Hundreds of thousands of people joined a pro-Palestine march in central London on Saturday to show their support for the people of Palestine and demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Waving flags, drumming and chanting loud slogans, organizers from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign said they were expecting hundreds of thousands of people to join the rally.
Israel has been launching a large-scale offensive against Hamas in Gaza since Oct 7, 2023 after the group carried out a surprise attack on southern Israel. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip from the ongoing Israeli attacks had risen to 34,388, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Saturday.
The protesters voiced their anger with what happening in Gaza.
"I think the main thing is just the silence of everyone else, I think that's what's really upsetting and with constantly seeing these just devastating images, just videos from everywhere, we feel its everybody's responsibility including ours and our children's to show that we are going to stand for what is right and you should stand for humanity and those people who are weak at any time. It doesn't matter who you are at the end of the day, this should never happen to anyone," said a demonstrator.
"To make my boys proud hopefully when they grow up and they see that mum and dad did something while other people did nothing. So we are here. I want the people of Palestine to know as well that there are people who care and there are people who are here to fight for them and stand up for them even the rest of the world and the government doesn't seem to care," said another demonstrator.
A protester said he did so to give a glimpse of hope to children in Gaza, and to tell the government to stop using tax payers’ money to kill civilians.
"If you look at what is happening in Gaza, we need to give children of Gaza hope, not hatred. And it's a belt building bonds across the globe, regardless of what religion, ethnicity you are, and know, send a strong message to the people of Gaza that we stand in solidarity with them and their children are our children, and send a strong message to government that's supplying arms to Israel that this will not stand. It's our money. We are the people, that our money is being supplied and kill children, men, women, and destroy their homes and their hospitals," said a demonstrator.
Another march due to be held in London by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was canceled at the last minute due to concerns over safety. That protest sought to highlight the 133 people still held hostage in Gaza since the Oct 7 attacks. London's Metropolitan police said these months of protests had led to 'fear and uncertainty' in the Jewish community.
With no immediate end to the conflict in sight, these protests and counter protests will continue in the weeks ahead.
Thousands gather in London, calling for immediate ceasefire in Gaza
The third Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit was held in Beijing on Monday, with representatives calling on the international business community to make concerted efforts to fast-track global economic recovery.
Highlighting mutual trust and cooperation, the focus of the event is "smoothing the supply chain for win-win," with more than 300 attendees from across the world, including heads of chambers of commerce, business associations and trade promotion facilities, as well as high-level representatives from Tesla, Walmart and other Fortune Global 500 companies.
As a high-level platform for interactions among business communities from different countries, the summit aims to jointly address global issues, nurture new growth points for international economic cooperation and reform the global economic governance system.
Delivering a speech at the opening ceremony, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng said China will continue to work with the rest of the international community, amid all the global uncertainty, to strengthen openness and exchanges, promote free trade and stimulate growth drivers for digital and green development.
The summit was organized by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). Representatives from both trade and investment promotion agencies and business communities reached a series of consensus following extensive discussions.
"China is willing to share the opportunities of development with the global community. We welcome the business sectors of more and more countries to work together to build a stable global supply and industrial chain, and give full play to the further development of the green economy," said Ren Hongbin, the CCPIT chairman.
The summit also includes parallel forums focusing on smoothening supply chains, promoting exchanges between the United States and China on turning the "San Francisco Vision" into reality, and the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, among other issues.
The forum attendees spoke highly of China's contribution to the global market and its efforts to share the development opportunities with other countries.
"China is already integrated very closely into the global manufacturing supply chain. It provides a lot of inputs. And at the same time, China is also a very very big market, [as] 18 percent of the GDP, the global GDP, is China. Therefore, China has a very important role both as a part of the manufacturing chain and also as a part of the global market," said Osamu Onodera, vice chairman of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China
"[For] Italian companies, they focus on Chinese partners to promote the digital trade of the quality of their products. So this is one of the key elements to cooperate between Italian companies and the Chinese market," said Lorenzo Riccardi, chairman of China-Italy Chamber of Commerce.
The summit launched the Beijing Initiative, calling on accelerating world economic recovery through the WTO-centered multilateral trading system and maintaining the stability and smooth flow of industrial and supply chains through strengthening industrial specialization and collaboration.
The initiative also proposed to advance AI exchanges and cooperation in embracing the transformative force of AI, foster green and low-carbon development, and nurture mutually-beneficial and win-win business partnerships.
Global Trade, Investment Promotion Summit 2024 held in Beijing
Global Trade, Investment Promotion Summit 2024 held in Beijing
