World leaders have been gathered in Hamburg, Germany, for the G20 summit, which is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies. This is, of course, the first G20 summit for the new administration and the week will finish with a highly anticipated meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Here’s a roundup of some of the stories making headlines this week out of Hamburg:
Global News Canada reports on the top agenda items during the course of the week which included terrorism and trade:
HAMBURG – The Group of 20 leaders’ summit is getting underway Friday in the German port city of Hamburg in the wake of clashes between police and protesters, with terrorism, global trade and climate change among the issues on the agenda.
The host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, says she hopes to find “compromises and answers” on a range of issues at the two-day meeting of leading industrial and developing nations. While there’s little disagreement on fighting terrorism, prospects of finding common ground on climate change and trade look uncertain.
The protests have been vicious since this year’s meeting is being held in an urban setting as opposed to a more remote venue, which would typically keep protesting to a minimum. Report on this from Yahoo News:
Cars torched, delegations’ tyres slashed and flares fired at helicopters: Hamburg is living up to its militant reputation with activists giving the G20 a hostile welcome — and in imaginative ways.
On Thursday night on the eve of the summit of the leaders of the world’s top 20 economies including US President Donald Trump, a protest march in this port city by 12,000 people quickly got out of hand.
After a hard core of around 1,000 black-clad militants ignored authorities’ demands to remove their masks, riot police moved in with water cannon trucks and tear gas.
That set the stage for hours of running battles between police and protestors in the back streets of Germany’s second city that left 111 police officers injured, authorities said.
It was unclear how many protestors were hurt. Organiser Andreas Blechschmidt criticised what he said was a heavy-handed and “massive” police response with batons.
The BBC reports on the Trump-Putin meeting and what is at stake for both countries. My guess is that we’ll get scant information about what really comes out of this meeting.
A brief video clip posted on the German government’s Facebook page shows the two men shaking hands, and Mr Trump patting Mr Putin’s arm as they smile in the company of other leaders.
They are due to meet again in the afternoon for an hour, Russian media say, though other reports suggest it could be about 30 minutes.
According to NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander, it is likely that only four other people will be present at the meeting: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and two interpreters.
It is unclear if they will speak to reporters afterwards or to what extent media will be admitted to the meeting. After phone calls between the leaders in January and May, the White House and Kremlin released summaries of the conversations.
And, of course, if Trump is anywhere on an official trip, you know his daughter and son-in-law are somewhere close by. The DailyMail reports on Jared and Ivanka’s presence at the G20:
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are using their current overseas trip to let loose, with the pair throwing caution to the wind as they make a very public display of their affection.
The First Daughter even shared a photo of the couple as they strolled across a vast lawn in the city of Hamburg one day before the start of the G20, with Jared leading his wife by the hand as she tottered behind in a pair of her eponymous heels.
‘We’ve landed in Germany and are looking forward to productive discussions at the G20 Hamburg Summit!’ wrote Ivanka, who added the hashtags ‘#POTUSatG20’ and ‘#G20.’
She did not expound upon what would constitute a ‘productive’ discussion at the summit.
This frisky new behavior between the couple, who will soon be celebrating their eighth wedding anniversary, has been going on for the past 24 hours.
It started from the moment the two landed in Poland on Wednesday, with Ivanka and Jared clutching each other by the hand as they descended the steps of Air Force One after President Trump and the First Lady.
Those two did not hold hands, with Melania instead gripping the railing as she made her way off the flight.
I’ll leave you with this, the handshake between Trump and Putin when they met face to face for the first time on Friday morning. As noted above, they will formally meet later today for an hour to discuss all the topics at hand:
NEW: First greeting between Trump & Putin at G20 – handshake & pat on the back, via German govt. pic.twitter.com/C5H14eYvYj
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) July 7, 2017
