Welcome to the fifth installation of the G20 Report for Friday, June 25th 2010. The G20 Report is your daily rundown of news about communities’ resistance to the G8 and G20 capitalist agendas, from the streets of Toronto to you, produced by the G20 Alternative Media Centre.

Thursday marked the 4th day of themed resistance to abolish the G8 and G20. The theme was Indigenous Sovereignty and featured a rally and march in downtown Toronto. 2,000 indigenous people and allies gathered at Queen’s Park — Ontario’s Provincial Legislature – to expose Canada’s continued legacy of colonization, assimilation, and genocide. The event was titled: Canada Can’t Hide Genocide: An Indigenous Day of Action, and was co-coordinated by Defenders of the Land, a network of indigenous communities united in defense of our lands, indigenous rights, and mother earth.

Following the march, 100 people gathered at the Urban Native Centre, to further discuss strengthening the ties between aboriginal nations in the fight for indigenous rights and sovereignty. Eight people from across Turtle Island addressed the gathering, mainly focusing on the need to build on the growing unity and grassroots movements they said were demonstrated at the march.

Later in the evening, around 200 people gathered for a night of solidarity and resistance at Steelworkers’ Hall. The forum was titled Confront the Invasion: Down with the G8 and G20, and featured music, spoken word poetry, videos, as well as a panel discussion with native youth from across Turtle Island.

This edition of G20 Report was produced by Tim McSorley and Candace Mooers, with special thanks to John Bonnar and all members of the G20 Alternative Media Centre. The G20 Alternative Media Centre is a temporary autonomous hub for independent media-makers to cover resistance to the G8 and G20 in Toronto. For more G20-related news, visit 2010.mediacoop.ca

Welcome to the fourth installation of the G20 report for June 24th 2010. The G20 Report is your daily rundown of news about the resistance to the G8 and G20, straight from the streets of Toronto produced by the Alternative Media Centre.

Wednesday marked the 3rd day of themed resistance to abolish the G8 and G20. The theme was Climate and Environmental justice and featured a toxic tour of Toronto and a people assembly on climate justice. University of Toronto students also held an action outside the Munk conference reflecting concerns of the University of Toronto’s relationship to the G20.

Produced by Omme Salma-Rahemtullah in Toronto.

The #G20REPORT podcast is aired on campus/community radio stations:
CKDU FM, Halifax
CKUT FM, Montreal
CKLN FM, Toronto
CHRY FM, Toronto

The podcast is also available at:
toronto.mediacoop.ca

For up to the minute videos, tweets, photos, reports, and news, visit 2010.mediacoop.ca

Welcome to the third installation of the G20 report for Jun 23rd 2010. The G20 Report is your daily rundown of news about the G8 and G20 summits in Toronto and Huntsville straight from the streets of Toronto produced by the Alternative Media Centre.

In today’s report: Queering the G20, building stronger anti-mining coalitions, and a look at actions to come.

Tuesday marked the second day of themed resistance to the G20. It was highlighted by the Queering the G20 Kiss-In, organised by queer activists and allies. Amy Miller reports.

People are coming to Toronto from across Canada to express their outrage and solidarity against the closed door summits and the security lock-down of the city. One of these groups is the Feminist League for Agitation Propaganda. It began in Halifax as a women and trans space for organising against the G8 development ministers on April 26th and as a response to what many saw as an anti-capitalist movement too heavily dominated by men.

Kaley McSwain and Kaley Kennedy are two of the FLAP activists who joined in the Queering the G20 actions. McSwain explains to us why they came to Toronto, and Kennedy the message they brought to the march.

While a completely peaceful demonstration, there were reports of one incident of arrest and police brutality. According to observers, one man was pinned to the ground and beaten by several officers as he was cuffed. He was repeatedly kneed in the back while officers smashed his face against the ground as police formed a bike chain around him, trying to block the view of the beating from media and march participants, before Hauling him into Queen subway station. Organisers reported that the man was held for six hours and initially charged with possession of a weapon. All charges were dropped when the weapon turned out to be a clear plastic water bottle. Police were unavailable to confirm the incident.

Mining activists from Montreal and Toronto also gathered on Tuesday to discuss how to continue to strengthen the movement against extractive industries in Canada and abroad. Recognizing that extractive industries are a key part of the Canadian economy, and that the actions of these companies at home and abroad often feed social conflict and lead to displacement and environmental destruction, they issued a call for a continent wide solidarity against increasing mining activities in Latin America. They will be organizing together towards an international day against open pit mining on July 22 2010.

Many of the participants of that forum will be found on the streets of Toronto today for the latest themed day of action, this time focusing on environmental and climate justice. Cameron Fenton explains how the Toxic Tour of Toronto came about.

The tour will be followed tonight by a People’s Assembly on Climate justice at 7pm. The forum takes place at room SCC115 at the Ryerson Student Campus Centre, 55 Gould St.

The Toronto Community Mobilisation Network will also be holding its last fundraiser of the week. The Go Fly A Kite dance party is taking place at The Boat (158 Augusta avenue). Along with dancing, people will be making kites: Kite flying is an act of resistance in Toronto these days. It has been banned along with other high flying activities like hang gliding, parasailing and launching rockets.

The G20 report is produced by campus community radio and independent journalists at the Alternative Media Centre dedicated to covering the G8 & G20 summits. For daily podcasts visit http://news.ckdu.ca; for late breaking round-the-clock coverage, visit http://2010.mediacoop.ca.

Monday, June 21st marked the First day of the week of Resistance to Abolish the G8 and G20 in Toronto. Demonstrators converged downtown in the first of many mobilizations, as G8 and G20 leaders meet in Huntsville and Toronto later this week. Actions have been called by multiple community organizations, ranging from peaceful rallies to confrontational direct action.

Monday’s themed day of resistance focused on migrant justice, an end to war and occupation, income equity and community control over resources. The first street action of the week began at 2pm in Allan Gardens, and marched down Dundas Street and up Yonge street to the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto headquarters. The March, titled ‘All Out in Defense of the Rights of All’, was organized by autonomous ant-poverty groups Kingston Coalition Against Poverty, Sense of Security from Guelph, and Stratford Action for Equality.

The march briefly occupied an ESSO gas station on Dundas avenue. Rushing in to the station, activists prevented business from operating for 10 minutes. Activist Claudia Calabro said, “The ESSO station and shop was occupied for a reason. ESSO is one of the 70 corporations that were bailed out during this crisis that has impoverished communities and ensured the survival of the rich. The G20 has given over a billion dollars in subsidies to oil and gas companies like ESSO just this year – these companies are responsible for massive ecological destruction and must be held accountable.”

This podcast was produced at the Alternative Media Center in Toronto. the AMC is a temporary, autonomous media making space for independent journalists to cover the G8 and G20 summits.

The first podcast in a five part series, all week long on campus/community radio stations across the country.

Why are people opposing the G8 and G20? What groups are involved? What was the People’s Summit, and why is it important?

In this first of five daily podcasts, we hear from the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Canadian Peace Alliance, the People’s Summit, and volunteers.

Length: 10 minutes.
Quality: mp3, 128 kbps.
Filesize: 10 MB.

The CKDU News Collective will be reporting from the Alternative Media Centre in Toronto to bring listeners coverage of the G8/G20 summit protests in the streets.

Programmers from CKDU, CKLN, CKUT and other stations will be collaborating to produce daily 10 minute podcasts from June 21 to June 25 to air on campus/community radio stations across the country.

You can also follow our tweeting from the streets in Toronto:

twitter.com/CKDUnews

Mark Hobbs recently finished a full year as the Dalhousie Student Union Vice President Internal. He spent some of the year in the spotlight, as he defended himself against a motion for his recall. Some councillors were dissatisfied with his performance, while student societies came to the council meeting to defend his performance.

In an exclusive year-end interview, Hobbs talks frankly about the recall motion, as well as his role in defending student societies behind the scenes, a student petition to end corporate confidentiality contracts, and more.

Recorded live on Operation Wake Up, CKDU 88.1fm campus/community radio, on June 7, 2010.