Protesters Held Ahead of G8 Meeting
Report published 7 July 2009 by Al Jazeera English | Photo published 8 July 2009 by CommonDreams.org

At least 36 people have been arrested after protesters and police clashed in Rome a day ahead of the Group of Eight (G8) summit.

Demonstrators hurled bottles at riot police and set fire to tyres on the streets of the Italian capital on Tuesday, news agencies reported.

The clashes came as leaders from some of the world’s richest nations gathered in the city ahead of the summit, which begins on Wednesday, aimed at tackling the global economic crisis, climate change and events in Iran.

Italian police were on high alert on the eve of the summit, with 15,000 officers deployed in an effort to prevent a recurrence of the violence seen during the country’s last G8 meeting in 2001.

[Read the report]

Related:
Money for riot police and G8 accoutrements but not a cent for earthquake victims:
G8 Summit: ‘Yes, we camp’ protests to embarrass Berlusconi

Climate change not in the budget:
Developing and Developed Nations Differ on Emission Cut

Unlimited resources for full spectrum dominance:
G8 issues Iran nuclear ‘deadline’

New at the Americas Policy Program
A New World of Citizen Action, Analysis, and Policy Options
http://www.americaspolicy.org/

7 July 2009

Introducing the latest report from the Americas Program

Americas Program Interview with Nestor Stancanelli
Secretary for International Negotiations, Ministry of International Relations, Argentine Foreign Office
By Tony Phillips

Nestor Stancanelli, lead member of the negotiation team for Argentina in the G-20, calls for integral reforms to the global financial system that unite stricter regulation with structural reforms in multilateral lending organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In an exclusive interview with the Americas Program, Stancanelli warns that the economic crisis stems from unsustainable consumption patterns and major gaps in wealth across nations. “These structural changes and changes in patterns of consumption and distribution of income means a lot of restructuring and a lot of pain, especially for the sectors that have benefited from the status quo. We will only see the benefits from this restructuring in the long-term. In the short-term, what has been done was unavoidable, because the alternative was economic collapse.

Tony Phillips is a researcher and journalist on trade and multinational finance with an emphasis on dictatorships and the WTO, and a translator and analyst for the Americas Program at www.americaspolicy.org. Much of Tony’s work is published at http://projectallende.org/.

See the article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6234

Related articles from the Americas Policy Program:
A New Financial Architecture for Latin America, Part 2
South American Trade and Currency Volatility
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6175

A New Financial Architecture for Latin America, Part 1
South American Nations Agree on Technical Rules for Bank of the South
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6157

G-20: Round Two
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6054

One Of reveals the shooting of an emergency medical worker on January 7th, during the period which Israel declared a ‘cease-fire’ period. The medics were subject to no less than 15 shots while they attempted to evacuate the body of a man already sniped by Israeli soldiers.

One Of poses the question: how would you feel if your loved one died because ambulances were prevented from reaching the wounded.

The 2009 theme of WHO’s World Health Day, 7 April, is “Save lives. Make hospitals safe in emergencies”. ‘One Of’ earned first place honours in Palestine’s short film competition based on the theme. talestotell attended the ceremonies.

talestotell.wordpress.com: April 7: It must have really happened

It came through the hospital wall

Article 18 of the Geneva Convention (1949) states that civilian hospitals may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.

[…]

I remember Dr B saying, as hundreds of civilians arrived for shelter, that maybe it would be like the Israeli seige of the Church of the Nativity in 2002 – I don’t think we had enough food for that many people for even a day.

I remember standing beside the hospital window, hearing yet another ear splitting crash, then seeing a piece of burning bomb hit us, as I was on the phone to my father, and saying to him resignedly, “Sorry, I will have to hang up now and find a fire extinguisher.” Fighting the phosphorous fire as it was burning Al Quds, the craziness of having to twice evacuate a hospital, and nightly working alongside terrified medics who had carried the bodies of their colleagues and expected to be the next dead, it just all seemed sickeningly logical at the time. Today, somehow, the films allowed me to take a step back, to look from outside, as you’ve been looking.

[Read the report]

8 July 2009

Jenny and Natalie, both British passport holders, and both long term human rights workers in the Gaza strip, are being prevented from leaving Gaza via the Rafah Crossing. Please take action on their behalf.

Jenny Linnell is a co-founder of the ISM Rafah group, and an original crew member of one of the “Free Gaza” boats. For the last year she has been accompanying Palestinians and documenting events in the Gaza strip, both before, during and after the war. You can see footage of her work with fishermen and farmers under fire at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDD8ANFgwtA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTUYivihoTE

Natalie, from Lebanon (but with a British passport) also entered Gaza via one of the Free Gaza boats and has been working as part of the International Solidarity movement within Gaza since November 2008. You can see her work at http://gaza08.blogspot.com/

Since the end of May Jenny has been trying to leave and return home via the border crossing at Rafah into Egypt. She keeps getting turned away, most recently under pretty extreme circumstances, as outlined below. Natalie also needs to leave Gaza in order to take up her place at a British University. The Egyptian Border Guards told both women that they were being refused exit because of their work with the Free Gaza boats. They were told that they would ‘never be let out’.

Natalie has written an account of their treatment, and their inhuman treatment of so many Palestinians at the Rafah crossing, in ‘The Gates to Hell, what Egyptian regime did to the Palestinians’.

For the sake of both women and other peace workers it is vital that this treatment is not allowed to continue unchallenged. Please help us get them back by ringing the British Foreign office and the Egyptian Embassy in London.

The Egyptian Embassy in London
phone 020 7499 3304/2401
Fax: +44 (0)20 7491 1542

The British Foreign Office
Middle East Desk
Tel: +44 (0)20 70088784
Email: jill.bayl@fco.gov.uk and trish.wi@fco.gov.uk

Or the Consular team: phone the Foreign office on +44 (0)2070081500 and ask to be put through to the Consular Assistance team, ( who are there to assist British travellers when abroad).

By DIANA JOHNSTONE

Paris.

Thousands of books drenched in cooking oil – that is the latest exploit of the Zionist fanatics who regularly attack property and people in Paris and get away with it.

In the early afternoon of Friday, July 3, five men, mostly masked, stormed into the “Resistances” bookstore located in a quiet residential neighborhood of the 17th arrondissement in northwest Paris. To the startled women working in the shop, as well as two customers, they announcing that they were from the Jewish Defense League and began ripping books off shelves and tables, dousing them heavily with cooking oil, and then smashing four computers before leaving rapidly in a waiting vehicle.

The bookstore is owned and operated by Olivia Zemor and Nicolas Shashahani, who are also the leaders of the very active militant group CAPJPO-EuroPalestine (CAPJPO stands for Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche Orient). In addition to a wide collection of books on the Middle East and other subjects, including fiction, the bookstore has a reading room and a lending library, gives courses in English and Arabic, and possesses a modest but well-attended auditorium where authors are invited to speak.

[Read the article]