[alternet-l] Alternet #44

[Adrian Harris]

THE ALTERNET NEWS - ISSUE # 44

This issue: 
HOT SITES/
GRAND MARNIER WORKERS/
CHINA ‘PRO-INTERNET’/
INTERNET FEEDS REVOLUTION/
FAIR TRADE BANANAS/ 
LANDMINE ACTION WEEK/ 
WORTHING GREEN FAIR/ 
QUOTE/UNQUOTE/ 
DIARY/

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Send your news & comments to: actnow at gn.apc.org 
Back issues are on-line at: 
---> http://www.gn.apc.org/activities/alternet

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HOT SITES
Sign The Rainforest Site Petition, which will be delivered to the United
Nations Commission on Sustainable Development this autumn. The petition
urges the UN to enforce the international community's political and legal
commitments to protect the rainforests:
---> http://www.therainforestsite.com/rbt/TRSPetition/r061322

The Climate Voice campaign is calling on people to lobby world leaders to
act on global climate change:
---> http://www.climatevoice.org/

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GRAND MARNIER WORKERS
War on Want has been working closely with labour federation Batay Ouvriye to
improve conditions on Haitian orange plantations producing for Grand Marnier.

Campaigner Yannick Etienne claimed the workers were treated "like slaves".
"Workers on the plantation have very few rights and are paid a pittance".

After pressure from the newly formed trade union SOML, which
represents plantation workers, and from an international solidarity
campaign, Grand Marnier has acceded to workers’ demands. 
---> http://www.waronwant.org/press/fgm2.htm

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CHINA 'PRO-INTERNET'
Access to the Internet is limited or banned in Vietnam, Burma, and China,
but the times are changing.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin is now pro-Internet, annoucing it would
transform China. Most significantly, Jiang appears to accept the
inevitability of free information flows.

In a speech to a largely foreign audience at the World Computer Congress,
Jiang said: "The speed and scope of its transmission have created a
borderless information space around the world."

China routinely blocks Web sites of Western media outlets, human rights
groups, Tibetan exiles, and other politically sensitive sources of
information. Domestic sites that violate party dictates have also been
closed. At least two Chinese "Web dissidents" are in jail, including Huang
Qi, who published information on the Internet about the 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre. He now faces trial for subversion. 
---> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38324,00.html?tw=wn20000821

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INTERNET FEEDS REVOLUTION
The fall of Suharto, the ex-President of Indonesia was accelerated by
students using the Internet to network, planning demonstrations and meetings.

Margot Cohen writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review, said:
"[T]he most powerful role of this technology has not been to introduce
outside ideas, but to provide a tool to an Indonesian middle class
increasingly fed up with corruption and other abuses of power." 

Internet postings now reach beyond the online community. Since Suharto's
resignation, students have formed committees to take their pro-democracy
message to outlying villages and poor urban neighbourhoods. They have
downloaded overseas commentary on the movement, printed the most compelling
posts, and plastered them on bus stops all over Jakarta. 
--->http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,12609,00.html

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FAIR TRADE BANANAS

Caribbean banana farmers are facing the most serious challenge to their
survival ever. The seven-year-old banana trade war between the United
States and the European Union has come to a head, in favour of the US and 
in the interest of the huge US-based banana companies which dominate the
Global banana trade. Caribbean banana farmers, having supplied Britain with
bananas for 50 years, now need our help more than ever before.

Banana Link and the Positive Sound System along with Oxfam, the Caribbean
Banana Exporters' Association, UNISON and the Fairtrade Foundation, will be
at Carnival 2000 to let people know that it is not too late to take action
to support Caribbean banana farmers.
We can support family farmers in the Windward Islands by buying fairly
traded bananas now available in supermarkets. Fair trade bananas carry the
Fairtrade Mark and are bought direct from democratically organised small
farmers' organisations.
"We need people here to look out for Fairtrade Mark bananas wherever they
shop. If they are not there, then ask for them." Said Renwick Rose,
co-ordinator of the Windward Islands Farmers' Association. 
Carnival-goers are being asked to lobby the Foreign
Secretary, Robin Cook,urging him not to sign up to any solution to the WTO
banana ruling which would spell the end of Caribbean bananas.
---> http://www.bananalink.org.uk/

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LANDMINE ACTION WEEK 
September 4 - 10 
The Week publicises the landmine issue, with individuals, groups and
agencies taking part in a range of campaigning and fundraising activities.

The official re-launch of the UK Working Group on Landmines coalition as
Landmine Action takes place at London’s Royal Geographical Society on 6
September. A lecture from Rae McGrath, Nobel Peace prize co-laureate and
founder member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, will be
followed by a reception and photographic exhibition. For tickets (subject
to availability), please contact Landmine Action on 020 7820 0222.

For more details please contact David Hillman, Campaign & Education
Co-ordinator at Landmine Action
Email: ukwglm at msn.com (until further notice)
---> http://www.waronwant.org/fmines.htm

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WORTHING GREEN FAIR
The fourth Worthing green fair on Saturday 2 September promises music on 2
(pedal-powered!) stages, kids activities, garden and healing area, and
circus...

But amidst all the fun, the event will highlight local community resistance
to development plans. Prescott proposes to urbanise major areas of West
Sussex, with the resultant pollution, road building, crime and inferior
quality of life that will follow.
The local Conservative council has shown its concern by proposing to sell

off the very popular paddling pool and build luxury flats.

E-mail: greenfair at worthing.eco-action.org
---> http://www.worthing.eco-action.org/greenfair

Saturday 2nd September, 12 noon 'til 10 pm
Field of Hope / Beach House Green, (seafront), Worthing

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QUOTE/UNQUOTE
"We look at some people as if they were special, gifted, divine. Nobody
is special and gifted and divine. No more than you are, no more than I
am. The only difference, the very only one, is that they have begun to
understand what they really are and have begun to practice it."
- Richard Bach

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DIARY DATES:

AUGUST:
26: A day of discussion and analysis on
Marxism, the environment and Green Politics organised by Socialist Outlook
and the International Socialist Group at Caxton House, St Johns way, London
N19 (nr Archway tube). 11:00 am to 6:00 pm
£5 waged, £3 unwaged. Creche available on basis of prior notification
E-mail: outlook at gn.apc.org

SEPTEMBER:
4-10: Landmine Action Week - See above

11: 2000 Trash Trident Trial begins in Manchester Crown Court Rosie and
Rachel, of Trident Ploughshares, are charged with £25,000 of damage to a
Trident nuclear submarine last February. There will be a programme of
support activities and actions throughout the trial. 
Contact: awtt at hotmail.com

9: Palestine 2000 Festival All Hallows on the Wall, London - guest Alexei
Sayle
Contact: trust at virgin.net

16: Palestine 2000 Festival Beacon Church Centre, Birmingham - guest Father
Elias Chacour
Contact: elijahtrust at totalise.co.uk

23: Palestine 2000 Festival Edinburgh U. Chaplaincy Centre - guest Afif
Safieh, Palestinian General Delegate to the UK and the Holy See. 
Contact: mortoncc at gn.apc.org

All Palestine 2000 venues will have Middle Eastern food, guest
speakers/artists, talks and workshops, exhibitions, books and crafts,
music, etc. Admission free and all welcome.

More Diary Dates on GreenNet: 
--- http://webboard.gn.apc.org:8086/default/ 

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