THE G-20 IN PITTSBURGH
by Tom Over 9-23-09
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On Tuesday, Sept 22, activists from Philadelphia, New York City, Pittsburgh and other cities held a mock funeral procession to demand better policies for addressing the AIDS pandemic, a day ahead of the arrival of delegates for the G-20.
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The approximately 50 participants in the New Orleans-style funeral march drew a mix of interest, irritation, and amusement from onlookers in the business district of downtown Pittsburgh.
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At the head of the funeral march where pallbearers carried a cardboard coffin, a man shouted into a microphone while someone else carried a portable amplifier, “when people with AIDS are under attack, what do we do ?” and marchers shouted in unison, “fight back!”
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Amidst the early afternoon bustle of an weekday, the demonstrators repeated this call-and-answer and similar chants as the funeral march made its way around the perimeter of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the site of the G-20 Summit later this week.
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Erica Goldberg works with ACT UP Philadelphia. She said global health is not on the agenda of the G-20 Summit.
“One of the things that some of the G-20 nations have promised us is funding for the global fund to fight, TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. This is all really important, especially if we want to meet the United Nations’ Millennium goal of eradicating these diseases by 2015. As of right now, this won’t be met. We have to hold our leaders accountable. They are the ones making decisions for the poorer countries,” Goldberg said.
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She commented on the timing of the demonstration. “We wanted this to be the first thing they (the G-20 delegates) see. They’re coming here tomorrow. We’re holding them accountable. This needs to be on the agenda.”
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She said AIDS activists chose Sept 22, two days before the official start of the G-20 Summit, and one day before the arrival of the delegates, so as to not have to compete with other protests. Also, she said the AIDS activists figured there would be less of a chance of conflict with police if they staged their protest earlier in the week.
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“We hope that this will hit the papers tomorrow, that it’s the first thing they see when they walk in, that they have this on their conscience and know we’re not going away,” Goldberg said. She urges people to contact legislators about supporting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
“President Obama, as much as I love him, went back on his promise to fulfill the funding,” Goldberg said.
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She commented on how drug companies factor into all of this. “ Medication does not need to be this expensive. They can definitely lower their prices. We have big drug interests lobbying to prevent AIDS medication from getting” to developing nations.
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Goldberg said debt cancellation for developing nations is a factor that comes into play.
“When you don’t cancel debts of nations and they have to pay back loans to the IMF and the World Bank, they won’t have the funds necessary for getting AIDS medication, or they might get the medication but can’t pay the health professional because of their debt.
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She said vested interested motivated by huge profits stand in the way of doing a better job of addressing tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. “We have the power, the ability, and the medication.”
World News
On February 8, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Washington on an official visit, aimed at working jointly with the United States to make “sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself”.
If such a statement was made soon after the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation of October 7, one may cognize its logic, based on the well-known, inherent bias of both Washington and Berlin towards Israel.
It seemed strange, if not out of context, when Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore”.
Feiglin’s comments were made on October 25, less than three weeks following the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the genocidal Israeli war which followed.
Despite the horrific war in Gaza and the unprecedented number of casualties, millions of Palestinians in the Middle East and around the world took a brief respite from their collective pain to watch their national football team make history in Doha.
The Palestinian team, also known as Fada’ii - the freedom fighter - scored a decisive win against Hong Kong on January 23. Even though the ‘Lions of Canaan’ finished in third place, following Iran and the UAE, they still managed to make it to the round of 16 of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time in history.
Europe stayed silent when Israel began pounding the besieged Gaza Strip with the kind of ferocity that could only lead to a genocide. In fact, Europe remained silent when the word ‘genocide’ quickly replaced the earlier reference to the ‘Israel-Hamas war’, starting on October 7.
Those familiar with Europe’s political discourse and action regarding Israel and Palestine, must already realize that most European governments have always been on the side of Israel.
However, if this is entirely true, what can we make of the latest comments by the Foreign Policy Chief of the European Union, Josep Borrell, when he seemed to lash out at Israel on January 23, accusing it of “seeding hate for generations”?
A famous quote by Franz Kafka says, “Every thing you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.”
The same principle, I believe, applies to any other powerful feeling, including resentment, hate, anger, even rage.
American officials should know this well as they continue to support Israel with billions of dollars of military and economic aid, and anything and everything that would allow Israel to continue with its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Arabs, the Muslims - in fact, the whole world - are watching, listening, reading and are getting angrier by the day, at the direct American role in facilitating the Gaza bloodbath.
The dramatic, earth-shattering events in Palestine starting on October 7 have taken many people by surprise. However, attentive observers are not.
Few expected that Palestinian fighters would be parachuting into southern Israel on October 7; that instead of capturing a single Israeli soldier - as done in 2006 - hundreds of Israelis, including many soldiers and civilians, would find themselves captive in besieged Gaza.
The reason behind the ‘surprise’, however, is the same reason that Israel is still reeling under collective shock, which is the tendency to pay close attention to political discourses and intelligence analyses of Israel and its supporters - while largely neglecting the Palestinian discourse.
For better comprehension, let us go back to the start.
The Spark
Please keep writing, keep sharing, keep acting, keep staying human. There
is hope and signs are all around us that the dawn is coming after this
darkest period. We shall overcome.
Very important Statement and call for action from the Palestine Institute
for Biodiversity and Sustainability and the Palestine Museum of Natural
History (Bethlehem University) on the Israeli destruction of
Palestinian natural and cultural heritage: The Palestine Institute for
Biodiversity and Sustainability and the Palestine Museum of Natural History
(Bethlehem University) having good long-term working relations with our
cultural and natural heritage institutions and landmarks situated in the
Gaza strip watched with horror as these same intuitions were targeted by
the Israeli apartheid and occupation army. Here are just selected examples
of recent destruction of cultural and and natural heritage and suggested
What is taking place in Gaza is meant for the history books: an epic tale of a small nation under a long, brutal siege for many years, facing one of the greatest military powers in the world. And yet, it refuses to be defeated.
Not even the legendary tenacity of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ characters can be compared to the heroism of Gazans, living over a tiny stretch of land while subsisting on the precipice of calamity, even long before the Israeli genocide.
But if Gaza has already been declared uninhabitable by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as early as 2020, how is it able to cope with everything that took place since then, particularly the grueling and unprecedented Israeli war, starting on October 7?
Gaza was among the main topics on the agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrived in the Middle East region on Wednesday, December 6.
Those unfamiliar with Gaza and its history are likely to always associate Gaza with destruction, rubble and Israeli genocide.
And they can hardly be blamed. On November 3, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) announced that 45 percent of Gaza’s housing units have been destroyed or damaged since the beginning of the Latest Israeli aggression on Gaza.
But the history of Gaza is also a history of great civilizations, as well as a history of revival, rebirth.