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
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A U.S. retired defense contractor with wartime
experience in Iraq and Afghanistan was on the run April 19 with his
bitcoin-savvy girlfriend, fearing Bangkok's military government will
execute them for living on a floating platform off Thailand's Phuket
island.
"The Bangkok Post reported that Nadia and I were being accused of
breaking a Thai law that carries a life sentence or the death
penalty," Chad Elwartowski said in an interview conducted online.
"What is reported in the press in Thailand is usually what the
military wants reported. Even though the allegations are far off base,
we have to take seriously their intention to kill us."
The Thai navy reportedly demolished their floating residential pod
"without following any legal process," Mr. Elwartowski said.
"We have no reason to believe we would face any sort of fair trial."
He denied violating Thai laws including its territorial rights in the
Andaman Sea or "commercially extracting natural resources."
He offered to donate the anchored platform -- if it has not been
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Coup-leader Prayuth Chan-ocha expects his
impressive wins in elections on March 24 will extend his prime
ministry, but anti-junta politicians are struggling to form a
coalition strong enough to challenge him.
Voting results were marred by irregularities and delays but both sides
appeared to win large competing blocks of seats in the House of
Representatives elections.
Attention was now on smaller parties to see which side they would support.
The most stunning victory by a smaller party was Thanathorn
Juangroongruangkit's rebellious Future Forward.
They promised to punish future coup leaders, end army conscription,
slash the military's budget and rewrite Prime Minister Prayuth's 2017
constitution.
Mr. Thanathorn is a 40-year-old scion of a wealthy family
manufacturing automobile parts, and attracted most of his support from
younger voters.
They were fed up with their parents' inability to stop Thailand's
U.S.-trained army from launching a dozen coups since World War II in a
bloody cycle of putsches and pro-democracy protests.
election on March 24 pits pro-democracy "scum of the earth" against
the military government's "dictator" prime minister, but a party
demanding recreational marijuana may decide whose coalition governs.
The polarizing, confrontational changes in this Buddhist-majority,
U.S. ally come when there is no American ambassador assigned to
Thailand.
President Trump boosted Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha with an 2017
White House visit, even though the former army chief's 2014 coup
enforced suffocating military rule.
In February, the Pentagon held its annual multinational Cobra Gold
military exercise in Thailand, after the Obama administration
curtailed assistance because of Mr. Prayuth's putsch.
Neighboring China meanwhile strengthened economic, military and
cultural links and immediately supported Mr. Prayuth after he ousted a
democratically elected government.
The election however focuses entirely on the junta versus
pro-democracy candidates.
The humiliation of United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Warsaw last week was a good thing. The ancient Greeks, exercising their demonstrated ability to synthesize defining characteristics, had a word for it: hubris. Hubris is when one develops an extreme and unreasonable feeling of confidence in a certain course of action that inevitably leads to one’s downfall when that conceit proves to be based on false principles.
Pompeo was in Warsaw for a “summit” arranged by the US State Department in partnership with the Polish government to discuss with representatives of sixty nations what to do about the fractious situation in the Middle East. In advance, he promised that the meeting would "deliver really good outcomes." The gathering was initially conceived as a “war against Iran” precursor, intended to pull together a coalition against the Persians, but when it became clear that many of the potential participants would balk at such a designation, it assumed a broader agenda concerning “Peace and Security in the Middle East.”
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's junta-appointed Election Commission
disqualified a princess from running for prime minister in next
month's polls, after her surprise candidacy displeased her powerful
brother King Maha Vajiralongkorn and dangerously divided this country.
"All members of the royal family must abide by the king's principle of
staying above politics, maintaining political impartiality, and they
cannot take up political office," the commission said February 11.
The coup-installed military government meanwhile was investigating an
allegedly forged official document which appeared on social media
claiming Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha fired Army Chief Gen. Apirat
Kongsompong and other armed forces officers.
"Rumors. We are investigating. Fake news," Mr. Prayuth told reporters
February 11, referring to the alleged document which sparked Twitter
to trend #coup February 10 night.
Tanks rumbling through Lopburi city's streets tried to calm the public
by pasting pieces of paper saying "For Training" on the tanks' metal
sides.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Gene editing tools such as CRISPR are helping
researchers who hope to cure cancer and other problems involving DNA,
but "making embryos in a dish" is a much easier way to check for
mutations before implanting an embryo in a mother's uterus, according
to an American Cancer Society professor.
"Gene editing, or CRISPR, is enormously helpful for us at the research
level," said Mary-Clare King, American Cancer Society professor of
Genome Sciences and Medicine at Seattle's University of Washington.
"We work with CRISPR using cells in plates. We alter the cells and we
see what works, and what doesn't, by way of treating the cells that
we've altered. I think of it as a research tool," Ms. King said in an
interview on February 1.
"I don't think of it as a tool that will ever be deployed for actually
correcting these kinds of cells, because there are a lot of easier
ways to do it."
Ms. King was visiting Bangkok to receive Thailand's annual Prince
Mahidol Award along with three other recipients for their work in
medicine and public health.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The death in South Korea of a World War II sex
slave "comfort woman" has reopened demands for Tokyo to pay more
reparations for allowing its troops to rape thousands of imprisoned
Asian women.
The death from cancer of 92-year-old Kim Bok-dong on January 28
silenced a woman who, for almost 30 years, led weekly protests for
more compensation in front of the Japanese Embassy's wartime location
in Seoul.
The Japan's military enslaved Ms. Kim and thousands of other Asian
females as "comfort women" who were forced to provide sexual services
to Japanese troops during the war.
Up to 200,000 females, most of them teenagers, were raped while
imprisoned by Japan's military in China, Korea, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, according to
London-based Amnesty International.
In 2005, the human rights organization brought Lee Yong Soo and
another so-called "comfort woman" here to Bangkok during the
publication of Amnesty International's report titled, "Justice for
Survivors of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery System".
BANGKOK, Thailand -- After nearly five years in power, Thailand's
coup-installed military regime will allow nationwide elections on
March 24 for a House of Representatives and prime minister. But
analysts and activists warn instability will torment whoever wins.
Machiavellian, moody and often angry, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha
orchestrated a controversial post-coup constitution which enables him
to extend his prime ministry either through the ballot box or as an
unelected leader.
Whichever route he chooses, Mr. Prayuth would need support from 376
House and Senate members out of a total 750.
Mr. Prayuth knows his junta-appointed 250-seat Senate is virtually
guaranteed to boost him. So he needs only 126 pro-Prayuth politicians
among the 500 elected House members to reach a combined 376.
Unfortunately for an opposition candidate to become prime minister,
several parties would likely need to form a coalition because they
need to collect all 376 seats solely in the House, while the appointed
Senate is expected to be hostile.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's U.S.-trained military, unable to win
its 15-year-long war against Muslim Malay-Thai guerrillas, announced
it is considering "autonomy or special administrative arrangements" in
the south where insurgents staged fresh assaults, adding to the 7,000
people killed on all sides.
"I do not demand a cease-fire first before the dialogue," said Gen.
Udomchai Thamsarorat, head of the National Security Council's Peace
Dialogue Panel.
"Autonomy or special administrative arrangements, yes we can talk and
we can compare it, or we can map it out if we believe the [Thai] prime
minister's instruction about decentralization for people to feel
comfortable under the government," Gen. Udomchai said describing a
compromise that Bangkok earlier avoided.
Academics and researchers suggested autonomy should allow southern
Muslims to run their communities including school curriculums, the
election of governors, wider use of Malay language instead of Thai,
family legal decisions, and other local issues.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A jailed Belarusian "huntress girl" and her
Russian lover, who together claimed to have incriminating audio of
Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort colluding with
Russians about America's election, were found guilty January 15 of sex
crimes and will be deported.
After the couple's arrest in February 2018 near Bangkok, Anastasia
Vashukevich -- who calls herself Nastya Rybka -- said she and her
"master" Alexander Kirillov secretly recorded the scandalous audio
when she was Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska's "mistress" during
2016 and 2017.
Thai authorities jailed the couple for conducting a week-long seminar
offering sleazy seduction techniques to foreign men and women who paid
$700 each.
After being busted Pattaya, Thailand's infamously hedonistic beach
resort, Ms. Vashukevich posted a video online while inside a prison
vehicle, pleading with "friends, American press" for help.
She claimed the couple secretly made recordings about "Manafort and
Trump and all that buzz around the U.S. elections."