Today we spent the morning getting up to speed on the latest developments and getting settled at the press centre. The emergency meeting of officials this morning still failed to resolve either the debates over the financial commitments in the Africa communiqué or the ongoing debacle over climate. It still appears that Italy and Canada remain the main laggards pushing back against even a reiteration of Gleneagles commitments to increase aid by $50 billion overall by 2010 and also more specific commitments on HIV/AIDS and Education for All. The Canadians denied this today after publicly being challenged by Bob Geldof. French and Italian civil society have also met with Sarkozy and Prodi yesterday and today, but with no new commitments on how they will meet their promises. The US proposal on climate, involving a parallel process to the UN has left negotiations at a standstill. It still remains to be seen whether a compromise will be reached and who will blink first. Merkel is meeting Bush tonight, who has traveled from the Czech Republic today. She also met with Prime Minister Abe today. It seems likely that there will be more emergency meetings of officials after leaders arrive tomorrow night. It seems such a shame that we are pushing so hard just to stand still.

On the campaigning side there were more demonstrations with some violence yesterday, but not on the same level as Saturday, and as we left the press centre today there was a small but seemingly peaceful demonstration outside. We held a great stunt down by the harbor in Rostock, with the big heads dressed in Pinocchio outfits with prosthetic noses. It looked great—the image clearly put the message across. At the same time the alternative summit started in Rostock, with activists from around the world coming together for a great program of discussion and networking on issues related to world poverty and climate change.