Newsnig8t

I spark a flame war!

Phew! This site has come a long way from the intricacies of the Doha development round! My piece last night on a web browser called Flock, and the "Web 2.0" movement, has sparked a rare flame war and Newsnight's website is struggling to keep up. We will post as many replies as we can, here.

The communique, the responses, the row

The G8 Communique has been published (PDF) and Make Poverty History has issued its response: critical but supportive. The World Development Movement response is considerably angrier. Friends of the Earth described it as "talk no action". Paragraph 31 is being welcomed as a move away from aid conditionality. Free healthcare (paragraph 17) is also being seen as a concession by the USA...

Blogging the bombs

Now something strange has happened. The blogosphere and mobile phone mpegs are reporting the bombing, and capturing the zeitgeist in its complex reality, in a different way than the broadcast media - which are all being excellent, by the way. The Guardian Media journos have just rung me to talk about this and we agree it is a phenomenon: seeing mpegs on the BBC 10 O'clock News was just the tip of the iceberg.

Jump straight into the following: a survivor of the Edgware Road bomb recounts the full horror; Letter to the Terrorists picks up the zeitgeist of beer and stoicism; Perfect (one of this blog's regular trackbackers) is on the case, while Yesbutnobut seems to be aggregating bomb blogs. Europhobia picks up a common theme of refusing to be deflected from the G8 agenda, posting pictures of starving African kids, saying:

"23:20 - Nearly time for bed. All I ask is that we don't forget the others who have died today, from whom those ******* terrorists managed to distract our attention."

Sitting at Edinburgh airport yesterday I decided to suspend the blog: while blogging was proving a good way of creating a little ecosphere around my broadcast reports this was something different. But as it turns out the blogosphere has sprung to life around the bombing in a way it really did not around the G8...

Update at 1930

I have been off the streets since late afternoon as I am filing a piece for Newsnight tonight. The UK government is sounding a little more optimistic about the deal but there are voices quite loyal to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who still believe they have over-egged the pudding in presentation of the debt relief deal. I can see various bits of trouble still going on...

Mood turns "from mellow to militant"

Stop the War mobilised about 2,500 people on their demo to Calton Hill....

That anarchist incident in full - eyewitness

Jane Mayes, a freelance journalist covering the demo, sent me this account of the trouble that happened yesterday. By the way, comments are now turned on but moderated. As I am not in regular touch with a computer, and reliant on the Sony Ericsson P910i (which is holding up well), I will not be able to moderate more than once a day, so be patient. Jane writes:

"Around noon, The Meadows is full to overflowing but the overflowing is happening very slowly. Three or four thick lines of patient protestors stand waiting and occasionally shuffle a few steps towards the bottleneck exit which feeds them out of the park into the march. Others stand in clumps or queue for portaloos and food stalls...

120,000 march in Edinburgh

When l spoke to one of the organisers this morning he was getting jumpy about numbers. He need not have been. They are now saying 120k minimum. The big battalions have been mobilised by the churches - dwarfing the sizeable contingents of the campaign groups and the left. First impressions: it is one of those days when you realise how rich and resilient civil society is: there are Quakers, there are the women of Sheboom, an all woman Samba Band, there are two middle aged blokes with pushbikes and green clown noses, with bits of tree attached to their bikes, giving out used McDonalds cartons to the crowd. Yes giving them out...

We'll march to the fence, says Galloway

Dress down to avoid the protesters? Forget it: dapper George Galloway MP has vowed to lead the G8 Alternatives demo from Gleneagles railway station to the summit fenceline. At a press conference yesterday the protest group outlined its plan to march at noon on 6 July - a plan which so far does not have permission from the council. Make Poverty History, meanwhile, currently plans to set off from Murrayfield to Gleneagles, about 8 hours later...

"Africa is watching" - ActionAid's bus stops at Downing Street

NGO ActionAid launched the final countdown of its campaign pre-G8 tonight with impassioned speeches from African women.

Row continues over 6 July demo ban

Tayside police have relented over opposition to a demo next to the Gleneagles security fence on the first day of the summit, according to the Scotsman. However Perth and Kinross council is still refusing to give permission. They are saying 4,000 people will be allowed to demonstrate on the day in Auchterarder. Protesters are stepping up pressure on the Scottish Parliament today to intervene in the row over where and whether the June 6 demo can take place.