Thousands march in Munich to demand G7 action on poverty and climate

BERLIN, June 25 (Reuters) – Some 4,000 people marched in Munich on Saturday calling on leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized countries to take action to fight poverty, climate change and world hunger and end dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

Leaders of the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan will meet on Sunday at the start of a three-day summit at Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian mountains, aiming to increase pressure on Russia whose actions in Ukraine have created food and energy shortages across the globe.

Protesters carried banners reading “Stop The War Russia And USA/NATO Hands Off Ukraine” and “Imperialism Starts Here”, and demanded the G7 allocate more funds for crisis prevention, civil conflict management and economic development.

“Today, we are at the G7 again because we realised that nothing has improved … it’s been going on for so long, that we are destroying ourselves,” said Lisa Munz, a protestor wearing a hat topped with a stuffed chicken.

Saturday’s protests in sunny Munich, where the leaders’ flights landed before they headed to Elmau, were sponsored by more than 15 organizations including WWF Germany, Oxfam Deutschland, Greenpeace and Bread for the World.

Officers in riot gear shoved protesters in a brief physical confrontation and police said several officers were physically attacked and nine people detained during the day, but the demonstration remained largely peaceful overall, a Reuters witness said.

Some 3,000 officers were on duty across the city, Munich police said.

The G7 typically attracts protests by dozens of campaign groups that want to court publicity for their causes and send a message to the Western political elite.

This year, however, protesters may struggle to make their presence visible to the leaders given the especially secluded summit venue, though that could change if protesters attempt to traverse the terrain to get closer to the summit itself, as some have said they plan to do.

“The colourful demonstration is a clear sign of how strong the desire of many people is for a fundamentally different policy in the G7 countries,” Oxfam Deutschland said in a statement.

G7 leaders are set to discuss setting up a climate club to better coordinate carbon pricing and other schemes for reducing emissions. Nearly 20,000 police officers have been deployed to ensure security at the summit.

Reporting by Sarah Marsh, Riham Alkousaa and Reuters TV; Editing by David Holmes

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