while the Europeans are focused more on regulation, arguing stimulus measures already taken need to be given time to work.

RECOVERY NEXT YEAR

The OECD forecast a recovery in 2010, echoing a line in a draft G20 communique obtained by Reuters.

The draft shows leaders want to agree to avoid currency moves and protectionist measures that would damage other economies. It also repeats existing promises to get economies back on track, but does not contain any specific details.

The G20 is expected to announce at least a doubling of resources for the International Monetary Fund from the current $250 billion -- although Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said its funding should be tripled if necessary, stressing the threat to emerging economies.

"The first major risk comes from a potential economic collapse of emerging markets," he said. "The second major risk to global recovery is the process of deleveraging."

Speaking at a Thomson Reuters event, World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced measures to reverse a sharp drop in trade flows after credit dried up.

Zoellick said the program would include funding from governments, starting with contributions from Britain and the Netherlands, regional development banks and private-sector banks such as Standard Chartered, Standard Bank and Rabobank.

CONFIDENCE BOOST

The White House said it expected G20 leaders to agree on a package of financial reforms that could include expanded regulation of hedge funds and steps aimed at clamping down further on tax havens.

That chimed with a report released by a G20 working group on restructuring the financial services industry. It said hedge funds should be more closely regulated and credit ratings agencies subject to tighter supervision.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the summit should pledge an overhaul of financial institutions, map out an exit from governments' spending sprees and commit to a climate deal.

Brown, who has spearheaded efforts to get agreement on concrete measures at the G20, said the summit must restore people's faith in the economy.

The son of a Scottish church minister, he told faith leaders and charity workers in a speech in London's St Paul's Cathedral that markets must be guided by everyday values cherished by all.

"Our task today is to bring the imperatives served by our financial markets into proper alignment with the values held by families and business people across our country - hard work, taking responsibility, being honest, being fair," Brown said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSLV94802020090331

[Irobot]

Interesting site
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/1121/1/

[mr anderson]

Agent Provocateur Riots Commence in London at G20

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
April 1, 2009



It looks like the agents provocateurs — otherwise known as anarchists — are having their way in London as the G20 commences. From a blog covering the protests posted at the Guardian:

    The “hardcore” protesters have broken through police lines and have made their way to an unboarded HSBC branch on Queen Victoria Street, says Guardian reporter Paul Lewis. An anarchist flag has been raised on an office block opposite the branch, he adds. The Press Association reported a fight on the same street between two men — one wearing a suit — which was broken up by police.

Smashing up banks and beating up guys in suits will do nothing to stop the bankers from looting the wealth of billions of people and engineering the collapse of the world economy in order to usher in their world “super-currency” and world government.

As the photo here shows, the “anarchists” are grist for the corporate media. One lone “anarchist” takes out a bank window while dozens of cameras whirl and click to catch the action.

It’s all an orchestrated sideshow to the G20 criminal confab designed to discredit legitimate protests. There is little coverage of the actual protesters as the corporate media rushes to photograph agents provocateurs smashing windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Guardian comments on the fact the “anarchists” and the corporate media are working with the state in order to discredit legitimate protest:

    On Twitter, Snufkin21 says Stop the War protesters booed the media present “for hyping up the G20 violence”. The huge media presence has been criticized by a number of people on Twitter who believe it’s encouraged extreme elements to “play to the gallery”.

George Monbiot offers a blog entry on the cops and their “force majeure” at the summit:

    The trouble-makers are out in force again. Dressed in black, their faces partly obscured, some of them appear to be interested only in violent confrontation. It’s almost as if they are deliberately raising the temperature, pushing and pushing until a fight kicks off. But this isn’t some disorganized rabble: these people were bussed in and are plainly acting in concert. There’s another dead giveaway. They are all wearing the same slogan: Police.

The cops “have a powerful interest in exaggerating threats and, perhaps, an interest in ensuring that sometimes these threats materialize,” writes Monbiot. “This could explain what I’ve seen at one protest after another, where peaceful demonstrations turn into ugly rucks only when the police attack. The wildly disproportionate and unnecessary violence I’ve sometimes seen the police deploy could scarcely be better designed to provoke a reaction.”

This “powerful interest in exaggerating threats” serves the bankers and their minions now gathered in London. It is critical they completely discredit the opposition and have their handmaiden media tool portray the legitimate opposition as crazed and violent anarchists.

It is basically a “strategy of tension” of the sort used by the Italian Gladio operation, designed to blame murderous violence on leftists. In Italy, this strategy worked like a charm as large numbers of Italians fell for the bait and blamed socialists and communists for the violence.

The staged violence will give the British state an excuse to further limit civil liberties and arrest activists, especially now as sincere and legitimate demonstrators and activists are beginning to organize in opposition to the largest and most audacious bankster rip-off in recorded history.

[Brocke]

I count at lease 10 photographers/cameramen in that photo. You can hardly call this spontaneous anarchy. It looks more like a promotional photo op.

"Hey everybody look at me, I'm an anarchist, get a picture of me smashing this window!"

[GakunGak]

CUT!
Naw, that ain't right! Stick to the script!
Ready, 3,2,1, aaaaaand, ACTION!

[Biggs]

all seemed very lame, only a few thousand on the anti-war march in the west end as well, all a bit of a let down really, people too scared for their jobs, or too apathetic, or being Haarped or what but all rather less than hoped for.

[Novus Ordo]

[Novus Ordo]

[Libertarian Perspective]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7977489.stm

Police say 11 people have been arrested on suspicion of possessing police uniforms and for road traffic offences.

Our provocatueurs getting "arrested" and whisked away to safety. Maybe?

[Brocke]

Man dies during G20 protests in London

Day of protests that began peacefully turn sour as man dies during G20 demonstrations

    * James Meikle, Paul Lewis, Jenny Percival and Sandra Laville
    * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 April 2009 02.05 BST


Police use batons as protesters converge on the Bank of England yesterday. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

A man died last night during the G20 protests in central London as a day that began peacefully ended with police saying bottles were thrown at police medics trying to help him.

The man had collapsed within a police cordon set up to contain the crowds who had assembled in central London and the City to protest over the G20 summit. There were 63 arrests on the day.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission was being notified last night. Scotland Yard said the alarm had been raised by a member of the public who spoke to a police officer on a cordon at the junction of Birchin Lane and Cornhill in the City.

He sent two medics through the cordon line and into nearby St Michael's Alley where they found a man who had stopped breathing. They called for ambulance support at about 7.30pm and moved him back behind the cordon where they gave him cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

"The officers took the decision to move him as during this time a number of missiles – believed to be bottles – were being thrown at them", said a police statement. The ambulance service took the man to hospital where he died.

A London ambulance spokesman said: "Our staff immediately took over the treatment of the patient and made extensive efforts to resuscitate him both at the scene and on the way to hospital."

The directorate of public standards at both the Metropolitan and City of London police had been informed, the statement said. One protester at the scene said the man was in his 30s and died of natural causes, the Press Association news agency reported.

The man's death ended a day in which the contrasting faces of British policing were on display in London.

The Met called in support from 30 forces across the country to create a 5,000-strong team of officers for at least six diverse demonstrations in the City of London and Trafalgar Square. Outside the Bank of England police horses and riot officers were pushed back by the sheer force of demonstrators – helmets were torn from officers' heads and cans, fruit and flour rained down. In retaliation the police surged forward, cracking heads with batons, using pepper spray and CS gas, and sirens wailed all around.

Three minutes' walk away, in Bishopsgate, smiling officers shared a joke with men and women pitching tents along the road, a family offered them chocolate brownies from an organic food stall and a few lads politely queued up outside the compost toilet tent.

But late last night there was a stand-off as officers moved to start to break up the climate camp that had been set up.

Violence spread as far as London Bridge, with riot police chasing groups of demonstrators, who responded with bottles and other missiles.

Commanders at the Met, who are said to be among the best public order officers in the world, insisted they would not let the city be brought to a standstill.

They used familiar tactics to trap 4,000 people into streets outside the Bank of England in a practice known as "kettling", tightening the cordon when violence flared in one part of Threadneedle Street and a group of protesters, whose faces were covered, broke into the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Commander Bob Broadhurst, in charge of the operation, said his aim was to facilitate peaceful protest. But those peaceful demonstrators caught inside the cordon with no toilet facilities, and little water, questioned the idea that they were being allowed to exercise their right to march.

"The police should let us dribble out when we need to," said June Rogers, a gardener from south London. "We've just come on a peaceful protest. We've got fire in our belly and we want to say something and be heard, we are just ordinary people but they made the situation worse."

Jeannie Mackie, a barrister who had attended the climate camp as an observer, was penned in for two hours after police cordoned off both ends of Bishopsgate.

"I thought it was completely unnecessary," she said.

"I was kept for two hours. Lines of police lined up with their batons and they were completely pumped up and looking to have a go. My feeling was everyone in there was peaceful but they wanted to clear them out." Responding to the police use of the kettling technique she said that although the courts had ruled that it was legal, there had to be a good reason. "I asked one officer could I go and he said no – I might to and cause trouble. I giggled and said that wasn't very likely and he said, 'you can never tell with these people'."

Scotland Yard said a cordon was used because missiles were being thrown at officers. It also said that portaloos and water had been moved in.

Earlier in the day demonstrations had started close to the Bank of England, storming a Royal Bank of Scotland branch, and baton-wielding police charging a sit-down protest by students.

Much of the protesting was peaceful, but some bloody skirmishes broke out as police tried to keep thousands of people in containment pens surrounding the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street.

Some buildings in the City had been boarded up in anticipation of trouble, with staff warned to work from home or dress down.

As protesters began to gather, after 11am, some City workers were seen waving £10 notes at them from office windows.

After the charge against the sit-down protest at students, there were complaints that officers had been heavy handed.

"When people surrounded RBS, I could understand police tactics," said Jack Bright, 19. "We were sat down, trying to have a peaceful protest, but they started whacking us."


    * guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/g20-protests-man-dies-london

[fred.greek]

G20 "protesters" carry signs, "Capitalism Isn't Working"...

How can we tell, if we've not had capitalism for a long time?

Corporatism, is not capitalism...

Capitilism, is private ownership of the means of production...

How many here have owned stock of a corporation, and been able to exert any aspect of "ownership"?  Can you go in and review the books?  Tell "your" employees what to do?  Use the copier?  Wander about as you like, as the "owner"?

Corporations are government created entities, set up to favor big-money interests... 

My opinion, I would love to live in a capitalist America... When are we going to have it?

[Brocke]

How the Elite love their pyramids...


The in London's docklands, where the G20 leaders are meeting.



Pyramid of Khufu

[Brocke]

G20 protests rock London's financial area - 01 Apr 09



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adi2i8qyerU

Al Jazeera English

While the differences between the big G20 players were quietly discussed behind closed doors, out on the streets of London there was real anger.

Thousands crowded into London's financial centre to make their protests heard.

Hamish MacDonald was there.

Follow Al Jazeera's G20 coverage on twitter@ajeg20

[Mike Philbin]

How the Elite love their pyramids...


The in London's docklands, where the G20 leaders are meeting.



Pyramid of Khufu

Khufu?  did you spell that right?



Fhuku! would be more apropriate, surely.

[Brocke]

Al Jazeera English brings a little bit of truth about how the IMF f*cks countries finances up deliberately in order to extort deals that give them a license to rape the countries natural resources.


People & Power - Turkey and the G20 - 1 April 09 - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sGrb_THEoI

People & Power investigates how Turkey is split over whether the loan will bail out their failing economy or destroy businesses already struggling from the fall-out of the previous loan.

People & Power - Turkey and the G20 - 1 April 09 - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlmZ-ZKu_ps

[Irobot]

VIDEOS: G20 Protest London UK 2009 Riots, Cops, and Bankers
60 plus videos in playlist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gG2fMXIjQ4&feature=PlayList&p=CFF597B0D7265D8E&index=0&playnext=1

[Dewk]

       Is it really that ugly or is Media playing its game. I look at the reflection of the guy's in hoods breaking windows and it's all media cameras with a couple of boom mic.'s too.

[6orillamask]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown heralded the emergence of a "new world order" Thursday as the G-20 issued details of an "unprecedented" package of measures to tackle the global economic crisis.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/02/g20/index.html

[Brocke]

       Is it really that ugly or is Media playing its game. I look at the reflection of the guy's in hoods breaking windows and it's all media cameras with a couple of boom mic.'s too.

So far we are only seeing isolated provocations and very little violence. A credit to the majority of protesters who really do want a peaceful demonstrations. Here is an article that is aimed at dismissing protests as ineffective.


Parsing the Protests
Is the media to blame for focusing on trivia, or did protesters have a muddled message?

April 2, 2009, 1:40 pm
By ROBERT MACKEY
International Herald Tribune

Protesters Fail to Bring Down Global Capitalism With Costumes, Puppets

Whatever the lasting economic impact of the recently struck deal among world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in London, the fact that the world’s news media and a diverse array of anti-globalization protesters converged in England this week did stimulate the Web — which was suddenly alive with thousands of new images of outlandishly dressed demonstrators, many of whom would not have seemed out of place at a rave. Parsing what, exactly, these outfits and props were meant to achieve, besides drawing the attention of people with cameras, was not always easy.

In fact, a look at the small sample of those many, many images, published in the slide show above raises a question: Are anti-globalization activists succeeding in their aim of capturing the attention of the world’s visual journalists — with their costumes and puppets and burning effigies — but in the process failing to communicate much more than could be gleaned from, say, watching an absurdist Ionesco play performed in Old English?

The Guardian in London has been providing saturation coverage of the G-20 summit — including a live blog and text, Twitter and video reports on Wednesday’s protests, in which one man died, of what was suspected to be a heart attack.

The newspaper’s green-technology correspondent, Alok Jha, filed an audio report online on Thursday morning, with interviews he conducted with two protesters — one dressed as the grim reaper, and another who helped carry a huge puppet of a dead canary through the streets. Mr. Jha asked them what their acts of street theater were all about.

A man named Harry told Mr. Jha that he was dressed as Death to represent “the death of the economy” and “the death of the English pound.” He was also concerned with the fact that, since the police confiscated the mask that went with his grim reaper outfit, he would probably lose his deposit on the costume, which he had rented for the occasion.

One of the people carrying the canary (see the slide show above) said that he had brought the huge bird effigy to the demonstration “to symbolize the death of Canary Wharf,” a former dockyard area that was redeveloped to become a center of London’s financial industry, and also the death of “the current financial system.”

After giving an articulate analysis of the problems with the current global economic system, the canary-bearer told Mr. Jha that the demonstrators were all gathered “in the service of finding a new system that puts people before profit.” While he had thus succeeded in getting his message out by way of The Guardian — and perhaps validated the strategy of using an outlandish visual as catnip for the media — he then acknowledged that the rest of his day would consist largely of carrying the bird around, getting it photographed, and then storing it away until another economic summit meeting later this year.

The singer and political activist Billy Bragg — who made an appearance at the protest outside the Bank of England yesterday, as he tweeted he would — once sang that just pinning on peace buttons was not going to get the job done. As Mr. Bragg noted, “wearing badges is not enough” to affect political change. After this latest round of anti-globalization protests, it seems fair to ask if marches that draw attention mainly to men bearing symbolic canaries, or dressed like pink storm troopers, are really helping to advance the cause of those who want to fundamentally change the world’s economic system.

What do readers think, is the media to blame for focusing so much on what is most visually arresting, or are the protesters at fault for spending too much energy attracting attention and not enough articulating practical steps that might actually change the system?







http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/protesters-fail-to-bring-down-global-capitalism-with-costumes-puppets/

[Brocke]

April 3, 2009
G-20 Pact Has New Rules and $1.1 Trillion in Loan Pledges
By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain spoke with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil during a group photo session at the G20 Summit in London on Thursday.

LONDON — Attempting to bridge deep divides in policy and financial philosophy, the leaders of nearly two dozen of the world’s largest economies agreed Thursday to a broad array of new fiscal and regulatory steps, in a desperate effort to revive the paralyzed global economy.

At the conclusion of the first economic summit meeting to rivet world attention in decades, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain announced that the leaders had committed to $1.1 trillion in additional loans and guarantees to finance trade and bail out troubled countries.

But the funds he announced are well short of a direct injection of stimulus into the world’s economic bloodstream — the result of a continuing division between continental Europe and much of the rest of the world over whether to act now or wait see how current spending measures take effect.

“This is the day the world came together to fight against the global recession,” Mr. Brown declared. “Our message today is clear and certain: we believe global problems require global solutions.”

In the end, the daylong conference — which also served as President Obama’s debut on the world stage — yielded what seemed to be a more forceful and detailed blueprint for recovery than a similar gathering in 1933, which failed to fend off the rampant protectionism and misery of the Great Depression.

Among the steps Mr. Brown detailed are strict new regulations on hedge funds and rating agencies, as well as a crackdown on tax havens, which will be publicly named and subject to sanctions if they do not agree to share tax information with the authorities of other countries.

The Group of 20 also agreed on new global rules to cap the pay and bonuses of bankers, as well as a common approach to dealing with the toxic assets on the balance sheets of the world’s banks. That is an issue that has bedeviled the Obama administration and other governments.

Giving teeth to an endorsement of free trade at the last summit in Washington, the countries agreed to “name and shame” countries that erected trade barriers. They also pledged $250 billion in financing for trade.

The most concrete measures relate to support for the International Monetary Fund, which has emerged as a “first responder” in this global crisis, making emergency loans to dozens of countries.

The Group of 20 pledged to triple the resources of the Fund to $750 billion — through a mix of $500 billion in loans from countries, and a one-time issuance of $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights, the synthetic currency of the Fund, which will be parceled out to all its 185 members.

The countries, in turn, could lend that money to troubled neighbors. The I.M.F.’s members also agreed to lend the proceeds from sales of the fund’s gold reserves to the poorest countries.

A financial stability board with enhanced authorities will also be created to provide an early warning mechanism to alert nations of systemic risks to the international economy, the communiqué said.

“Together these steps give us confidence that world economy can return to trend growth,” Mr. Brown said.

The announcements came after negotiators from the United States and Europe worked frantically to hash out an agreement on new regulations, a day after France and Germany signaled a rift over the level of scrutiny that regulators should have over hedge funds and other global financial institutions.

While the United States was determined to resist European efforts to create regulatory authorities with crossborder authority, officials said the two sides worked out policies on transparency and early risk warnings for banks that would placate France and Germany.

“There’s not going to be a ceding of sovereignty to a global regulator,” said a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were confidential.

France other Europeans countries also pressed China to accept action against tax havens, a step it has resisted because of the possible consequences for its coastal banking centers, Hong Kong and Macao.

“I think we’re going to see an agreement,” said Stephen Timms, the financial secretary to the Treasury. “I am expecting sanctions against tax havens. We want that pressure to be maintained.”

Britain began talks on Wednesday on a tax information exchange agreement with Liechtenstein, an Alpine principality used by wealthy Europeans and others as a place to stash money.

The leaders also agreed to increase by $250 billion the financing available for world trade, which has suffered a crippling double-blow from the financial crisis and the economic downturn.

“The goal is to finance banks and guarantee credit for international trade,” said Lord Malloch-Brown, the British minister for Africa, Asia, and the United Nations. “In rescuing national banking systems, it had an unintended consequence of neglecting the international businesses of those banks.”

Julia Werdigier and John Harwood contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html?_r=1&ref=world


After that I feel physically ill!