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Green Party conference kicks off today
The Green Party’s Spring Conference kicks off today at the Arts Depot in North London.
Today’s events will include debates on Low Wages (hosted by London AM Darren Johnson) as well as: ‘Co-operatives and the Green Party’, climate change and ‘Green Party Women’ (hosted by Natalie Bennett, Green Party PPC for Holborn and St Pancras).
Tomorrow, the conference will be addressed by Caroline Lucas MEP in the morning.
It will also hold a session on civil liberties and blogging / new media (hosted by Jim Jepps) later in the day.
Jim Jepps adds on his blog:
There’s some interesting stuff on the agenda, including an over-haul of our health policy, the beginnings of our science and technology review, blogging workshop and technical constitutional reforms of which I’m probably a thousand times more interested in that you are.
A full time-table of the conference is here.
You can also follow the debate on Twitter at the #gpconf hashtag.
Japan joins global call for Robin Hood tax
A Japanese Finance Minister has called for the country to impose a tax on financial transactions to curb market volatility, also dubbed the ‘Robin Hood tax’.
Naoki Minezaki said market volatility threatened economic growth.
Bloomberg reports him saying::
“We’re seeing speculative funds flowing carelessly around the world — one day in stocks and real estate other times in oil and grains — and this is destroying the lives of ordinary people,” Minezaki wrote in an e-mail to supporters and reporters on Feb. 15. “We have to implement the Tobin Tax as part of international solidarity,” he said, adding that the levy could also boost revenue.
Japan is now fourth in the seven richest countries on the planet to endorse the Tobin, a.k.a. Robin Hood tax. It joins the leaders of Britain, France and Germany.
Owen Tudor at the ToUChstone blog welcomed the news, adding:
Four out of seven. Er, that’s a majority isn’t it? Of course, the US administration is yet to be convinced, but we are getting closer to the tipping point.For those who don’t like decisions being made by the richest countries in the world, the G7 does actually have traction on this issue, because most financial transactions do take place in those richest countries.
Over 70% of the value of global transactions are in just three: Britain, Germany and the USA. And there isn’t actually a mechanism to introduce a global tax, so in reality what a global tax means is the co-ordinated introduction of taxes by the countries where the financial transactions take place.
Japan’s move is likely to put pressure on the US to move in the same direction.
Petition on Pope hits 11k names; protests planned
A signature campaign against the Pope’s visit to the UK has gathered over 11,000 signatures according to the National Secular Society’s website.
The organisation has announced a large-scale campaign of protest against the state visit of the Pope to Britain in September.
The trip is estimated to cost around £20 million, payable by the taxpayer.
Terry Sanderson, president of the NSS, said:
We have an online petition where people can make clear their opposition to the state funding of this visit. If the Catholic Church wishes its leader to come here, it should pay for the visit itself.
I am sure many others feel the same resentment as we do at the NSS at funding the presence of someone who wishes to impose a reactionary agenda of social change on us.
He said a coalition of groups that have suffered because of the Pope’s teachings will ensure that wherever he goes he will be aware that he has caused damage and hurt in the lives of real people.
The coalition was seeking to bring together gay groups, feminist groups, family planning organisations, pro-choice groups, victim support groups and anyone who feels under siege from “the Vatican’s current militancy”.
Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner told The Times:
His ill-informed claim that our equality laws undermine religious freedom suggests that he supports the right of Churches to discriminate in accordance with their religious ethos.
He seems to be defending discrimination by religious institutions and demanding that they should be above the law.
Campaign groups call to cancel Haiti’s debt
A growing call has been reverberating across the world to cancel Haiti’s debt ever since the earthquake.
Yesterday the global campaign group Avaaz sent out an email asking people to sign their petition to cancel the country’s debt. Avaaz and partners will deliver it to the IMF and key finance ministers next week.
Their move comes after another anti-poverty group, One, handed over a petition with 150,000 signatures to the International Monetary Fund.
The petition asked that the IMF cancel Haiti’s $165 million debt repayment obligation when the board meets later this week. “Swift action by the IMF would increase momentum and pressure on all creditors,” One said in a statement, according to HuffPo.
This week Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also announced he was canceling Haiti’s $295 million debt to Petrocaribe, Venezuela’s energy regional energy distributor. “Haiti has no debt with Venezuela — on the contrary, it is Venezuela that has a historic debt with Haiti,” Chavez said.
On Facebook, a group demanding, ‘No Shock Doctrine for Haiti‘ – has accumulated over 30,000 members already.
The World Bank, also under heavy criticism along with the IMF, announced this week it was waiving Haiti’s debt repayments for the next five years.
The Nation magazine reported this week on the issue too:
[Naomi] Klein says that this is “unprecedented in my experience and shows that public pressure in moments of disaster can seriously subvert shock doctrine tactics.” Neil Watkins, Executive Director of Jubilee USA, likewise hails the IMF’s response. “Since the IMF’s announcement last week of its intention to provide Haiti with a $100 million loan, Jubilee USA and our partners have been calling for grants and debt cancellation–not new loans–for Haiti. We are pleased that Managing Director Strauss-Kahn has responded to that call.”
Watkins and others will continue to follow the issue, holding the IMF to its commitment to debt relief and non-conditionality. They’re also pressing the case on Haiti’s other outstanding debt. The largest multilateral holders of Haiti’s debt are the Inter-American Development Bank ($447 million), the IMF ($165 million, plus $100 million in new lending), the World Bank’s International Development Association ($39 million) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development ($13 million). The largest bilateral loans are held by Venezuela ($295 million–hello, Chavez!?) and Taiwan ($92 million).
The lesson: public pressure works, especially in a moment of such acutely visible human need. Keep up the mobilization, on Facebook and in real life.
Edlington victim mother hits back at Cameron
The mother of one of the Edlington torture case victims hit back at David Cameron today for using the case to talk about a “social recession”.
In a speech given last week David Cameron said:
When parents are rewarded for splitting up, when professionals are told that it’s better to follow rules than do what they think is best, when single parents find they take home less for working more, when young people learn that it pays not to get a job, when the kind-hearted are discouraged from doing good in their community, is it any wonder our society is broken? We can’t go on like this.
He pointed pointed to the brutal attack on the nine and 11-year-old boys in Edlington, South Yorkshire, by brothers aged 10 and 11 to reinforce his case.
PA reported:
the Tory leader will point to the torture of two young boys as an extreme symptom of what he dubs Labour’s “moral failure” as he launches a raft of social policies.
But one of the mothers retorted: “It’s those boys who are broken – not us.” [via Paul Waugh]
Cameron was already under fire from Labour and some media commentators for tarring whole communities with the same brush.
Ken takes up ‘class war’ theme against Tories
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone has taken up the ‘class war’ against the Tories in this week’s Tribune magazine.
In it he attacks David Cameron’s Conservative Party for waging a ‘class war’ against average voters.
Livingstone argues that the Tories have ‘reverted to type’, and that ‘those on average incomes, the least well off, the unemployed, teachers, health workers and others must suffer from a savage attack on public spending’. Livingstone also claims that ‘a meaningful fight against climate change would be abandoned’.
‘These are open class-war policies, with a vengeance’.
But he also argues that just focusing on lower income voters cannot build Labour a winning electoral coalition.
Labour “can only win when it has the support of both those on ‘middle incomes’ and the less advantaged,” he says.
He also calls for Labour to engage in dialogue with those who “support a progressive agenda but who, for various reasons, are not natural Labour supporters”.
Ken Livingstone will be the main speaker at next week’s Progressive London event.
More from the Tribune interview here.
Social media has huge impact on Haiti Appeal
Social media websites were the biggest referrers to the Disasters Emergency Coalition fund-raising appeal on Haiti, the organisation has claimed.
The DEC says it had raised £10m in 24 hours after the Haiti Earthquake Appeal was launched.
Facebook and Twitter were by far the biggest referrers to their site after Google and BBC.
The amount includes online and phone donations only, with amounts from corporate, postal, events, SMS and over-the-counter donations still to be recorded.
The DEC issued a statement saying social media “played a crucial part in raising funds and awareness” in the 36 hours following the appeal.
Although the TV ads was not broadcast until Friday evening, £8m was raised online following the first DEC announcement on Twitter at 7.41pm on Wednesday.
It said simply:
You’re the first to know – DEC #Haiti Earthquake Appeal now live, UK broadcast appeals to follow
An SMS donation system was launched shortly afterwards and by Saturday morning a total of 148,000 people had donated online.
The DEC Facebook page now counts over 11,000 fans as of Sunday morning – a phenomenal rise up from 800 five days earlier.
Bloggers showed their support by adding DEC banners and buttons to hundreds of UK blogs.
DEC Chief Executive Brendan Gormley said:
Their donations mean our member agencies can continue to source and deliver the emergency supplies needed like safe water, shelter, medicine and food. We hope people will continue to give their support so that more emergency aid can be added to what will be a massive humanitarian effort.
Photograph sharing site Flickr has also been used to host images from the DEC’s member agencies, with 34,000 views of the DEC account on Friday.
The ability to pool resources on sharing sites and follow the DEC’s 13 member agencies through newly implemented Twitter ‘lists’ has also proved invaluable to the committee in updating the public on developments.
Examples of what donations will go to include:
* £25 will supply a kit of household essentials.
* £50 buys a food pack to feed a family for a fortnight.
* £100 provides temporary shelter for two families.
To make a donation to the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal visit www.dec.org.ukor call 0370 60 60 900
Boris finds £75k for USA day despite crunch
London’s occasional Mayor Boris Johnson has found £75,000 for a ‘USA Day’ in the capital despite raising fares for commuters and earlier cutting festivals on cost grounds.
Last year Boris killed off the multicultural festival Rise on cost grounds. But his department has miraculously found money to promote the United States in London, according to the Guardian.
Steve Hart, regional secretary of the Unite union, said:
It is remarkable he is subsidising predominantly wealthy Americans when he has cut £300m from the bus subsidy and increased fares by 20%.
Rise began in 1996 and had become the largest anti-racist festival in Europe, attracting crowds of about 100,000.
Update: Adam Bienkov reports that Boris didn’t seem to be aware that his office was actually sponsoring the USA festival.
Is London’s occasional Mayor ever aware of his own policies?
Watch: Ed Balls makes Gove look like a fool
[via Septicisle]
Atheist Bus launches new ad campaign
The organisers of the extremely popular Atheist Bus ads launched the second part to their campaign today.
While the first ad campaign stated: ‘There’s probably no god. So stop worrying and enjoy your life’.
The new one states: ‘Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself’.
On Guardian CIF Ariane Sherine explained the reasoning behind the new campaign:
However, rather than using adverts to try and campaign politically, we thought it would be more beneficial to try and change the current public perception that it is acceptable to label children with a religion. As Richard Dawkins states, “Nobody would seriously describe a tiny child as a ‘Marxist child’ or an ‘Anarchist child’ or a ‘Post-modernist child’.”
“Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. We need to encourage people to think carefully before labelling any child too young to know their own opinions, and our adverts will help to do that.”
…
We hope the advert’s message will encourage the government, media and general public to see children as individuals, free to make their own choices as soon as they are old enough to fully understand what these choices mean, and that they will think twice before describing children in terms of their parents’ religion in the future.
The adverts will go across billboards and buses from 20th November to coincide with Universal Children’s Day.
The campaign has a Facebook page here.
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