29th G8 Summit ICEAnews Coverage By David and Renate Jakupca

The 29th G8 summit was held in Évian-les-Bains, France, on June 1–3, 2003. As is usual for G8 summits, there were a range of protests.

These were covered for ICEAnews by David Jakupca as Photographer and Renate Jakupca as Journalist.  International Center for Environmental Arts (ICEA)

Background

The Group of Seven (G7) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally included in summits since 1981. The summits were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975.
The G8 summits during the twenty-first century have inspired widespread debates, protests and demonstrations; and the two- or three-day event becomes more than the sum of its parts, elevating the participants, the issues and the venue as focal points for activist pressure.
Official G8 Summit magazines which have been published under the auspices of the host nations for distribution to all attendees since 1998; the 2008 edition was published by Prestige Media.

Demonstrations, riots and authorities responsesDuring the protests, some manifestations went out of order as Swiss towns have been sacked by rioters. An accident also occurred during protest at the Aubonne bridge in Switzerland between Lausanne and Geneva, in which two activists suspended themselves from the bridge via a rope, with the rope stretching across the bridge, displaying a banner and obstructing traffic on the highway with the highest traffic density of Switzerland. Some protestors were arrested. One of the policemen, unaware people were attached to the rope, cut it. As a result, one of the protestors, Briton Martin Shaw, to plunge 20m into a rocky river and suffered multiple fractures. The other activist, German Gesine Wenzel, was caught by other protestors and could later abseil safely. In a ruling on 17 February 2006 a judge acquitted the two police officers found responsible on the grounds that their actions had been based on "a series of unfortunate misunderstandings" and therefore were not criminal. Indeed, as the anti-G8 manifestations were difficult to handle by their scales and by the seriousness of the disorders they caused many policemen (including the one who cut the rope) came from the German speaking part of Switzerland. The linguistic barriers, added to the stress of the situation (a blocked highway that could have resulted in many deaths) were considered by the court as critical in the misunderstandings that generated the accident.

References:
ARK in Berea Eco Museum
https://theicea.com/page4

G7/8 Summits
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/index.htm

SOMMET D'EVIAN 2003
http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/2003evian/

United Nations World Conferences - Revisited
https://theicea.com/page14

2016 Earth Day Message - International Iceality Day

Growing Together with Ambassador Renate

Today, the ARK in Berea, Ambassador Renate and David joins people all over the world in celebrating Earth Day. We at the International Center for Environmental Arts (ICEA) know that all of our supporters treasure the myriad of animals, people and ecosystems scattered across our planet, and hope that as part of your Earth Day observances you are inspired to find ways Iceality can make a positive change on the Earth  for All the Worlds Children.

2016 Earth Day Message from Ambassador Renate
There is a song done by Lorne Green called the ‘Place Where I worship is the Wide Open Spaces’ where the base line rises and dances with the treble that descends and then mirrors it with the words…’built by the hands of the Lord’. It is a piece that could also be known as a hymn called the Iceality Song. I am humming it now as I sit on ‘Big Rock’ over looking the river at the ARK in Berea and writing this morning's story for Earth Day.

This past year, recovering from Cancer, I have explored the Earth, finding fossils washed out of the Rocky River, observing life moving across the Urth Island, and these past few weeks watching the return of steel head trout heading up stream to spawn. I have seen Canadian Geese building their nests and have looked up at the sky and have been amazed at what has always been there above but we've never recognized, and in it all have found something about me.

Map of Historic ARK in Berea, 44017

Now that I think about it, there should be an International Iceality Day that would be more encompassing in its scope than any other celebration on the international calendar. Iceality Day would be a day of potential, especially for All the Worlds Children. It is not about something 'other', but something we can celebrate and hold as part of ourselves. It is as intimate as Earth Day is for the Plants and Animals and International Peace Day is for the Human's but more encompassing in its scope than any other celebration on the calendar. It is about US as much as it is about the Animals, Fish, and Birds, about the Plants and Trees, Land and Waters. There is no escaping the Planet Earth. Very few have done it and never for long. The two astronauts that are on the International Space Station are going to be off the Earth for a year; the longest time anyone has spent away from our planet yet…so the universal symbol of peace, the WCPM is ready for Peace in Space.

Preaching for the Earth isn't always the way to go. This is not to say that there are not issues we need to look at and examine. There are. But we cannot see them until we look for ourselves. There is something that Benjamin Franklin wrote that said: "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." All we can ask is for people to give it a look, a few minutes, the length of time of a favorite song. See what it is all about. We can treat nature as something outside us, outside the windows and doors of our homes, but it is Iceality, it is All of Us.

Earth Day seems like a good day to say thank you to all the people who support the Worlds Children from this last year. I thank you for spending your time with us. And thanks, Earth, for letting us get to know you. We look forward to getting to know you better and better.

Worlds Children Peace Monument (WCPM)

"Happy Earth Day, everyone. And remember to thank Mother Gaia for her most amazing bounty: All The Worlds Children"  Ambassador Renate.