I should probably know this, but I don’t, and a search is difficult because of the 4 word limit. The closest thing I could find is that it involves relief for Africa, which I don’t have a problem with. So what’s the Straight dope on the G8 summit, and why do some people hate it?
Here is a link is to a page that gives the history of the Group of Eight summits, from the “official” UK website for the current summit.
“G8” mean “Group of Eight” and is a group of the eight most industrialized nations: The US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Russia and Italy. Also I think the EU is represented in some way.
Every year they get together for an economic summit wherein they negotiate about trade rules, foreign aid, and so on. As the G8 countries hold a great deal of Africa’s debt, they are lobbied by groups who advocate debt relief.
Here is a brief history of the G8.
This was the reason for the Live 8 concerts–to raise awareness. Not so much of the G8 summit but of the African debt and subsidies/tarrifs and the like. This is also why the concerts were in Philly, London, Paris, Toronto, Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow, and Rome (why there were ones in Johannesburg and Barrie I have no idea.) Apparently, the G8 summit is generally very heavily scripted. It used to be the G7 before the Russian Federation joined (was there a G6 or the like?) I would not be surprised if the EU was represented in some way–Britain, France, Italy, and Germany make up a big chunk of the EU–but do the decisions made between the EU members of the G8 and the other four generally translate to effects inside the EU as a result of the structure of the EU?
I don’t know if protestors hate the G8 (if any do, it’s probably the same protesters that hate the WTO and globalization), but debt relief and the like is a fairly wide-spread position.
Barrie is a suburb of Toronto, where the Canadian Live8 concert was held.
Barrie is a city in Ontario, and Toronto was disappointed to see the show go to them…
Johannesburg was included because when the concert series was being planned, some people suggested it might seem patronizing to have a concert that was about Africa and not actually stage any part of it in Africa.
I assume the “protestors” referenced in the OP are the anti-globalization crowd. If you’re against globalization, you’ll not like the G8 countries since they are the top dogs in the globalization game. In the same way the folks who dislike capitalism are going to especially dislike the largest corporations.
(Now that we have some serious answers, I can post this)
http://thepulp.net/PulpFAQ/g8.html
"Who were G-8 and His Battle Aces?
A. The sixth pulp character to get his own magazine, G-8 took to the skies with his wingmen in October 1933 and battled everything the Kaiser could throw at him. And it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Red Baron that came after G-8. " 