G8ski

The G8 in St. Petersburg has just finished with very little press attention to the summit or the mass protests against it.

Many were worried that the various protests, and counter-conference, that took place in Russia would be repressed rather badly - and it looks like this has turned out to be been substantially true.

Medics taste better details people being tried and convicted in closed courts without representation on the day of their arrest.

Andy T wrote this statement that got handed out in Cambridge on Sunday under the "Eat the rich - making life taste better" flag (I was too delicate to attend because of RAN). Andy mentions how the relatives of activists have been threatened by the Russian authorities

Russian Indymedia makes it clear how large scale the arrests were during the protests against the G8 and is backed up by reports from Fox News here, and here, The St Petersburg Times here, (which seems quite happy about people being arrested for being on "unsanctioned" protests), Gulf Times (Qatar) here, The Times here

In Mali there was a People's Forum http://www.forumdespeuples.org/ (in French) as a counter weight to the G8 - if anyone reads French reasonably well they might like to summarise what the site says... (there was also a pre-conference counter summit in Moscow which suffered considerable state disruption).

The protests were certainly smaller than some previous years, although this is hardly surprising given where it is - but the political character was thankfully free of the NGO / neo-liberal politician / rock star alliance that we had to put up with last year.

What's been interesting is how little reporting of the repression there has been when the authorities were actually targetting reporters - although the crisis in the Middle East probably contributed to its low profile.

One last point: The G8 leaders were joined on the last day by the leaders from six 'developing nations' Brazil, India, China, Mexico and South Africa.

Just how 'developing' are these countries? China is the fourth biggest economy in the world, Brazil the ninth, India the twelfth and Mexico has a higher GDP than Russia... I think in some way Brazil et al are meant to be representing the ' world's poor' yet these governments oversee some of the greatest inequality in the world - as a PR exercise its slightly weak - no?