The INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON GLOBALIZATION is a research, advocacy and action organization, founded in 1994, focused on the impacts of dominant economic and geo-political policies. Led by an international Board of scholars and citizen-movement leaders from ten countries, IFG collaborates with environmental, social justice, and anti-militarism activists, seeking secure models of democracy and sustainability, locally and globally.
IFG convenes private strategic seminars, large public education events and Teach-Ins, and publishes books and reports. It has also generated effective public protest actions, as in Seattle, 1999, against the WTO. Current campaigns focus on: 1) The rapidly growing inequities and plutocratic controls of all prevailing global economic policies and practices, and, 2) the recently announced shifts in U.S. policy, “The Pacific Pivot”, toward advancing militarism, global corporate trade dominion, and environmental catastrophe for Pacific peoples and nations.
(For complete descriptions of these and other current and past program activity, CLICK HERE.) |
Asia Pacific Program |
Plutonomy Program |
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Throughout the Asia-Pacific, thousands of protestors are battling expanding U.S. military base construction, as here on Jeju Island, S. Korea, and Okinawa. Elsewhere, protests challenge aggressive corporate resource raiding, threats to indigenous peoples, and colonialist policies. For details, CLICK HERE. |
Throughout the world people and countries are suffering grave threats to their democracies and economies as an ever-smaller number of mega-wealthy billionaires control the global economy and most national policies. For a full picture of what is going on see our website on Koch Cash,
CLICK HERE. |
IFG NEWS & EVENTS:
Acclaimed Film Director Oliver Stone Joins Resistance Rallies vs. Controversial Military Base Sites in Pacific |
Acclaimed U.S. film director, Oliver Stone, visited Korea and Japan in August 2013 to lend support to citizens opposed to base-building in their nations, as well as the use of nuclear weapons. He visited Jeju Island, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo and Okinawa.
While on Jeju Island, where the South Korean and U.S. governments are building a huge, state-of-the-art navy base that will house aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines, Stone made the most of his brief, two-day visit. He met former film critic Yang Yoon-mo at Jeju prison. Yang, a Jeju native, is serving time for “obstruction of government business,” after having put his body in the path of construction trucks entering the base construction site.
Stone also marched alongside Gangjeong village mayor Kang Dong-kyun and hundreds of other villagers in the Grand March for Life and Peace, an annual week-long protest trek around the circumference of the island. Mayor Kang had, several weeks earlier, spoken at Moana Nui 2013, an IFG Asia-Pacific event which took place in Berkeley, California in June.
On the last day of the Grand March, Stone spoke at a large rally about the dangers of militarizing Jeju Island.
Though Stone’s activities violate the South Korean law that prohibits foreigners from engaging in political activity, in this case, the government turned a blind eye. National news media outlets in both Korean and English reported on the visit, giving the base controversy exposure that would have been ignored had it not been for Stone’s presence.
Click below for two reports from the Korean English-language media, as well as a Korean-language video news segment on Oliver Stone’s visit to Jeju island. |
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Sequester this! Three ways the Kochs win from today's “shrink government" agenda |
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| Koch Aviation's fleet, and other corporate jets would avoid $3.2B in closed tax loopholes under "sequestration". |
As America braces for record reductions in federal spending on March 1st ( so-called sequestration), too little attention has focused on the forces driving today’s “shrink government” agenda, or why its financial and intellectual leaders are so willing to go to such extremes measures. The individuals most-involved (measured in money and ideas) have direct commercial interests that indeed benefit from weaker scientific monitoring of weather, less regulation of pollution, and stopping the shift in subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy. All of the above are expected under sequestration (see links below), and each has its own injurious impact on our global climate crisis.
The Members of Congress who are advancing today’sunprecedented fiscal austerity are primarily Tea Party ideologues put in power by the world’s two wealthiest men, Charles and David Koch. The Kochs’ dark and dirty money has helped more anti-government extremists get into elected office than any other campaign contributor, outspending even Exxon. Some say their record spending in the 2012 elections by didn’t buy them much, but Congress’ ongoing obsession with self-contrived budget crises makes clear that the Kochs are more than ever defining the debate in Washington, and keeping their opponents on the defensive, even as Republicans remain deeply divided.
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“Shrink government” is central to the “economic freedom” ideology that the Kochs espouse, and it is the inspiration for a critical mass of
Congressmen who went to Washington to enact ultra-libertarian laws. It’s also an idea that’s key to the Kochs’ keeping their carbon-based wealth, as “less government” means more freedom for businesses to produce whatever they please, as they please. That principle is pretty important if your business plan is based on pumping carbon from underground and dumping it up in our atmosphere.
Sequestration's across-the-board approach to less government perfectly embodies the Kochs' big ideas and specific policy prescriptions, particularly by:
1) Cutting enforcement of the Clean Air Act by the EPA;
2) Scaling-back scientific monitoring of extreme weather by NOAA;
3) Gutting clean energy financing by DOE;
But it could all backfire. If hardline conservatives don’t cave and serious economic and political pain ensues, then most Americans appear to be ready to blame the extremist conservatives. Until today's ultra-free market ideologues are isolated, and reasonable Republicans are allowed to step out in support of balanced approaches to budgeting and urgent, ambitious actions to curb carbon, it is hard to see what will end America's Koch problem.
See more at www.kochcash.org.
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The Kochs and Congress as Citizens United marks three years |
New rights for private money let two carbon billionaires buy blocking power
As America marks the three-year anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United, a front page article in yesterday’s Financial Times revealed the full impact of Charles and David Kochs’ influence over American democracy. The Kochs’ “hardliner” activist group, Americans’ for Prosperity (AFP), is now “urging Republicans to show restraint during debt ceiling negotiations,” signaling that Koch-funded elected officials will no longer block a deal to increase the debt.
By allowing an agreement that thereby avoids a crash of the US economy, the Kochs’ stark display of blocking power in the US Congress is a stunning statement on the role of private money in policymaking today. Such control of Congress was not possible three years ago, but Citizens United changed that.
Read the full text HERE |
Now under his hand due to Citizens United, Americans for Prosperity’s (AFP) President, Tim Phillips, called off Koch-funded Congressmen from the debt ceiling debate |
Teach-In: Moana Nui #2
(“Moana Nui” is Polynesian for “Big Ocean”)
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June 1-June 2, 2013
Martin Luther King Auditorium, Berkeley
The peoples of the Pacific need help. It is no longer sufficient to speak merely of working to “protect local cultures” and “traditional economic practices.” Local peoples are being rapidly overrun by the expanding militarism, trade dominions and hegemonic battles of the United States, China and other Pacific powers. As the saying goes, “when elephants battle, the ants are crushed.”
In June, 2013, the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), in collaboration with a broad range of indigenous and small island peoples of the Pacific, and joined by activists from countries throughout the Pacific Basin, sponsored and produced a three-day series of public events in Berkeley, CA. These events were a continuation of the first Moana Nui gathering in Honolulu, November 2011, at the University of Hawaii—which IFG created in partnership with several dozen Pacific Island activist groups.
FIND OUT MORE
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Elephant Poisonings by Commercial
Palm Oil Plantations, Indonesia |
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How Violent Economic 'Reforms' Contribute to Violence Against Women
January 1, 2013 | By Vandana Shiva
The brave and courageous Delhi gang rape victim breathed her last on December 30, 2012.
This article is a tribute to her and other victims of violence against women.
Violence against women is as old as patriarchy. But it has intensified and become more pervasive in the recent past. It has taken on more brutal forms, like the death of the Delhi gang rape victim and the suicide of the 17-year-old rape victim in Chandigarh.
Rape cases and cases of violence against women have increased over the years. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported 10,068 rape cases in 1990 which increased to 16,496 in 2000. With 24,206 cases in 2011, rape cases jumped to incredible increase of 873 percent from 1971 when NCRB started to record cases of rape. And New Delhi has emerged as the rape capital of India, accounting for 25 percent cases.
The movement to stop this violence must be sustained till justice is done for every one of our daughters and sisters who has been violated.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE
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Get an inside tour with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman of
IFG’s Kochtopus
To navigate through the Kochtopus yourself CLICK HERE
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On the Front Lines of a New Pacific War
Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander December 14, 2012 |
 Anti-base protest by Gangjeong women farmers. |
On the small, spectacular island of Jeju, off the southern tip of Korea, indigenous villagers have been putting their bodies in the way of construction of a joint South Korean–US naval base that would be an environmental, cultural and political disaster. If completed, the base would hold more than 7,000 navy personnel, plus twenty warships including US aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and destroyers carrying the latest Aegis missiles—all aimed at China, only 300 miles away...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE
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Victor Menotti on Solution Zone
Climate Deadlock in Doha
Listen Here:
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Guest#1 – Michael Dorsey – Professor of Environmental Policy – Wesleyan University College of the Environment
Topic#1 : Weak Climate Deal at UN Doha Conference Again Fails to Seriously Address the Climate Crisis
As the Planet continues to suffer from the devastating effects of catastrophic climate change – The world’s The biggest polluters have yet again failed to take any serious responsibility for their major role in the climate crisis –at the UN COP18 Climate Summit in Doha this Saturday.
Guest #2 – Victor Menotti – Executive Director – International Forum on Globalization:
Topic #2: New Study Shows Koch Brothers a Major Force Behind the UN Climate Stalemate
A report entitled “Faces Behind a Global Crisis: US Carbon Billionaires and the UN Climate Deadlock highlights Charles and David Koch as THE top spenders to stop climate policy hold hostage any progress in Washington, and hence any meaningful global deal in Doha.
Read more: http://prn.fm/2012/12/12/solution-zone-climate-deadlock-121412/#ixzz2FSARtppo |
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Videos: Martin Khor & Victor Menotti on Democracy Now!
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Following the release of IFG's new report, Faces Behind a Global Crisis: US Carbon Billionaires and the UN Climate Deadlock, IFG's Executive Director Victor Menotti appeared on Democracy Now! to explain fossil fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch and their role in the current impasse in Doha. |
| IFG Board Member Martin Khor, and Executive Director of the South Centre also appeared on Democracy Now! this morning explaining how the "United States and other wealthy nations have not sufficiently pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fail to pay poorer nations for loss and damage from weather events caused by climate change." |
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To find out more about the report and how billionaires are impacting today's climate deadlock and the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, watch IFG's "Outing the Oligarchy" press briefing at the UNFCCC in Doha.
Here's what the press is saying about IFG's new report:
-The Guardian, UK
-Democracy Now!
-Center for Media and Democracy, PR Watch
-One World
-Alertnet
-DESMOGBLOG
-Inter Press Service
-Trouw, Netherlands
-Publico, Portugal
-El Correo, Spain
-TVi24, Brazil
For more about the Kochs see: kochcash.org
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IFG's New Report Reveals the Role of World's Wealthiest Individuals at Global Climate Talk |
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A new report was released at 10am today in Press Conference Room 2 at global climate talks in Doha, Qatar by the International Forum on Globalization entitled Faces Behind a Global Crisis: US Carbon Billionaires and the UN Climate Deadlock. IFG’s report details how Charles and David Koch’s undue influence over United States climate policy has helped to paralyze United Nations climate talks.
Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index recently ranked the oil baron brothers’ combined net worth ($80.2B) as greater than that of the world’s wealthiest man, Carlos Slim ($71.8B). The Kochs also outspent Exxon to kill US climate legislation.IFG’s new report follows the 2011 report, Outing the Oligarchy: Billionaires Who Benefit from Today’s Climate Crisis, published during COP 17 in Durban, South Africa, which identified the world’s fifty wealthiest individuals most invested in fossil fuels who wield their wealth to prevent the phase out of fossil fuels.
Faces Behind A Global Crisis focuses on the top billionaires blocking US climate policies because the US is widely seen as the major obstacle to any meaningful multilateral commitments to cutting dangerous greenhouse gases that cause climate disruptions. The report explains how the Kochs’ campaign contributions, lobbying legislators, funding climate denialists, attacking clean air laws, and stopping the shift in subsidies from fossil fuels has helped to halt any serious progress on climate policy in the US. The result is a deadlock in addressing the global crisis, as the US is the indispensable nation for action.
“As the top spenders to stop climate policy in the planet’s most polluting nation, the two oil barons from Wichita hold hostage any progress in Washington, and hence any meaningful global deal in Doha,” said Victor Menotti, Executive Director of the IFG. “Advancing a UN agreement requires substantial changes in US domestic dynamics to reduce the role of the Kochs, and all private money, corrupting policy outcomes. Setting stronger standards for power plant pollution will be a litmus test.”
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As cleanup continues in the US after the devastating Superstorm Sandy—which killed 125 Americans, 71 Caribbeans and did $62B in damage—the UN’s Climate Conference in Doha enters its final week with US negotiators still unable to table any ambitious commitments to cut emissions. Instead, the US insists on a “new paradigm” of voluntary pledges that falls far short of keeping below the agreed 2 C degree increase in global temperatures, and sets the world on course to warm up by 4-6 C degrees.
Meena Raman of the Third World Network and an IFG Board Member noted that, “The world cannot expect US negotiators to do anything but lead a race to the bottom toward a total climate crisis as long as they speak for their oil billionaires and not for the American people. How many more must die from climate disruptions before US negotiators align
their position with the scientific reality that says the world needs ambitious actions to cut carbon now?”
Download the full report
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ANNOUNCING IMPORTANT NEW BOOK: NUCLEAR ROULETTE
Now in Bookstores.
IFG is very pleased to announce publication of "Nuclear Roulette," by author Gar Smith, with a foreword by Jerry Mander and Ernest Callenbach. This 278 page book, now in bookstores around the country, enormously amplifies IFG's earlier report of the same name, produced as part of our climate change campaigning. This is the most comprehensive case against nuclear power ever published, and is must-reading for anyone interested in a sane energy future. (Publisher: Chelsea Green.)---Victor Menotti, Executive Director, IFG
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NUCLEAR ROULETTE
By Gar Smith
Foreword by Jerry Mander &  Ernest Callenbach
Pub Date: November 1, 2012
A False Solution to Energy Needs
Nuclear power is not clean, cheap, or safe. With Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, the nuclear industry’s record of catastrophic failures now averages one major disaster every decade. After three US-designed plants exploded in Japan, many countries moved to abandon reactors for renewables. In the United States, however, powerful corporations and a compliant government still defend nuclear power—while promising billion-dollar bailouts to operators.
Each new disaster demonstrates that the nuclear industry and governments lie to “avoid panic,” to preserve the myth of “safe, clean” nuclear power, and to sustain government subsidies. Tokyo and Washington both covered up Fukushima’s radiation risks and—when confronted with damning evidence—simply raised the levels of “acceptable” risk to match the greater levels of exposure.
Nuclear Roulette dismantles the core arguments behind the nuclear-industrial complex’s “Nuclear Renaissance.” While some critiques are familiar—nuclear power is too costly, too dangerous, and too unstable—others are surprising: Nuclear Roulette exposes historic links to nuclear weapons, impacts on Indigenous lands and lives, and the ways in which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission too often takes its lead from industry, rewriting rules to keep failing plants in compliance. Nuclear Roulette cites NRC records showing how corporations routinely defer maintenance and lists resulting “near-misses” in the US, which average more than one per month.
Nuclear Roulette chronicles the problems of aging reactors, uncovers the costly challenge of decommissioning, explores the industry’s greatest seismic risks—not on California’s quake-prone coast but in the Midwest and Southeast—and explains how solar flares could black out power grids, causing the world’s 400-plus reactors to self-destruct. This powerful exposé concludes with a roundup of proven and potential energy solutions that can replace nuclear technology with a “Renewable Renaissance,” combined with conservation programs that can cleanse the air, and cool the planet. |
Praise for Nuclear Roulette:
“If ever there was a book that people need to read at this moment in the history of the world it is Nuclear Roulette. Comprehensively referenced, it is not only an encyclopedia of the nuclear age related specifically to nuclear power, it is a potent warning of the almost incomprehensible dangers that lie ahead, as well as the damage that has already contaminated portions of our beloved planet beyond repair. I highly recommend this wonderful book to all who care about our children, future generations, and the thirty million other species that cohabit this earth with us.”
—Dr. Helen Caldicott, pediatrician, founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and author of Nuclear Madness and Nuclear Power is not the Answer
“A thoroughly brilliant work. Extraordinary! Gar Smith cuts through the lies of the nuclear promoters to document the deadliness of atomic power.”
—Karl Grossman, professor of journalism, State University of New York College at Old Westbury, and author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power
“This powerful solartopian screed leaves no doubt that the experiment with atomic energy is the most dangerous and expensive technological failure in human history. Gar Smith writes with extraordinary power and clarity on an industry whose failure threatens the future of our species—ecologically, economically, and in terms of biological survival. Nuclear Roulette is a strong signpost pointing straight to a green-powered world, where we get our energy cheaper, safer, cleaner, community-owned, and quicker. Take this book with you next time you’re out shutting a nuke or opening a wind farm.”
—Harvey Wasserman, author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, and editor of www.nukefree.org.
“Nuclear Roulette by Gar Smith is a timely and necessary book. Nuclear energy is unaffordable by every measure—by the measure of financial costs, of safety, and of the destruction of democracy. We are witnessing this in India where the US-India nuclear agreement is imposing a ‘nuclear renaissance’ by creating a police state in Koodankulam and in Jaitapur. Nuclear Roulette should be in the hands of everyone who cares for life and freedom.”
—Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science Technology & Ecology
“Nuclear Roulette is an act of love and reason for Mother Earth. We’ve had five decades of poisonous decision making in the face of millennia of life. Now is the time to safeguard our generations yet to come. Gar Smith’s powerful writing tells the stories that inform our good work.”
—Winona LaDuke, indigenous rights activist and author of All Our Relations and Recovering the Sacred |
Chelsea Green Publishing,
85 North Main Street, Suite 120,
White River Jct., Vermont 05001
Orders: 800.639.4099 Offices: 802.295.6300 Fax: 802.295.6444
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Korean Village Could Be First Casualty of US Military’s “Pacific Pivot”
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Gangjeong Villager Sung-Hee Choi Blocking Construction Vehicle
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This article by IFG's Koohan Paik, now running in Earth Island Journal, summarizes the enormous battle on the island of Jeju, South Korea. The indigenous Gangjeon villagers are trying to block a U.S.-Korea military base that will be environmentally and socially disastrous. The story is typical of what U.S. policy is achieving throughout the Pacific right now.
Korean Village Could Be First Casualty of US Military’s “Pacific Pivot”
by Koohan Paik – October 29, 2012
Residents of Jeju Island are protesting construction of new joint US-South Korean Navy base
This article by IFG's Koohan Paik summarizes the enormous battle on the island of Jeju, South Korea. The indigenous Gangjeon villagers are trying to block a U.S.-Korea military base that will be environmentally and socially disastrous. The story is typical of what U.S. policy is achieving throughout the Pacific right now.
In November 2011, President Barack Obama, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, announced the “Pacific Pivot,” a strategy to shift the US military’s focus to the Asia-Pacific region. The announcement was a signal to China that the United States would not permit its ascendance to advance any further into the US’s historic zone of economic and military domination, which dates back to the nineteenth-century occupations of the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii.
But the announcement of the Pacific Pivot also raised a red flag for environmentalists, Indigenous peoples of the region, and small states within the Pacific Basin, who fear the consequences of this new geopolitical struggle. As an African saying goes: “When the elephants battle, the ants get crushed.”
Resistance to US military bases in the Pacific is not new. Massive protests in Okinawa sometimes draw as many as 100,000 people into the streets in opposition to the decades-old US bases there. On the island of Guam, a new, youth-driven movement has recently emerged to challenge the US military presence there. And in Hawaii, the long battle that began with the occupation of Pearl Harbor at the end of the nineteenth century continues today.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE |
Kochs’ net worth jumps 24% from last year;
IFG and allies launch emergency effort on Koch Cash |
New Forbes figures are out for 2012, and the Kochs’ family fortune increased by another one-quarter. So what?
The Kochs’ wealth jumping from $50B to 62$B means they now have an even bigger war chest to rollback inherent rights to clean air, to clean water, collective bargaining, and even to vote.
And that’s aside from the billion dollar electoral blitz they’re bundling to replace the President, seize the Senate, and fill the House, and our Courts, with even more ideologues to advance their extremist “economic freedom” agenda.
WHY THE KOCHS HAVE SO MUCH CASH |
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Since Koch Industries is a private corporation, no one but David and Charles really know how they managed such high rates of return during today’s deepening recession. Since the economic recession began in 2008, the Kochs have exponentially increased their wealth by 58% while median family net worth dropped 40%.
“Koch Cash” has skyrocketed amidst increasing American poverty, rising gas prices, as well as record temperatures and drought due to increased carbon emissions.
Sure, the Kochs “built” it, but on all of our backs. The biggest burden will be born by young people, especially if the Kochs get their wish from a Romney-Ryan regime: to remove all carbon regulations from the EPA, and to deregulate oil derivatives.
Gas prices go higher, climate disruptions spread, people go hungry, and the Kochs gets richer. |
EMERGENCY EFFORT TO COUNTER KOCH CASH
The new Forbes numbers come as IFG and allies announce an emergency effort to call out the Koch Cash corrupting our democracy and destroying the Earth.
IFG convened leaders of key constituencies to come up with a counter plan. See more here…
You can support such efforts in many ways…
• Click the "share" button on the top right of this email to send to your friends;
• Check out our blog on everything Koch, www.kochcash.org;
• Follow OWS activities surrounding the Kochs' on Twitter #kochparty: https://twitter.com/i/#!/search/?q=kochparty&src=typd;
• Give generously to IFG so we can intensify our efforts to take on the single largest
source of money corrupting democracy today. Thank you.
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IFG's Asia Pacific Network continues; here's a report from the battle on Jeju Island
IUCN OFFICIALLY BLOCKS PARTICIPATION BY JEJU VILLAGERS WHO OPPOSE NAVAL BASE CONSTRUCTION NEAR CONVENTION
IUCN leadership still refuses to criticize Korea's destructive naval base, though construction work is killing rare soft corals, numerous endangered species (including from IUCN's Red List), and destroying indigenous communities and livelihoods. This stance from IUCN defies its traditional mission, conserving nature and a "just world."
NEW RESOLUTIONS ARE NEEDED FOR EMERGENCY
VOTE OF ALL IUCN MEMBERS
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ABOUT A MONTH AGO, this committee was joined by dozens of co-signers from around the world, in circulating open
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Police crack down on Gangjeong villagers protesting navy base construction
a
few minutes from the IUCN convention site. |
letters to the leadership of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its associated members. The statements were remarking on recent actions
of IUCN that directly conflict with its important historical mandates.
While continuing to proclaim its devotion to protecting Nature, including the planet’s endangered places and species, IUCN leadership has ignored or whitewashed projects that are assaulting these wonders, and undermining human rights and sustainable livelihoods. For example, the organization inexplicably planned its giant September convention only a few minutes’ bus ride from one of the world’s great current outrages---the construction of a large new naval base near the
village of Gangjeong, on Jeju Island, the “jewel” of South Korea. The naval base project, meant to become home-port for Korean and U.S. missile-carrying warships 300 miles from China, is threatening one of the planet’s last great soft coral reefs, and other coastal treasures, killing numerous endangered species (including one on IUCN’s famous Red List), and destroying centuries-old sustainable communities of local farmers and fishers. The Gangjeong villagers have been protesting the base project for years, and are being met with daily police brutality. Such activities represent all that IUCN has traditionally opposed. Then, a few days ago (August 22), an official letter arrived from IUCN leadership informing the indigenous villagers that their application to host a small Information Booth at the convention was denied, though dozens have been granted for corporations and other groups. No explanation was offered.
For full text go to Asia Pacific Program Page. (You can also see letters #1 and #2.) |
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Please HELP support hundreds of brave grassroots protestors on the Korean Island of Jeju, now suffering brutal attacks by riot police. The issue is South Korean government construction of a giant military base for the U.S. Navy, being built now on a magnificent UNESCO World Heritage Site. The U.S. goal is to encircle China, but it could lead to war. |
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IFG’s Asia-Pacific Program wants to avoid a conflict by bringing together grassroots groups from the region for coordinated  responses toward a peaceful resolution.
Noam Chomsky: “The protest on Jeju counts as a critical struggle against a potentially devastating war in Asia. China sees the base as a threat to its national security, likely to trigger confrontation and an arms race between South Korea and China, with the U.S. involved.” MORE.... |
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Outing the Oligarchy in the Press: Reactions and Mentions |
New Report: Outing the Oligarchy
Billionaires Who Benefit from Today’s Climate Crisis
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IFG released a special report, “Outing the Oligarchy: Billionaires Who Benefit From Today’s Climate Crisis,” which identifies the world’s top 50 individuals whose investments benefit from climate change and whose influence networks block efforts to phase out pollution from fossil fuels.
IFG’s report comes as global debates intensify on how best to protect the climate and how best to counter the corrupting power of extreme wealth over politics. The report draws the links between the two debates and identifies the emerging, ultra-rich tycoons who are deepening the world’s climate crisis. READ MORE
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IFG’s New Asia-Pacific Network Launched in Honolulu at Moana Nui |
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IFG announced its Asia-Pacific Network program as part of our 3-day teach-in and conference, Moana Nui 2011, Honolulu, November 9-11.
In partnership with a coalition of Pacific Island activists, I Pua Mohala I Ka Po, the event protested the impending APEC/TPP trade agreements among Pacific Rim nations, as well as rampant militarism and colonization in the Pacific, environmental devastation from undersea corporate mining, and the growing battle between the U.S. and China for hegemony in the region. Events culminated with a march on the APEC/TPP meetings.
For speaker videos, articles and more CLICK HERE |
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Implementing
the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Walden Bello
