On the Friday of the conference, when delegates were arriving, decentralised protests targeted businesses involved with war profiteering or environmental destruction. The Friday morning started with two actions against warmongers and profiteers: Tenix and the army recruitment office. Offices of the ANZ Bank were also closed down.

In the early afternoon one hundred activists occupied Oricas Head Office in Melbourne in protest at the supply of 6,000 tons of cyanide a year to Barrick Gold in the contentious Lake Cowal Gold Project in Western NSW.

Other protest activities around the city included the Radical Cheerleaders spreading the word that the G20 is coming to town, a protest march by Falun Dafa, "anarchic cops" and clowns, and a christian vigil as a Third World and Environment Embassy, outside the barricades near the Hyatt Hotel. An overnight Meditation and prayer vigil is being held at Birrarung Marr park.


Saturday Events include a Virtual sit-in, Meditation/Prayer Vigil, Make Poverty History Festival and a Carnival Beyond Capitalism which will start at the State Library and march past the Hyatt Hotel where the G20 ministers and bureaucrats are meeting.

First protests against G20

First protests against the G20 have included Guerilla gardening near the floral clock opposite the National Art Gallery of Victoria, and a vigil of the Sedition Charter group who stood defiant outside Hyatt Hotel when approached by the police to move on or be charged with 'breach of the peace'. A Christian collective will set up camp at 7:30 am on Friday November 17th, outside the barricades that surround the G20 meetings at the Grand Hyatt hotel, demanding tickets on behalf of those excluded from the meetings.

Activists Converge for G20 Meeting

Workshops, fundraisers and conferences this week as activists converge against the G20 meeting taking place on the 18th and 19th November. The G20 meeting of finance ministers and heads of the World Bank and IMF takes place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and will further implement neo-liberal economic policies designed to enrich the already wealthy while impoverishing the many and continuing to destroy our ecosystems. Included in the events are the A Space Outside conference, the Make Poverty History forum as well as training events for protest activities.

For photos and more reports see Melbourne Indymedia.

References:

* Melbourne Indymedia -  http://melbourne.indymedia.org
* Stop G20 -  http://www.stopg20.org
*  http://www.aspaceoutside.org/
* Engage Media -  http://engagemedia.org/g20
*  http://www.makepovertyhistory.com.au/melbForum.html