G8 Summit 2009: Financial Crisis Hits Center Stage

by stevesmys | July 6, 2009 at 10:21 am

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G8 leaders meet in L'Aquila, Italy, on Wednesday and the financial crisis will hit center stage.

Leaders from the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, France Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan will work on news strategies to prompt a smoother recovery. A supervisory body will also be established to ensure a meltdown of this scale doesn't happen again,

According to the website, the G8's central message is "People First," stating that if country's are to implement effective strategies to battling economic turmoil, they must consider the social impacts in order to restore people's confidence.

Countries must continue to implement strategies capable of reducing the impact of the crisis on employment, and of ensuring that welfare and social safeguard systems are both effective and sustainable.

US President Barack Obama will chair a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) on Thursday, which will include all G8 leaders and the leaders of the emerging economies, including the People's Republic of China, Brazil and India. It will produce a declaration separate from the G8 regarding the 2C warming threshold.

Brazil is the most significant of the emerging nations to sign up to the 2C threshold. "This is extremely significant," said the source. "It is an acknowledgement from political leaders to their peoples that there are scientific limits to how far we can push the planet."

The summit will also address food safety and access to water in developing countries, the nuclear non-proliferation front, stabilization in Afghanistan and Pakistan and possible sanctions against Iran and Zimbabwe.

L'Aquila is the site of a deadly earthquake that killed about 300 people on April 6. The 6.3-magnitude earthquake leveled entire blocks of the midieval city, as well as the surrounding Abruzzo region, leaving around 66,000 people homeless. Many of the homeless still reside in tents.

The city has been rocked by frequent aftershocks, including a powerful one on Friday that sent people scrambling from their homes and offices.

Survivors of the earthquake marched through the ruined city Monday to commemorate the three-month anniversary of the quake.

Families of students who were killed in a collapsed university dormitory headed the torch-lit procession held to mark the quake's three-month anniversary. It paused for silence in the main square at 3:32 a.m. local time, which is the time that the earthquake struck.

Marchers carried banners that said "Truth and Justice," referring to the shoddy construction that caused many of the building collapses and prompted a criminal investigation.

Organizers of the march stated that the marches were not related to the summit, though some survivors are unhappy with the decision, fearing the event would divert resources away from reconstruction efforts.

"This G8 summit is a huge disturbance for our city, which is divided between those who think it may be a chance for revival and others who are convinced that we'll be forgotten as soon as the meeting is over," said activist Fabrizio Bianchi.

"We all want to take advantage of the summit to voice our opposition to the government's decisions. We are not a political movement, we're not on the left, we just don't approve of what the government has done so far."