Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Anti-War Group's Pittsburgh G-20 'Tent City' Up And Running
VIDEO: G-20 'Tent City' Built
September 21, 2009
- September 17, 2009: Fed Judge Rules On G-20 Protesters' Suit, 'Tent City' OK
Sunday, September 20, 2009
RawStory.com | Protesters make final G20 plans as Pittsburgh digs in
Protesters say they plan to air their opposition to “the undemocratic way in which the G20 operates and the decisions the group makes, which affect the more than six billion inhabitants of this planet.”
World leaders gather in this once rough-and-tumble US steel town on Thursday and Friday, and while most of the protests are expected to be peaceful, 29-year-old mayor Luke Ravenstahl is taking no chances.
He wants Pittsburgh to show off its new clothes. Once known for smog and smelters, the southwest Pennsylvania city on the Ohio river has undergone a rebirth to emerge as a haven for green business and young professionals.
The fear in the minds of residents, officials and security forces is that violent demonstrations such as those seen in 1999 in Seattle — where protesters and riot police faced off for days, disrupting a meeting of the World Trade Organization — will mar this week’s G20 summit.
“I hope they’ll keep the protesters under control so Seattle doesn’t repeat itself,” said resident Nancy Provil.
Ravenstahl has said protesters will be allowed to exercise their constitutional freedom of speech and assembly “within sight and sound” of the summit venue.
It turns out this will be in a strictly delineated area outside of the downtown cultural area where the likes of US President Barack Obama and China’s Hu Jintao will be sitting down with other world leaders.
Ravenstahl has also called in 4,000 highly trained federal police officers to back up local security forces during the summit.
“We know that there will be some individuals who will seek to do harm to our city,” said Pittsburgh director of public safety Michael Huss.
The bill for ensuring security during the summit is expected to be in the region of 18 million dollars, but the two-day meeting of the world’s top developing and developed nations is likely to bring more than that into the city’s coffers.
While the authorities were busy gearing up for the summit, the protesters were, too.
The Pittsburgh Organizing Group held a “Mass Action 101″ workshop for students last week, and will conduct a similar training session on Sunday.
“It’s less about advocating doing one thing or another and more of ‘how-to’ participate in a mobilization,” Patrick Young of POG, an anarchist group, told AFP.
“These are questions you want to ask yourself about what you want to participate in and where you want to put yourself and what kind of preparations you want to make before coming to a major demonstration.”
Activist groups around Pittsburgh have been trying to organize housing for the thousands of demonstrators from around the world who are expected to stream into the city for the summit.
The Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project (PGRP) has created accounts on the micro-blogging platform Twitter and a website where activists can find information on everything from where to get a meal to how many people have been arrested.
At least four major marches and rallies have been scheduled in Pittsburgh in the build-up to and during the summit. The first is a “March for Jobs” on Sunday, which is expected to draw several thousand people.
On the eve of the summit on Wednesday, workers and environmentalist movements will be holding a concert, which 10,000 people are expected to attend, according to Young.
The following day around 1,000 people are expected to march towards the summit venue in a protest organized by the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project (PGRP).
“They have not applied for a permit, nor have they pre-emptively been offered one,” said Young.
And on Friday, as the summit winds down, protesters have been called to take part in the main event: a mass march on “institutions that pepper the landscape where the G-20’s worldview manifests… the places that symbolize the kind of world the G-20 works to protect and sustain,” according to the PGRP website.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Philly.com | Activists gather in Pittsburgh before G-20 summit
PITTSBURGH - About 100 activists and community leaders of various stripes have gathered in Pittsburgh as part of a People's Summit being held in response to next week's Group of 20 meeting.
The gathering Saturday kicks off three days of speeches and workshops on topics including universal health care and an end to war.
Democratic state Sen. Jim Ferlo of Pittsburgh railed against globalization, what activists are calling the myth of free market economics and health care as a "basic human civil right."
Ferlo urged those planning to take part in the city's mass protests to be peaceful. He also urged those in attendance Saturday to "take to the streets" later in the week.
The gathering in Pittsburgh's Oakland section will run throughout the day and resume Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Oh Bummer | Join us at the G20 in Pittsburgh to say "Hands Off Iran ...
G20 - March to Say:
Jobs NOT War! Hands OFF Iran!
March for Jobs - Sunday, Sept. 20
Tent City - Sept. 20 - 25
RELATED:
Stop War on Iran
http://www.stopwaroniran.org/
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Six Groups Demand Pittsburg G-20 Protest Permits
Teresa Heinz speaks about hosting G-20 spouses
FOX CHAPEL, Pa. - Philanthropist Teresa Heinz says she hopes the spouses of the world's top economic leaders can relax when first lady Michelle Obama hosts a dinner for them at Heinz's family farm near Pittsburgh.
Heinz, the wife of Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, spoke Monday about the dinner with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Heinz says she hopes the Sept. 24 dinner at her farm in nearby Fox Chapel will be a nice respite after the economic leaders' spouses spend a week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Heinz says she welcomes the thousands of protesters expected outside the summit and hopes their message will be heard, as long as it's not violent. Heinz says, "I just pray they won't be angry."
Monday, September 14, 2009
BailOutPeople.org | A Global Week of Solidarity with the Unemployed September 20 - 25 (During the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh)
A Global Week of Solidarity with the Unemployed September 20 - 25 (During the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh) Yes to Jobs & Human Needs; No to War & Wall Street Greed
- Sunday, September 20 - Rally & March for a Real Jobs Program
- Building a Tent City in Pittsburgh for the Unemployed & Supporters
the weekend before the G-20 Summit- Organizing Caravans of Unemployed People and Supporters to Converge on Pittsburgh during the week of September 19-26
- Marches, Protests and Events Before and During the G20 Summit addressing demands such as: Bring the Troops Home from Iraq & Afghanistan Now! & Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, World-Renown Political Prisoner, Journalist, Activist and 'Voice of the Voiceless!"
Friday, September 4, 2009
RussiaToday.com | “World leaders can catch swine flu at summits in US”
And with two major international conferences scheduled in the US in the near future, many think that it could be the perfect time and place for the swine flu to hit again.
“If they are taking some precautions, they are certainly not advertising them,” investigative journalist Wayne Madsen told RT. “We’ve got almost 200 leaders gathering in New York for the UN General Assembly on September 23 and later that week at least 20 of them will be going to Pittsburgh for the G20 summit. So if they don’t get the flu in New York, there’s a good chance that they’ll get it in Pittsburgh.”
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
euobserver.com | EU to hold special summit on financial reform
