The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) officially launched their new Rainforest Agribusiness campaign this week, targeting ADM, Bunge and Cargill (ABC) for the role they are playing in the massive expansion of soy and palm oil plantations throughout the world. Global South movements including our partners in the Via Campesina are doing similar campaigns in various parts of the world.
We can do it with your help.
There are promising signs that this crucial legislation may pass the Senate, but we need your help to make it happen. Every call counts as the Farm Bill gets closer to a vote.
Call your Senators now and ask them to support food aid that works.
Armed forces, including local and Federal police (in and out of uniform) and various paramilitaries loyal to Governor Ulysses Ruiz have seized control of the streets of Oaxaca city, showing complete disregard for the human rights of activists who have been rallying for months against the policies of Ruiz. The current clampdown took place in the wake of the latest "megamarch" on November 25.
The Via Campesina and the Landless Workers Movement (MST) have successfully advocated for removing the global agribusiness Syngenta from a national park in Santa Teresa do Oeste, Paraná, in the south of Brazil.
The Via Campesina, a global movement of family farmers, agricultural workers, landless, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples, brought their message of food sovereignty to Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization. The very fact that Lamy agreed to meet with them demonstrates that their members have hugely affected the outcome of the WTO negotiations. Among social movements, including labor and environmental circles, there is a growing sentiment that the global food system should serve the needs of the producers, workers and communities most connected to it.
While the Via Campesina is making global leaders hear this message of food sovereignty, Grassroots International is bringing this message, in conjunction with the National Family Farm Coalition, to the U.S. where movement building for rights to land, water, food and seeds are sorely needed. Today, we are lifted by this new global political opportunity.
We are here to denounce the continuing war crimes perpetrated by the Israel government against the million and a half residents of the Gaza Strip, and to demand that your government cease its mili
As if it weren't enough that state and local police in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco have used violence and spurious prosecutions to intimidate social movements and resource rights activists, they have recently unleashed a new weapon: billboards and leaflets.
The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, of which GRI is a member, has learned that the House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday, May 9 on HR4681, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006. This bill imposes draconian economic and diplomatic sanctions against the Palestinian people for exercising their democratic rights.
Our latest dispatch from Hong Kong: The NFFC's Dena Hoff gives us an inside look at how the WTO tries to keep popular voices as far from the treaty deliberations--and from the press--as they can.
On Friday, January 14, Ghada Zughayar, the director of Rural Women’s Development Society (RWDS), joined a Grantmakers Without Borders
Tim Wise, former Executive Director of Grassroots International elaborated on this based on Grassroots' principles back in 2005 shortly after the Asian tsunami. Those pointers are just as relevant today. Progressive-minded people who want to contribute to humanitarian aid efforts too often abandon their progressive principles, particularly in crisis situations. Why? They want to help, and they want to do so quickly. And they focus on the service-delivery – food rations, medicines, shelter – rather than the service deliverers.
On November 20th a gang of hired gunmen opened fire on the families of Nova Alegria Farm near Felizburgo, Minas Gerais. Violent resistance to the agrarian reform movement led by Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST) has been on the rise in the last several years, and the perpetators of the crimes too-often go unpunished. For more information on the details of the attacks, read the statement below from the MST. Find out below how you can help put an end to impunity.
At exactly 6:00 a.m. Thursday November 11, my phone rang. It was a colleague, calling to inform me that Arafat's death had been officially declared.
Over 66 Palestinians, including 19 children, have been killed and at least 246 injured since the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) launched a renewed incursion into the northern Gaza Strip in a large scale operation called "days of penitence". It is the largest and deadliest offensive in Gaza in more than four years.
IOF, reinforced by over 200 tanks & armored personnel carriers and Apache helicopters, opened fire on the densely heavily populated Jabalya refugee camp and residential area in the village of Bait Lahiya.
By Nisrin Elamin
CNN and BBC headlines about Israeli withdrawals from Gaza, Iraqi sovereignty and Israel dropping Sharon's bribery case have made me feel like some people are living a different reality than the rest of us. Never mind, that two brutal occupations persist and that plans for withdrawal, handing back power and restoring democracy and justice seem further away from reality than ever. Can we let what happened in Gaza and Abu Ghraib fall through the cracks and into oblivion so quickly? Can we allow flagrant U.S. and Israeli violations of international laws to continue without organizing internal opposition and dissent?
Those were some of the questions I was thinking about on my way to the 3rd Annual National Organizer's Conference of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation that took place on June 4-7, 2004 in Washington D.C.
After George Bush's press conference last night, terror and counter terror are on our minds. Those issues certainly came up a lot during Daniel and Jennifer's trip to Palestine. We thank you all for your many responses to their reflections on the trip. Keep your eye out for an upcoming photo essay on their trip, which will be announced here.
We want to draw your attention to the release of a new report by the NGO trade association, Interaction. The report, entitled "Handbook on Counter-Terrorism Measures: What U.S. Nonprofits and Grantmakers Need to Know is a long overdue summary of the new legal restrictions on grantmaking and nonprofit activity, in general, since 9/11/01. Everyone involved in international grantmaking should certainly read it. We would certainly be happy to have your comments on the report.
The Boston Globe published our own assessment of the political context of post-9/11 international grantmaking (especially in the Middle East). It gives more attention to the civil liberties issues surrounding the new regulatory environment. Both perspectives are important to keep in mind.
The workers in the Okowa/Codevi Free Trade Zone have been struggling to get the IMF-backed Dominican Manufacturing concern Grupo M to respect their basic labor and human rights.
Eyad Sarraj of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program has sent the following letter to George W. Bush. We are sure that the President's response will be forthcoming...
I think these are some of the saddest and by far the most frightening of days. Israel, together with this administration, has been trying since Sept.
Grassroots International today called on the US and the United Nations to actively seek the participation of Haiti’s grassroots organizations in the country’s political transition.
