#g-20 summit

[pasparal]

BRICS heads of state holding hands ahead of the 2014 G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia Taken on November 15, 2014 Photographer: Roberto Stuckert Filho (Agência Brasil)

[yahoonewsphotos]

Riot police clash with G-20 protesters in Hamburg, Germany

Anti-globalization activists set dozens of cars ablaze and tried to block national delegations from entering the Group of 20 summit Friday as the meeting got underway in the German port city of Hamburg. Responding to a second day of protests, police ordered in several hundred more officers from across the country.

Hundreds of officers built moving lines in different parts of Hamburg and used water cannons to force away protesters from streets across the city. Some were physically moved for hundreds of meters (yards) from a protest sit-in in front of the first security checkpoint near the summit grounds.

Police later tweeted that all the world leaders attending the summit made it safely to the city’s convention center, where the event is taking place. None of the activists who took to the streets to protest globalization, economic inequality and what they see as inaction on climate change managed to push into the no-go zone police established around the gathering. (AP)

Photo credits: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images (4), Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters, Bodo Marks/dpa via AP,  Markus Schreiber/AP, Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images, Alexander Koerner/Getty Images

See more photos of G-20 protests and our other slideshows on Yahoo News.

[npr]

Amid Gathering Of World Leaders, Trump's Meeting With Putin Stands Out

President Trump is scheduled to have a face-to-face with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit. Trump has said he'd like closer ties between the countries, but Russia is under fire for election meddling.

[deadpresidents]

Trump, Putin to hold bilateral meeting

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will sit down for an official bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg on Friday rather than an informal pull-aside meeting.

An “official bilateral meeting” in which Russian President Vladimir Putin gives President Trump his 6-month evaluation and decides whether or not he gets a raise.

[birdcagesanddemons]

Well, I will probably get attacked for this but to me the people who set cars on fire and throw rocks at the people in Hamburg are terrorists. They are left wing extremists who aren’t better than any other extremist who injures people and destroys property to apparently bring a point across and scare others. If this is your idea of activism you can fuck off and polish your ego elsewhere. (Not saying I agree with the situation there as a whole or with how everybody has been treated but there is simply no reason to act the way these people do...) 

[kulampara]

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/on-the-scarlet-letters/

On The Scarlet Letters

Language, which is vital to humankind, can take us down many paths some of which lead to self-delusion.  I learned this lesson in a philosophy class years ago in college. The professor opened the session with a simple question.  “Who can define the word chair for me?”  Eager to excel, I spoke first.  “A chair is something to sit on.” The professor’s eyes narrowed to shards of glass when he heard me.  “So,  if you sit on a wall, it becomes a chair?” Several more minutes into the exchange– my classmates’ expressions bright with glee as the professor tied my arguments into knots–I gained a respect for language.  The lesson is one I later imparted to my students.  I like to think many of them remember the day when I returned their first essays to them, each page dripping with red ink as if paper could bleed.  As a writer, I rejoice in the richness of words but am ever mindful of their capacity to mislead. Take buckle, for example.  Does it describe an effort to secure an object? Or does it mean the item has collapsed?  Diplomacy thrives on language ambiguity. Representatives at the recent G-20 summit came away from their gathering wreathed in smiles.  They had drafted a document about the war in Ukraine to which Russia and the West could agree. Success came at a price, however.  Vacuous wording had rendered the text as meaningless as a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi. Similarly, language plays a critical role in the abortion debate, starting with definitions. Is a fertilized ovum an egg or a child? Are anti-abortion states hostile to women or are they places of sanctuary for the unborn?    (“Comstocked.” Soshanna Ehrlich, MS, Fall, 2023, pg. 28.)    Rather than wrangle over meaning, some anti-abortionists have recently shifted ground.  The focus is no longer on eggs but on morality.  Several states have chosen to enforce the Comstock law, a prohibition passed in 1873 and still on the nation’s books.  (Ibid, pg. 30.)  The legislation doesn’t speak to abortion, but it does ban the shipment or receipt of any abortion-related equipment, which would affect Mifepristone, a drug commonly used to end pregnancies. (Ibid, pg. 31)   This shift in strategy includes a shift in language which is manipulative. People may differ on abortion rights, but few are willing to cheer for obscenity. Never mind that morality laws fall heaviest upon women. Hester Prynne, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, wears the scarlet letter A for adultery instead of the Reverend who is the illegitimate child’s father.  That same bias exists today. Says one outraged moralist, if women want reproductive control over their bodies, they can refrain from having sex.  (Ibid, pg. 29.) Polonius, the king’s advisor in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a man skilled at dissembling with words.  Even so, his advice to his son is exemplary. To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou cannot play false with any man.  Delivered for laughs, the line is among literature’s most scathing examples of hypocrisy. His spirit lives today in Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who makes repeated demands of her colleagues for etiquette and respect.  Her insistence curdles the mind for it comes from a woman who shouted liar during Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address.  It comes from a woman who would have us believe treason is an act of patriotism.   Whether we use words to serve truth or to deceive is a matter of personal decision. Should we choose the latter, hiding our intentions in verbal trickery, we will not escape the consequence of that choice.  In our innermost minds, the deception will haunt us because it will serve as a mirror to reflect our true natures.