G20 hots up both protests and love-in between Presidents Trump & Putin

Photo of Milton Shed edited with LunaPic

Cleared out the garage and began hanging pictures and artwork with Jane and Louise for tomorrow's Cambridge Open Studio. Somewhat delayed by waiting for a routine medical call which did not materialise till much later than planned. We then went over to fellow artist's studios for pre-opening drinks and sharing of small items and best wishes. Marie Georghiou and Richard Morgan are running their first joint studio and I hope they enjoy it as much as I do. Crashed for the evening.

The big news of the day is the G20 conference in Hamburg. Whilst German Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted the focus to be on consolidating Climate Change agreements, two different scenes dominated.

The first was the mass demonstrations throughout the city, with over 100,000 protesters descending on the city. The vast majority wanted to protest peacefully. Unfortunately, a proportion of black clad, masked and gloved, numbering thousands, went violent. There were attacks on the police, trashing and looting of shops, setting cars alight. Residents were quoted as saying 'it was like war'. A cultural and political centre, the 'Rote Flora' (Red Flora) had barricaded itself against the chaos outside and was trying to care for injured people within. The police finally resorted to sending a heavily armed specialist unit, in addition to the watercannon and pepper sprays against the protesters. The situation appears to be cooling down, leaving the Schanzenstrasse in the Schanzenviertel, empty but trashed.

The second was the meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin, with only their closest advisors and translators.  There appeared to be a positive chemistry between the two and apparently some of the tough issues were discussed -  on the election involvement, Syria, Ukraine and North Korea. Memories of what was actually agreed or said did differed when the respective foreign ministers gave their analyses afterwards.

After yesterday's CBI call for continuation of currrent agreements with the EU until a new trade deal had been agreed, Prime minister May countered that the UK could not stay within the custom's union after Brexit if Britain wanted to strike its own trade deals.