Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Make Poverty History, Drop the Debt Event, Piccys from Nottingham

Tash [alan lodge] | 16.04.2005 21:46 | G8 2005 | Globalisation | Repression | Social Struggles | Sheffield

Trade Justice believe everyone has the right to feed their families, make a decent living and protect their environment.But the rich and powerful are pursuing trade policies that put profits before the needs of people and the planet.






















Make Poverty History, Drop the Debt Event, Piccys from Nottingham

 http://www.makepovertyhistory.org

 http://www.tjm.org.uk

These pictures are from the Nottingham Event. St Peters Church, Nr Broadmarsh

>>>>

Trade Justice believe everyone has the right to feed their families, make a decent living and protect their environment.

But the rich and powerful are pursuing trade policies that put profits before the needs of people and the planet.

To end poverty and protect the environment we need Trade Justice not free trade.

The UK Government should:

Fight to ensure that governments, particularly in poor countries, can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment.
End export subsidies that damage the livelihoods of poor communities around the world.
Make laws that stop big business profiting at the expense of people and the environment

Press Release
14 April 2005

Biggest mass protest of election campaign says parties must go further on anti-poverty pledges

World poverty and environmental groups descend on Whitehall Friday 15th April to show strength of public concern on the UK's role in global trade.

Public concern on international trade will be demonstrated as thousands mobilise for a mass rally on trade justice this weekend.

People are traveling from across the country to be in Westminster and Whitehall on Friday evening for 'Wake Up to Trade Justice' - a night-long vigil and protest to ensure that all political parties know the strength of the public demand for trade justice not free trade.

The vigil, organised by the Trade Justice Movement as part of a Global Week of Action for Trade Justice, will start with a special celebrity-supported event at Westminster Abbey.

Participants, led by representatives of Trade Justice Movement organisations - which represent nine million UK voters - will then form a 'Human White Band' around Parliament Square, the symbol of Make Poverty History, highlighting the policy changes on trade the campaign is demanding the parties adopt.

The activists, public and celebrities will then proceed along Whitehall for a candle-lit vigil, including a mass 1-minute's silence at midnight to mark the millions of lives being destroyed worldwide by unfair trade laws. A night of film, music, debate and education at venues around Whitehall follows.

The event is set to culminate in a dawn procession before Trade Justice campaign delegations meet representatives from the three main political parties.

Glen Tarman, Trade Justice Movement coordinator, said:

"The British electorate is rightly concerned about the economy, health and education - but not just in the UK. The free trade policies the rich countries are pushing on the developing world are robbing people of health and education services and promoting economic insecurity for communities on a global scale."

"This is a wake-up call for political leaders of all the main parties - if elected, they must make sure urgent action is taken if we are to have justice in international trade and start to make poverty history in 2005. We are making world poverty a doorstep issue."

"All the parties claim to be concerned about apathy towards politics especially among the young. Yet thousands of potential voters are coming to Whitehall to demand the parties address their concern that Britain's trade policies do not hurt the world's poor and the planet. The parties would do well to listen."

The Trade Justice Movement has called on all UK political parties to make public statements setting out their position on stopping the push for poor countries to open up their economies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and through other forms of international pressure.

Around the world millions of people in more than 80 countries are taking to the streets in the Global Week of Action running from 10-16 April - calling for trade justice to help lift people out of poverty.


For further information:
Sarah Finch 07870 823485
Trade Justice Movement 020 7523 2417 www.tjm.org.uk


Notes for Editors:
1. Wake Up to Trade Justice on 15/16th April is a celebrity supported all-night carnival of music, art and protest. See www.tjm.org.uk.

2. The Trade Justice Movement is a coalition of 67 organisations including aid agencies, environment and human rights campaigns, fairtrade organisations, trade unions, and faith and consumer groups.

3. Trade Justice is one of the key calls of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY, the UK's largest ever anti-poverty mobilisation already supported by 400 UK organisations.

4. The Global Week of Action is the biggest mobilisation yet on trade, with events in every continent, including all of the G8 countries. Thousands of events, in both rich and poor countries, include demonstrations, petitions to governments and institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, voting for trade justice, street theatre and marches. Over a hundred events have already taken place across the UK. For more information see www.april2005.org/media.

5. Opinion polls show international poverty ranks high (eighth) among the most important election issues, above Europe, transport, Iraq and interest rates (Economist, 9th-15th April: Sources MORI, ICM, Populus, YouGov). For the first time in a UK election the leaders of all three main parties have pledged to make keynote speeches about world poverty on the same day (24 April).

6. The Trade Justice Movement is calling on the UK Government (whichever party takes power) to ensure that developing countries can choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment. The coalition has written to the leaders of the major parties demanding they adopt policies to stop forcing trade liberalisation on developing countries in areas including industrial tariffs, trade in services and agriculture.

The letter can be read at: www.tjm.org.uk/wakeup/letter.shtml.



____________________________________________
ALAN LODGE
Photographer - Media: One Eye on the Road. Nottingham. UK
Email:  tash@gn.apc.org
Web:  http://tash.gn.apc.org
WAP phone  http://wappy.to/tash
My Blog  http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com
BroadBand  http://tash.dns2go.com
Member of the National Union of Journalists [No: 014345]
____________________________________________
"It is not enough to curse the darkness.
It is also necessary to light a lamp!!"
___________________________________________
OS Grid Ref: SK 575414 - Lat/Lon: 52:58:03N, 1:08:38W

Tash [alan lodge]
- e-mail: tash@gn.apc.org
- Homepage: http://tash.gn.apc.org

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Well Done

17.04.2005 09:25

What a great campaign, how dare peole who have loaned money to developing nations expect that debt to be repaid. I find it disgusting that countries who have borrowed money who pay for infrastructure improvements, road building, defence expenditure etc should be forced to pay that back. Indeed why should I repay to my bank the overdraft I have which financed by gap year tavels. I should be allowed to just take the money and keep it.

Has an overdraft


Re: Has an overdraft

17.04.2005 11:39

YOU TWAT.

People are dying, people are starving, people are lacking access to clean drinking water, and you think these impoverished people should be handing over their non-existant money to us spoil rich kids in the west. Well fuck you.

The debt is completely unpayable. If it is never cancelled then it will never be paid back, simple as that. These countries are totally UNABLE to pay back even the INTEREST they are being charged. It's a matter of life or death and you think that because you got to go on some spoilt rich-kid backpacking tour around one of these countries that those people must continue to be enslaved to the likes of you and me. Fuckwit.

Yes you have an overdraft and are expected to pay it back.
But if you were UNABLE to then you would be declared bankrupt and be allowed to start again. OK you'd have a dodgy credit rating and find it hard to borrow money for a while. But that's better than starving isn't it.

Did the impoverished people of the third world give their governments permission to borrow that money and spend it unwisely? Most of them don't even live in democracies. And when they do, the government promises one thing and does another so it's not true democracy. So why should those people have to die because their governments were / are corrupt / incompetent?

A lot of that money was not only borrowed corruptly but lent corruptly. The world bank lent billions of dollars knowing full well that it was going straight into leaders' swiss bank accounts. And yet today the ordinary people of those countries are expected to pay - often with their lives.

But because you financed your trendy little gap year with a student overdraft that gives you the right to demand that the poor hand over money that they don't even have.

By your logic, Germany would still be in debt from the first world war. Germany would probably be at the same level of development as Bulgaria right now. When debts are unpayable, they have to be cancelled. That's not to say no strings should be attached. Strings should be attached. Strings like accountability and transparency. Strings that should NOT be attached include forced privatisation and reduction of labour and environmental standards...

Debts are stopping these countries from developing. If we cancel their debts it is an investment for our economies. The countries will be allowed to develop and people there will be able to afford to trade more with us and that will help us too. That's not WHY we should cancel them. We should cancel them because it's fucking out of order not to. But it's worth noting that we do stand to gain rather than lose, so even just going on (enlightened) self-interest, those debts should be dropped.

BUT THE MAIN POINT I WANT TO MAKE IS THAT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. THIS ISN'T THE DROP THE DEBT CAMPAIGN THESE PROTESTERS ARE BANGING ON ABOUT - THIS IS THE TRADE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN WHICH IS ABOUT INTERNATIONAL TRADE RULES. SO YOU'RE CLEVER LITTLE ATTACK IS THE EQUIVALENT OF SAYING TO SOME FREE TIBET PEOPLE "YOU'RE SO WRONG - KURDISTAN MUST NEVER BE FREE, HOW DARE YOU TRY TO SAY THAT THERE SHOULD BE AN INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN" - IF YOU WANT TO DISAGREE WITH PEOPLE AT LEAST MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHICH ISSUE THEY ARE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT - THAT KIND OF HELPS.

bloke


debt

17.04.2005 13:30

>>I find it disgusting that countries who have borrowed money who pay for infrastructure improvements, road building, defence expenditure etc should be forced to pay that back...


debt.... you need to ask yourself where the debt actually is. western nations have profited for three centuries by exploiting the peoples of africa, the middle and far east. loans for development at massive interests, which have been designed to be unpayable so they continue indefinitely, have been part of this profiteering. ask any banker.

these countries have no debt to us. we, on the contrary, have a massive debt to them. it is only the utterly fanciful belief that we have a right to pursue our present national lifestyle habits as others suffer in poverty or misery abroad that allows people like brown, bliar and their imc reading friends to argue that poverty and injustice can be tackled through showcase reform packages while the labour and tory parties continue with lawmaking for greater free market expansion.

let's just get this straight: free market capitalism is about +degradation+. it is about +exploiting+ people and nature for maximum profit at minimum cost. it is greed in a shiny suit carrying a text book rationale. that sounds kind of picturesque. but see yourself as a whore in a bangkok brothel or an orphan kid collecting rubbish to sell from a tip in a rio barrio or a mumbai slum and then try to talk about how good the free market is.

free market capitalism is only held up by self made proclamations about its own inevitability. we are told, we are conditioned by lifestyle to believe, that there is no alternative. meantime populations around the world are held at bay by gunpoint or by the lies of national media so the system can function. it is an appalling system. we should all be appalled – enough to demand the cancellation of all 3rd world ‘debt’ and to work for the end of the free market. because it isn’t inevitable.

- -


well done

19.04.2005 00:38

Hey, Well done to the Nottingham Oxfam, Foe and MPH lot. Lots of good action there it seems. Thanks for the pics and the reports.
Coaliton Bod Sheff.

coalition bod


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech