With less than one month to go before the G8 Summit, final preparations are underway. Last week planning by the authorities were thrown into disarray by celebrity Bob Geldof's call for one million people to converge in Edinburgh on the first day of the actual Summit. While the media frenzy over the Live8 concerts has overshadowed many of the existing mobilisations around the G8 Summit, at least some of the main issues, if not the politics behind them, are now firmly in the mind of the public. With scores of events planned throughout June it's clear momentum is growing for what will be one of the largest and most concentrated periods of protest in recent history, with a full week of demonstrations and events planned in July when the G8 Summit leaders meet behind their security fences in Scotland.

Evolving Protest Plans

As well as the planned Blockades of the G8 Summit on Wed 6th July, there are now more demonstrations being announced and negotiated. G8Alternatives continues with its plans for a mass demonstration meeting at Gleneagles train station to march past Gleneagles Hotel on the first day of the Summit, despite the initial announcement of security cordons and road closures ruling this route out. Authorities have proposed a rally in Auchterarder village as an alternative but have said this would be limited to 3,500 people - more announcements are expected following a meeting on June 9th. The "Long Walk To Justice", announced at the start of June by Bob Geldof [2 | 3] will potentially see hundreds of thousands of people arriving in Edinburgh for events billed as "part rally, part party" and with a pop concert scheduled for Murrayfield stadium. Meanwhile the Stop the War Coalition has applied and now gained support for two protests in Edinburgh on Sun 3rd and Mon 4th July, despite both Scottish media and the police initialy briefing against the proposed demonstrations.

Accomodation Crisis

Over the past months various groups have been trying to secure mass accomodation for the tens of thousands of people who are expected to participate in the protests. With the lastest moves from Bob Geldof encouraging hundreds of thousands more people to converge on Edinburgh for the start of the Summit, what was already an accommodation crisis has now become a full blown emergency planning issue. Some groups have been trying to find a site to set up a Convergence campsite eco-village to house people, and despite initial set backs are confident a site will be found. Other groups have been in discussions with authorities for larger sites, and while no agreement has yet been reached an announcement is expected soon. Whatever the outcomes it's clear people will come anyway, with many groups encouraging people to bring tents.

See also:

• Genoa G8 retrospective - London, Sat 11th
• Black Sun Over Genoa, June 30th - July 2nd