MELBOURNE, Australia, Nov. 18, 2006
Protests Turn Violent At Finance Summit
Police Clash With Demonstrators At G-20 Meetings In Australia
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Protestors rush at a police blockade during the G20 finance summit in Melbourne, Australia, November 18, 2006. (CROCK/AFP/Getty)
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Photo Essay 2006 G-8 Summit Russia's president is hoping for success at his country's first chance to host the annual economic meeting.
Some 3,000 protesters marched on a downtown hotel where the Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers opened, but most of the violence appeared to center around a group of about 200 demonstrators dressed in white coveralls with red bandanas tied around their faces.
Police struck out with batons as protesters rushed the barrier in at least two places, and at one site overturned fences and broke through the initial cordon, according to Associated Press reporters who witnessed the incidents.
A number of officers were injured, but only one seriously. Two demonstrators were arrested, and more arrests were expected, Victoria state Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said. There were no reports of injured protesters.
"They threw missiles and rocks ... anything they could get their hands on they threw it at police and damaged property," she told reporters. "We have not had anything like this, any kind of violent demonstration in the last six years."
The unrest recalled the widespread violence at anti-globalization protests that marred the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle in 1999, and a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne the following year.
Protesters threw brown and red smoke grenades, shrouding the front line area in a pall, and in one place hit police with small stones, large plastic garbage bins and, occasionally, glass bottles. Police stood their ground, sometimes lashing out with batons.
Finance officials from 19 countries and the European Union, plus top officials of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are at the talks. Formed in 1999, the G-20 includes the Group of Seven advanced industrial countries and the European Union as well as China, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea and other major economies.
Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey fill out the group, which altogether represents about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of the world's trade and two-thirds of its population.
Reform of the IMF, rising interest rates, the Chinese and Japanese currency levels and efforts to economically isolate nuclear-armed North Korea also are likely to come up at the closed-door meetings.
Surging demand for oil and minerals from fast-growing economies China and India have benefited commodity powers such as Australia, while fanning concerns over the emergence of unstable supplies and market distortions.
De Rato told reporters Saturday that governments have no power to affect the value of major currencies and should leave that task to markets.
"The markets are the ones who fix the value of the most important currencies and governments won't be able to affect that," de Rato said.
On Friday, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt renewed Washington's call for China to move faster in reforming its currency, the yuan.
"We believe that the Chinese need to accelerate the movement of their exchange rate to reflect underlying market conditions," Kimmitt told reporters.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
How many of us aveage working guys actually admired the character Gordon Greko in Wallstreet? Greed is Good. But as the movie shows us what money does to people and humanity.
The problem with the G7 or G20 is that they leave humanity out of the mix. Remember as humanity we are devided into 3 distinct social groups, all with our own distinct tax group. The Rich, the Middle-Class and the Poor. I've often wondered where the dividing line is in putting your humanity into one of these classes. I do suppose it requires a dollar figure. It makes me wonder if this is what the G20 is doing. Seeing how the money flows down to the poor and how little of it they can get away with it?
Thank you for your support, and for your economic comments. Greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
The complete and utter destruction of itself due to greed and the combined stupity thereof!
The Amish will inherit the earth....!!!
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Interesting point of view, which I am sure will raise a few brows above eyes trained to squint at economic facts and figures, alone.
David Ricardo and his beliefs to the contrary, a Creator finds no joy in a self-annihilating system which reduces itself to a few (economic) indices for the bliss of an elite. What has changed, after millenia?
When the world continues to suffer massive and disruptive "market corrections" and the professionald livelihood and craft of billions is pawn to the profits of a few, we see only an infernal system. While goods may be more abundant, the power to purchase them does not increase commensurately-- the fatal flaw in the globalist rationale.
For the globalist to argue to Detroit that a Hundai is a better car, even if made abroad and more cheaply, begs the question when the city's unemployed auto assemblyline workers ever can afford a Hundai. How many years of flipping burgers are required to enjoy the premium efficiencies of a finely-tuned multi-national manufacturing and political elite? As Marie Antoinette might suggest, "Let them lease a Hundai!"
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CBS does a reasonably good job of presenting the establishment POV, but what a really good reporter should do is probe behind the official version of events. Otherwise, whether what goes on behind those closed-door meetings is really good for the world and the respective members of the G20, in particular, we shall never know.
Also, the article betrays some cracks on the official facade of a smoothly-running world economy. Although De Rato insisted market forces are an all-powerful panacea to economic problems, it is clear China does not share that view. Nor does the US, which is prepared to continue its campaign to force the PRC to change its currency valuation policy.
Clearly, Adam Smith is not honored among the very people using his name in vain. If that is the case, no wonder the poor and downtrodden continue to berate the powers-that-be in their air-conditioned towers with the only means at hand-- street demonstrations.
If we approve of street demonstrations for civil rights, how much different are the rights of economic opportunity?
Sunshine_2 said, "Maybe it would be better if you actually commented on the article Rather then Advertise and (sic) Alternative... It does not give you the right to be an advertiser of Fringe News Groups ... In my opinion you somehow think this is a FreeSpeach Section for your Voice of Disapproval."
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Actually, FeelFree does comment on the articles, but provides other points of view in a concise and helpful format.
Clearly, Sunshine_2, you do understand this is a "free speech and opinion section"-- else, why do you post here? The CBS is open to even differing viewpoints, as any blog should be, but given standard limits expressed in the CBS Rules of Engagement.
The last thing CBS intends is to prevent people from exchanging information and perspective, as the network continues its commendable leadership in audience interactives begun early this year.
Trading web links is not only perfectly legitimate but saves the rest of us page after page of detailed rant in which we may not be interested. It is the web equivalent of saying, "For those interested in further information, see..." Only the web would permit this, and it should be utilized to the full.
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Actually, FeelFree
Clearly, you do understand this is a "free speech and opinion section"-- as any blog should be, given standard limits expressed in the CBS Rules of Engagement. The last thing CBS intends is to prevent people from exchanging information and perspective, and trading web links is not only perfectly legitimate but saves the rest of us page after page of detailed rant in which we may not be interested. It is the web equivalent of saying, "For those interested in further information, see...". Only the web would permit this, and it should be utilized to the full.
And posting comments: is not the same thing as complaining ABOUT CBS News or notifying CBS News of a problem, there%u2019s a big difference.
Posted by Sunshine_2
If you like that site so much
why are you posting on this one ALL THE TIME?
Go there and stay there then you won't be so upset all the time.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
Here is one article about the G20 demonstrations that looks to be relatively comprehensive.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=10082&category_id=13
As a resource to learn more about the destructive policies of the IMF and the World Bank, I would like to recommend, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins.
www.johnperkins.org
It's like the battle for Lebanon. Did it matter than Israel was criticzed, of course not, but it did matter that they were beat on the ground hand-to-hand in deadly fighting. They didn't respect the pictures of dead children, but they respected force that killed their own. Sad but true. Epic struggles such as the struggle for human dignity versus the megalith of globalization are won in the last by force alone. Raw reality of human history.
Not sure how it will happen, but globalization must fail in the end because it doesn't express God's spirit, and the creation tends towards the expression of its unified spirit.
"For credible coverage of political demonstrations, I would like to recommend:"
Maybe it would be better if you actually commented on the article Rather then Advertise and Alternative. If you don't Like the coverage, and feel CBS News coverage is so bad, just use another source. It does not give you the right to be an adveritser of Fringe News Groups ... In a CBS Discussion Format. In my opinion you somehow think this is a FreeSpeach Section for your Voice of Disapproval.
And posting comments: is not the same thing as complaining ABOUT CBS News or notifying CBS News of a problem, there%u2019s a big difference.
- by feelfree1 November 18, 2006 5:31 PM EST
- CBS coverage of political demonstrations is about as pitiful and uninformed as it gets. For credible coverage of political demonstrations, I would like to recommend:
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