Washington Anti-Globalisation Protests To Be Peaceful
World Bank News Roundup.
Anti-globalization protesters are hoping to attract tens of thousands to rally peacefully against the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington next month, but some are expecting clashes with police, Reuters reports. Unlike earlier protests-in Genoa last month, in Washington last year, and at the WTO talks in Seattle in December of 1999-organizers hope their latest onslaught against globalization can be peaceful. "We expect a series of legal permitted rallies and a few carefully planned actions that include nonviolent civil disobedience," David Levy of the Mobilization for Global Justice, is quoted as saying.
The IMF and the World Bank have moved a planned series of seminars from a Woodley Park Hotel to their downtown campus, hoping to make the protests easier for police to contain, notes the story. But while organizers are hoping for peaceful events, one member of a group that advocates the defacing of property, the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, said he would not be surprised if there were clashes with police.
The news comes as the Financial Times reports (p.2) that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday defended his call to shift November's planned World Food Summit from Rome to Africa, saying the idea had been mooted before the violence at last month's Genoa summit, and had been supported by African nations. "This was an idea that preceded the Genoa summit, since even then we thought the FAO summit would do well to be held in an African country," he said. "African countries are pushing for this and want to be in the front line when discussing problems that concern them."
His comments at a press conference are likely to dismay those in the international community who have argued that moving the FAO summit would hand a victory to violent extremists, says the story.
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 http://www.yaysoft.com
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