"Make Poverty History": Demonstration, Edinburgh, Saturday, 2 July
29 June 2005
As the leaders of the world's richest countries gather in Scotland for the G8 Summit, join tens of thousands of others in Edinburgh on 2nd July demanding trade justice, debt cancellation, and more and better aid for the world's poorest countries.
This promises to be the largest demonstration in the history of the Scotland. A diverse group of Churches, NGOs, Trade Unions, environmentalists, and ordinary citizens will march to end poverty in the UK and around the world.
Here's a few reasons for you to join the march.
* A few billionaires own more wealth than half the world.
* Three billion people live on less income together than the world's richest 300.
* Thirty thousand children die every day from poverty related illnesses.
* In Scotland one in three children are born into poverty-income level households, while 25 per cent of senior citizens live below the officially defined poverty line.
The G8 Alternative Summit
One of the most senior advisers to the radical President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, will be a keynote speaker at the G8 Alternatives Summit in Edinburgh on Sunday, July 3rd.
Maximilien Arvelaiz, Director of International Relations, is one of President Chavez's principal advisers in the area of foreign relations and is the main coordinator of his international agenda. He played a key role in coordinating President Chavez's recent state visit to India and his trips to the last two Porto Allegra World Social Forums (2003 and 2005).
The G8 Alternatives Summit, which will take place in the Usher Hall, the Queens Hall and Edinburgh University, will bring together leading human rights campaigners, political activists and environmental thinkers from all parts of the world to engage in an ideological battle with the policies and practices of the G8 leaders at the Summit in Gleneagles.
More than 5,000 people are expected to attend 8 huge plenaries on topics such as the future of Africa, climate change, and globalisation and privatisation as well as more than 50 workshops and seminars on topics ranging from the Campaign against Coca-Cola and the experience of the Chavez Government in Venezuela to the implications of the ‘No’ vote in the French referendum.
Speaking at the Summit alongside Mr. Arvelaiz will be figures such as Ken Wiwa, son of the murdered Nigerian novelist Ken Saro-Wiwa; Moazzam Begg, former prisoner at Guantanamo Bay; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Willie Madisha, president of COSATU South African trade union federation, Heidi Giuliani, whose son Carlo was murdered at Genoa G8 protests; Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector; Bianca Jagger; and Bob Crow of the RMT union in Britain.
The Summit will show that the anti-G8 movement has coherent alternatives to the policies of Blair, Bush and Berlusconi which have devastated our planet, fueled illegal and unjust wars in Iraq and elsewhere and are directly responsible for the deaths of 30,000 African children every day.
Info Sources
www.makepovertyhistory.org
www.g8alternatives.org.uk
www.stopwar.org.uk
