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 defrocked Buddhist monk, extradited from the U.S., received a 114-year prison sentence for fraud and money laundering while police raided some of Thailand's most important Buddhist temples, jailing monks and officials allegedly involved in a separate case of money laundering and kickbacks totaling $10 million.
Investigators are now hunting suspects in that $10 million case who reportedly fled to the U.S., England, Germany and elsewhere.
"This is the purge of a lifetime. Never have there been such high-profile arrests and so many prominent monks falling from grace," said Yale-educated constitutional law scholar Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang.
Thailand's biggest-ever investigation and crackdown against corruption among officials and senior orange-robed Buddhist monks comes amid widespread public dismay about some monks' behavior and lavish lifestyles.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Several people died, hundreds were missing and
6,600 left homeless Tuesday (July 24) after a partially constructed
dam collapsed in southern Laos, dumping more than 1 billion gallons (5
billion liters) of churning water onto villages below, official
reports from the communist country said.
The collapse of the partially constructed hydroelectric dam on Monday
(July 23) night in Attapeu province was described as an accident
caused by heavy rain.
The 1 billion gallons (5 billion liters) of water which roared out
equals 2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to one
report.
"The incident was caused by a continuous rainstorm which caused a high
volume of water to flow into the project's reservoir," the dam's
Thailand-based Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding reportedly
said in an English-language statement.
Rainwater "fractured" the "Saddle Dam D" and "leaked to the downstream
area," it said.
The dam's other investors include South Korea's Korea Western Power
and the Laos government's Lao Holding State Enterprise.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) search and rescue team and Thai Navy SEALs were unable on June 28 to find 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach in a dark, monsoon-flooded cave in northern Thailand after they disappeared in its six-mile (10-kilometer) maze of stalactites more than five days ago.
A British rescue team also joined in the search, supporting nearly 1,000 Thai military and civilian personnel, but incessant rain has flooded the cave so deeply that scuba divers found it difficult to swim through narrow, jagged passageways.
The tragedy at the cave has become a national fixation with non-stop television coverage on the plight of the 13 missing people, the rising flood waters inside the cave, the inability of scuba divers to wedge themselves through twisted rock formations, and other hazards.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S.-trained military's coup-installed government has begun its fifth year in power confronting pro-election activists in the streets, a troubled economy, and widespread cynicism over plans to dominate this Buddhist-majority country after polls next February.
Fifteen protest leaders, who demand elections this year, were charged with sedition and other serious crimes on May 24 after leading hundreds of activists who were stopped while trying to march to the prime minister's office on May 22.
"We have tried everything, but in the end, we might not be able to bring change and a return to democracy," said Rangsiman Rome, one of the arrested leaders who reluctantly called off their "People Who Want Elections" march after hours of confrontation in the street.
Some had mocked Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha -- who led the May 22, 2014 coup when he was army chief -- by wearing face masks portraying him as a long-nosed Pinocchio.
By David Swanson
Suzy Hansen’s book Notes on a Foreign Country is the diary of someone going through the process of gaining the world by losing their religion, the religion of U.S. Exceptionalism. She begins as an ordinary U.S. resident, not believing anything that you would find unusual, but assuming all the certifiably insane things you assume are not even questionable:
BANGKOK, Thailand -- North Korea's Kim Jong Un learned from Saddam
Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi that nuclear weapons protect his survival,
and will disarm only if President Trump withdraws American forces and
ends the U.S.-South Korea defense treaty, said James Trottier who led
diplomatic efforts in Pyongyang.
North Korea agreed to "site closure, & no more testing!" Mr. Trump
tweeted on April 23 after Pyongyang announced on April 21 it would
halt developing and testing nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang however made no mention of dismantling thermonuclear
warheads and developmental ICBMs it supposedly possesses.
"North Korea views its nuclear capacity as a deterrent, not as a means
to launch a suicidal strike resulting in their total destruction. The
North Koreans are not jihadists seeking some afterlife," Mr. Trottier
said.
"For Kim, basically nuclear weapons are key to his survival. He's
learned the lessons of Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi -- what
happens when WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] are bargained away."
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's coup-installed Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwon will be in Washington from April 22-27 to meet Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis, boosting the junta despite demands for elections, human rights, democracy and Mr. Prawit's resignation for alleged corruption.
"The U.S. needs to counter China's increasing rise in interests and influence in Thailand, and in Southeast Asia by extension, and deepening already deep military-to-military relations is one way to do that," Benjamin Zawacki said in an interview, describing retired army general Prawit's visit.
"Thailand's government is -- as all Thai governments have been since the turn of the century -- pro-Beijing. And until Trump came to power, it was anti-Washington as well," said Bangkok-based Mr. Zawacki, author of a new book titled, "Thailand: Shifting Ground Between the U.S. and a Rising China."
Thailand publicly says it wants good relations with all nations, and is not leaning toward China to the detriment of the U.S.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A jailed Belorussian woman who claims to have audio of Russians and Americans colluding with President Trump's election, boasted that she is a trained "huntress" who secretly recorded her "seduction" of wealthy "victims" while lying, faking love and using kinky sex.
While in a Bangkok jail, Anastasia Vashukevich told reporters she and her Russian "master" Alexander Kirillov secretly recorded 16 hours of audio when she was Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska's "mistress" in 2016-2017.
She claims her secret audio included Deripaska's alleged meetings in person and collusion with Americans and Russians meddling in the US election.
Graphic descriptions of the elaborate sexual and surveillance strategies used by Vashukevich and Kirillov appear in her lightly fictionalized, Russian-language instruction book titled, "Who Wants to Seduce a Billionaire."
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. government's National Human Genome
Research Institute (NHGRI) is studying if every American baby should
undergo extensive DNA sequencing and analysis at birth, while China
and other countries are more advanced toward that goal despite reports
of human rights violations.
DNA, the double helix of deoxyribonucleic acid, can reveal a
person's physical and psychiatric health, identity, relatives and
other details.
But databases of people's DNA could enable governments, police,
hackers, corporations, forgers and others to abuse the information.
Sequencing or identifying details of DNA could also be used to
create bioweapons to kill ethnic groups or individuals.
"I do know that if you look in the last 15 years, the investment in
genomics in particular have been more substantial in countries like
China, South Korea, Singapore, and even places like Brazil," NHGRI
Director Eric D. Green said in an interview.
"Support for biomedical research in the United States has not
BANGKOK, Thailand -- U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine
Corps Gen. Joe Dunford has arrived in Bangkok after visiting
Australia, emphasizing the U.S. is "not a declining power" and will
improve military relations with Thailand's armed forces which seized
control in a 2014 coup.
He met on February 7 Thailand's coup-installed Prime Minister
Prayuth Chan-ocha, Gen. Dunford's counterpart Armed Forces Supreme
Commander Gen. Thanchaiyan Srisuwan, and Defense Minister Prawit
Wongsuwon.
Mr. Prawit is currently under investigation by the junta's National
Anti-Corruption Commission for possession of up to 25 expensive
wristwatches worth $1.24 million but is a lifetime colleague of the
prime minister and not expected to suffer punishment.
He denied wrongdoing, offered to resign, and said the timepieces
were "loaned" to him by friends, including a wealthy man who died one
year ago.
Critics did not believe that explanation and said even if it were
true, expensive loans should be illegal because it could result in a