"What is the summit doing for us? It is providing for the rich, not the poor." - Protester Mathius Ledwaba

Singing apartheid-era songs, an estimated 20,000 people protesting about issues ranging from Aids to globalisation, arrived at the convention centre in the rich white suburb of Sandton from the shanty township of Alexandra.

At their head were some of the most radical groups - Muslims marching in support of the Palestinians, and members of the Landless People's Movement, demonstrating for jobs, land and everything they say they were promised before the change of government in South Africa.

Thousands of demonstrators have marched to the World Development Summit venue in Johannesburg, in the first mass protest to take place since it opened on Monday.



Police were out in force, with helicopters, dogs and water canon, but there had been no sign of any serious trouble by the time the rally began to break up.

Thabo Mbeki: Call to Action

South African President Thabo Mbeki, at a separate pro-government rally, described the eight kilometre (five mile) route taken by the march as a symbol of the "global apartheid" between rich and poor.

"We must liberate the poor of the world from poverty," he said. "It is easy for all of us to agree on nice words. Now has come the time for action."

Mr Mbeki did not join the main march and discouraged his ministers from doing so, for fear that radical protesters may cause violence.

Defiant messages

A small wooden platform set up just outside the perimeter as a speaker's corner, was used as the stage for protest leaders to make their points within earshot of the delegates inside.

"Hello Sandton!...It's a pity you're barricaded, preventing us from coming in and showing you the real world!" organiser Virginia Setshedi yelled across the razor wire at the convention building.

"This just isn't good enough" - Hans Christian Schmidt, Danish Environment Minister



The crowd sang and danced as they waved banners with messages which included "Factory gases and waste are killing", "Hands off Iraq", "Globalise the Intifada", "Stop Thabo Mbeki's Aids genocide" and even "Osama bin Laden - Bomb Sandton".

Many chanted anti-American slogans and bore banners ridiculing US President George W Bush.

"What is the summit doing for us? It is providing for the rich, not the poor," protester Mathius Ledwaba told the Associated Press.

Unresolved issues

Inside the convention centre, meetings were going on to try to resolve fundamental differences between rich and poor nations.

There is concern that these will prevent delegates from approving a draft document before heads of state arrive next week.

Some representatives believe that if the final plan of action is not agreed by 4 September, when the summit is due to end, discussions could drag on for several more days.

Keen to avert a deadlock, South Africa - the summit host - has put forward a list of seven topics it says delegates should now focus on.

production and consumption

renewable energy

sanitation

biodiversity

targets and timetables

access to energy

natural resources

US intransigence is being seen by European countries as a key problem of the summit.

Washington is refusing to contemplate binding targets for introducing renewable energy technologies like wind and solar power, which do not pollute the planet.

Greenpeace has accused the US and Japan of horse-trading behind closed doors.

US delegates, it alleged, were offering to promote access to clean water in exchange for Japan supporting a removal of renewable energy targets.

Too bad all those folks are putting themselves before the planet asa whole. Without a healthy fuctioning planet all their human-centered issues are moot. Get with the plan, Africa!

This "environmentalist" is annoying. S/he might as well write "EARTH=GOD" and then admonish us to read the Bible more carefully to find the clues to armageddon.

Reality isn't so simple that a single theory will lead us to "salvation."

Slum Protesters March on Earth Summit

Sat Aug 31,11:33 AM ET

By Manoah Esipisu and Nicholas Kotch

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Thousands of slum-dwellers marched on the Earth Summit on Saturday, protesting about issues from AIDS ( news - web sites) to globalisation and marshalled by heavily armed police who feared violence might upstage the U.N. meeting.

Singing apartheid-era songs, a rainbow coalition of at least 10,000 anti-government leftists marched to Johannesburg's plush Sandton convention center from the shanty township of Alexandra -- an eight-km (five-mile) walk that South African President Thabo Mbeki said symbolised a "global apartheid" between rich and poor.

"Hello Sandton!...It's a pity you're barricaded, preventing us from coming in and showing you the real world ( news - Y! TV)!" organizer Virginia Setshedi yelled across the razor wire at the building.

Seven hours in, there was no was sign of trouble by the time the rally began to break up following speeches outside the summit center. Police revised down estimates of numbers but the turnout was less than some expected. But it was still one of the biggest protests since the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Guarded by police, armored vehicles, helicopters, razor wire and concrete barriers, delegates from almost 200 countries kept up talks inside the building, trying to break a deadlock on an ambitious plan to halve poverty and protect the environment.

"Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) -- Bomb Sandton," "Factory Gases and Waste are Killing," "Hands Off Iraq," "Globalise the Intifada," "Stop Thabo Mbeki's AIDS genocide" or "Bush, you belong in the Bush" were among banners and T-shirts.

South Africa deployed thousands of police to avert any repeat of the mayhem that has marred international meetings in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and elsewhere. The U.N. meeting is meant to showcase the new South Africa and put paid to international memories of violence between white police and black protesters.

HEART ATTACK

Director of Police Services Henriette Bester told Reuters there were no arrests or confrontations. She said one marcher was taken to hospital after suffering a heart attack.

South Africa's police are shaking off the reputation for brutality they gained during the apartheid years. But they came down hard last week on minor, unauthorised protests, firing three stun grenades to break up a small march last Saturday.

At a separate pro-government rally that drew just 3,000 people, Mbeki renewed calls for the August 26-September 4 World Summit on Sustainable Development to end the "global apartheid" dividing a few rich from the legions of the world's poor.

"There is no reason that the poor of the world should be poor for ever," he told government supporters in Alexandra's soccer stadium. "The time has come for action."

Government supporters also later set off for Sandton from Alexandra, a teeming township of 350,000 people, of shacks and open sewers, where more than one adult in two has no job.

Among the first foreign leaders to arrive in Johannesburg was Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in defiant mood about his policy of seizing land from white farmers and redistributing it to landless blacks.

His Information Minister Jonathan Moyo blasted former colonial power Britain for suggesting mismanagement was behind a looming famine, saying farmers were simply starved of rain: "God is not something in the control of the British...You cannot define the success of the land program by the drought."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair ( news - web sites) is to address the summit an hour before Mugabe on Monday.

STIFLE PROTEST

Mbeki does not want Harare's crisis to upstage the summit. At his rally, officials stifled a protest by about 80 Zimbabwean opposition members who brandished posters saying: "Mugabe is a thief." Mbeki's government is no great fan of Mugabe but rejects the Western view that he has only held on to power by force.

Mbeki's African National Congress ( news - web sites) (ANC) was a prominent target of the many landless black South Africans who marched in red T-shirts. One of their leaders, Jonas Apolisi of the Social Movements Indaba, accused the ANC of being an "imperialist power" for failing to redistribute land in South Africa.

"If the ANC doesn't do what people ask it to we shall shut it down like we shut down the apartheid government," he said.

Many of protesters in both rallies were pro-Palestinian and the head of the Palestinian delegation to the summit, Farouq al-Qaddomi, attacked Israel in a speech at Mbeki's rally.

Some of the summit non-government participants from foreign environmental groups also joined the marches: "This summit is being hijacked by trade and the corporate agenda," said Michael Brune of the California-based Rainforest Action Network.

During the protests, summit negotiators argued over a plan to enrich poor nations while protecting the planet. The bulk of the U.N. text has been agreed but key issues remain unresolved.

German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin told reporters on Saturday that there was still no agreement on vital issues, including EU demands for firm targets for increasing the amount of power generated from renewable sources like the wind and Sun.

Ministers are under pressure to clinch a deal before world leaders turn up in force on Monday.

"How far will we get in the negotiations? We'll just have to see -- on Sunday evening," Trittin said. "We've about 14 points on the table and in the end there's going to be a trade-off."

Delegates are also trying to reconcile U.S. and European Union ( news - web sites) demands for aid to be tied more clearly to improving human rights and democracy and insistence by developing nations that the rich states do more to cut subsidies to their own farmers that help keep Third World imports out of their markets.