Make the G8 History Blog

Jubilee South: ‘debt’ cancellation as neoliberal bribery

Jubilee South (Africa), a network of debt campaigns from across the continent, has issued a statement condemning the use of debt by G7 finance ministers as a weapon to secure free market reforms. It points out that "in order to qualify for debt cancellation eligible countries would have had to have gone through what is known as the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative’s completion point, which involves the implementation of stringent free market reforms such as budget cuts, financial and trade liberalisation, privatisation and other reforms." Read the full statement here

Edinburgh accommodation update

The Dissent! Edinburgh Accommodation Group has just released this urgent and important statement about the accommodation situation for protesters coming to Edinburgh. In short, it details how due to a variety of factors, the only legal mass accommodation secured is in assocation with the council on Hunter’s Hall Park, surrounding the Jack Kane Centre in the Niddrie estate. The group has reluctantly decided to endorse this but has reservations about a number of issues and wants to alert activists to them as well as encourage people to help create a Dissent! space within the accommodation.

SpinWalk in Edinburgh announced

SpinWatch and Corporate Watch have just announced they will be putting on a guided tour of corporate Scotland in Edinburgh on Friday 1 July from 11am to 3.30pm to explore the relationship between the G8, Scotland PLC and corporate globalisation. 'SpinWalk' will visit those oil companies, banks and businesses profiteering from privatisation and PPP in Global South countries, as well as the key lobbying consultancies and PR outfits who help boost corporate power and wealth. Starting at the Usher Hall, the walk will end at the Scottish Parliament "around which the corporate lobbyists swarm to ensure that Jack McConnell and his cronies are kept sweet". Contact [email protected] to reserve a place.

Red Pepper and the Sunday Telegraph - an unholy alliance?

Stuart Hodkinson. Here's one for you. Last week, as Red Pepper's heroic volunteer press officer Alex went through the monthly motions of pestering the grandees of Britain's media to read our latest collection of brilliant articles, something rather strange happened: the press started to ring him! And not just any old newspaper hacks, oh no - we were courted and then chased by none other than the scourge of the radical left itself, the Sunday Torygraph.

Murky world of Make Poverty History uncovered

Make Poverty History is being trumpeted in the British media as an unprecedented success story for development campaigners. On paper it certainly looks impressive with over 460 trade unions, charities, NGOs and a stellar-cast of celebrities. However, Red Pepper can now exclusively reveal that as the G8 summit approaches, leading members are briefing against each other to the press while many African and other Southern social movements are angered at the silencing of their voices and political demands by Oxfam, Richard Curtis, Geldof and co. SH

Read the full story here:

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/global/x-jul05-hodkinson.htm

Focus calls for 'rainbow of resistance' T-shirt bloc on 2 July

by Nicola Bullard, Focus on the Global South. We hope that hundreds of thousands of people fill the streets of Edinburgh on 2 July for the "Make Poverty History" rally. We know that most of you will be wearing white. But we hope that 100,000 of you will wear red – one for every man, woman and child killed in the bloody occupation of Iraq – and to denounce those responsible for the war, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, and their willing accomplices Silvio Berlusconi and Jurichiro Koizumi.

Girl in a Cafe my arse. This was Imperialism in a Hotel

Stuart Hodkinson. For those unfortunate enough to have just sat through Richard Curtis's (a.k.a. 'Bob with a brain') ridiculous BBC TV film, The Girl in the Cafe, about a pretend G8 summit in a Reykjavik hotel, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Yes, you really did just watch a jingoistic political broadcast on behalf of New Labour. Yes, she really did interrupt the PM's speech at the G8 dinner by clicking her fingers every 3 seconds to mark a child dying of extreme poverty in Africa. And no, you really didn't learn a single thing about the causes of that poverty, the culpability of the present UK government and the destructive role of the G8 in the world.