[alternet-l] THE ALTERNET NEWS - ISSUE # 94

[Joanne Doyle]

THE ALTERNET NEWS - ISSUE # 94

This issue:

HOT SITES/
GM DEBATE/
WOMEN WITH MEGABYTE/
GREENNET IR SITE/
APC WSIS CRITIQUE/
MULTIMEDIA TRAINING KIT/
INDONESIA's EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES/
ICTs FOR DEVELOPMENT - PRIZE/
GREENS AGAINST EURO/
CALL FOR FEMALE FILM-MAKERS/
QUOTE/UNQUOTE/
JOBS/
DIARY/

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The AlterNet News is the GreenNet e-newsletter that carries brief news 
items, campaign updates, a diary of key forthcoming events and 
announcements. News comes from our contacts all over the web, but most of 
the AlterNet News will come from the GreenNet community.

Please don't send news to the AlterNet address. Send items for inclusion, 
including a web link if possible, to actnow at gn.apc.org. Items may need to 
be edited. Plain text email is preferred.

Back issues are on-line at:
--> www.gn.apc.org/news/alternet/index.html

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HOT SITES

Holistic Partnerships is a consultancy and network educating people and 
organisations in Core Energy Management (CEM).

Resources include a taster section which outlines the four basic strategies 
for managing your internal chemistry:
Use of positive triggers; Developing the Inner Smile; Creating internal 
calm and regeneration; Connecting with the benevolent vitality of nature.

Browse through the site here:
--> www.holisticpartnerships.com/

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GM DEBATE

A government-backed committee on genetically modified crops launched a 
nationwide debate early this month. The debate will continue until early 
July. The government have emphasised that it "remains strongly committed to 
the public debate and hopes that people will take this opportunity to 
deepen their understanding and air their concerns"
and strongly urges the public to join the debate.

More:
--> www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,969583,00.html

This could be a crucial influencing factor in whether or not GM crops will 
be commercialised in the UK. The government have been criticised for the 
short time allowed for input and the fact that there were very few public 
information sessions organised throughout the country to help familiarise 
the public with this issues.
These meetings were held in the first week of June, however you can 
organise your own public meeting and the official website has information 
about how to do this:

--> www.gmpublicdebate.org.uk/ut_13/index.htm

Some of the issues of concern with commercialisation of GMO's:

 > loss of species through competition and the introduction of a monoculture;
 > continuing along the trend of large farms subsuming smaller family run 
farms, advancing intensive agriculture;
 > work of the many for the benefit of the few - increasing profits going
to the retailers rather than the suppliers;
 > loss of diversity, self-reliance and knowledge about the land

Many of these issues are already at play in the UK agricultural system but 
its not too late to support small farmers and farming practices that will 
preserve the quality and diversity of British foods.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) have a campaign dedicated to provide information 
about 'Real Food' and what you can do to promote this:

--> www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/real_food/

FoE have also produced a 'press release generator' to help those interested 
in taking action to keep Britain GM free:

--> www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/real_food/resource/gm_free_britain/press_release/

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WOMEN WITH MEGABYTE

The Women with megaBYTE conference was a great success, organised by 
GreenNet Educational Trust, in conjunction with WomenConnect. The event, 
held in London 20 - 21 May, enjoyed input and debate from representatives 
of the 40 or more organisations that attended. Maud Hand, long time 
GreenNet friend and BBC journalist, writes first-hand of her experiences at 
the two day event.

"How big was their bite?’, I wondered as I raced along the strand, already 
an hour late for the launch of the Women with Megabyte Conference hosted in 
partnership between WomenConnect and GreenNet Educational Trust on 20th & 
21st May, 2003."

Read the full account here:
--> www.internetrights.org.uk/wwm.shtml

The conference was organised as a starting point to get women's 
organisations to begin sharing ICT experiences, learning new tools and 
informing them and engaging them in the debate around related policy issues.

If you are interested in updates or future events around women and ICT, we 
have set up a mailing list from the conference for this purpose.
For inclusion on the mailing list, please email joanne at gn.apc.org

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GREENNET UK IR SITE

June 12th saw the official launch of the GreenNet Educational Trust's 
Internet Rights website. The site is packed with informative policy 
factsheets focusing on whats happening in the UK. These include the following:

- Data Protection and Retention
- E-Consumer Protection
- Privacy and Surveillance
- Intellectual Property
- Computer Crime
- Expression & Defamation
- Media Regulation and Convergence
- Civil Rights & Internet Regulation
- Interception & Surveillance
- New Terrorism Legislation

Separate to the briefings, the site includes summaries of major UK and 
relevant regional and international legislation, policies and treaties 
affecting Internet Rights in the UK with an easy to use search engine to 
quickly access documents.

Other resources include: advocacy tools which provide resources for 
technical training as well as examples of lobbying tools used by ICT civil 
liberty organisations; a calendar of events, and various case studies which 
serve to link between ICT policy and practice in the UK and other 
jurisdictions.

There will also be a regular newsletter to which you can subscribe online:

--> www.internetrights.org.uk/newsletter.shtml

Visit the site:

--> www.internetrights.org.uk/index.shtml

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APC WSIS CRITIQUE

In detailed documents submitted to the secretariat of the United Nations' 
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), APC and the APC Women's 
Programme recognised
the efforts of the WSIS drafting committee to include the concerns and 
interests of the many governments, private sector and civil society 
stakeholders taking part in the process which will culminate in the first 
ever UN Summit dedicated to communications in Geneva in December. However, 
say the ICT activists, "there are critical issues [that] are not addressed 
sufficiently, if at all".

APC and WNSP criticised the draft documents - which include a
declaration and action plan - for:

- their reluctance to explicitly confront the fact that fundamental
political, social and economic inequalities shape our world;
- a lack of acknowledgment that gender inequality is central in broader
social inequality;
- not acknowledging that without greater access to power and
decision-making and equitable redistribution of available resources, we
are unlikely to reduce the gap between the powerful and the powerless;
- lacking awareness on proposals around the 'information security
agenda' that threaten to further harm already weakened human rights in
areas such as privacy and data protection;
- their scant reference to the impacts on the environment in the
information society resulting from new technologies and infrastructure;
- their insufficient acknowledgement of the negative impact of
Intellectual Property Rights on access to information and knowledge, and
on technological innovation.

Read full article:
--> www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=12235
APC Comments:
--> www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=12209
APC WNSP Comments:
--> www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=12233

Links to original WSIS documents and all submitted comments:
--> 
www.itu.int/wsis/documents/listing-all.asp?lang=en&c_event=pci|1&c_type=all|
(there are currently some errors in the attribution of articles)

To contact APC or APC WNSP about the World Summit on the Information 
Society, email: karenb at gn.apc.org

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MULTIMEDIA TRAINING KIT

The APC, funded by UNESCO and Rockefeller Foundation, have produced a set 
of materials intended to promote and support linkages between new and 
traditional media for development. The materials are based on a standard 
set of templates that are intended to be used as building blocks from which 
trainers can build up training workshops appropriate for their own contexts.

The training kit includes information on:
- How to use the MMTK materials
- Materials on technical skills
- Materials on content development skills
- Materials on specific themes, including the modules: "Violence Against 
Women in the Context of War, Conflict and Militarisation" and: "Cooperative 
Problem Solving" for managing conflict.

The idea is that trainers can combine the materials to suit their context 
and may then go on to contribute to the resources.

Find out more, see:

--> www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/mmtk/

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INDONESIA's EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES

The recent Down to Earth IFIs Update highlights the marginalisation of 
civil society in development projects.

The latest Asia-Pacific workshop of the Extractive Industry Review (EIR), 
an assessment of the World Bank's policy in extractive industries (mining, 
oil and natural gas) was held in Nusa Dua, Bali on 26-30 April 2003. An 
objective of the meeting was consultation with civil society.

Civil society groups, made up of the main non-governmental organisations 
and local communities in the Asia Pacific region, withdrew from the meeting 
because they considered the consultation process to be unsatisfactory since 
it did not actually take into their comments into account. They considered 
the process did not accurately reflect civil society's concerns over the 
World Bank's role in extractive industries.

Meanwhile between 13-15 April 2003 in Oxford (UK), The Tebtebba Foundation 
and Forest Peoples Programmes held an international workshop as part of an 
independent review process on "Indigenous People, Extractive Industries and 
The World Bank". At this workshop, the indigenous people rejected the myth 
of 'sustainable mining', because, in their experience, these industries 
caused serious social and environmental problems.

Read the full report here:

--> http://forestpeoples.gn.apc.org/briefings.htm

The IFIs resources as well as other DTE materials are also posted here:

--> http://dte.gn.apc.org/

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ICTs FOR DEVELOPMENT - PRIZE

Nominations are invited for the Petersberg Prize. The Prize recognizes
exemplary contributions in the field of information and communication
technologies (ICT) for development. The Prize will be awarded during the
Development Gateway Forum, which will take place in 2004. Nominations
are due by January 1, 2004. The Prize winner will receive an award of
EUR100,000, without stipulations of how to use the funds.

However, the winner(s) will be encouraged to use at least EUR50,000 in further
promoting the activity identified in the nomination, or in mentoring 
prospective
leaders in the ICT for development field, or in helping to disseminate
the lessons learned in implementing the activity in question. He/she will be
expected to participate in the 2005 Development Gateway Forum to report
on how the resources were used.

The Prize will be awarded for a significant contribution to an ICT for
development success that benefits a large number of people. The degree
of the success, the magnitude of the benefits, and the importance of the
contribution to that success will all be taken into account. Benefits to
the poor will be given priority. The winner of the Prize, through
his/her contributions, should set an example that will inspire others to excel.

Full details of the prize here:

--> http://indev.nic.in/indev/profNewsItem.asp?id=589

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GREENS AGAINST EURO

Greens welcomed the recent UK government decision not to join the Euro. 
Why? Check out the following, extracted from 'Ten Good Reasons to resist 
the Euro':

INTEREST RATES: it is claimed that interest rates will be reduced by having 
the European Central Bank managing a Common Currency. However, the Eurozone 
has higher interest rates and there is no logical connection between having 
a single currency – the Euro – and interest rates. Setting interest rates 
is essentially political, being based on notions of what "the market" will 
stand. Higher interest rates hit smaller businesses harder than large ones 
and – above all – people with mortgage payments to meet.

UNEMPLOYMENT: in short, the current practice of the European Central Bank 
promotes unemployment.

PUBLIC SERVICES: the Euro is a threat to public services. Combined with the 
General Agreement on Trade in Services which threatens public services with 
creeping privatization and reductions in employment rights, as promoted 
strongly by the British Government, the Euro will exacerbate existing 
inequalities in society in terms of income and the actual geographical 
distribution of services.

HAVING THE EURO WILL UNITE EUROPE: unity around issues like addressing 
environmental degradation, poverty and intensifying inequalities in Eastern 
Europe is infinitely more likely to assist Eastern European states than 
membership of the Euro.

DEMOCRACY: The European Central Bank is not accountable to Governments or 
people within the Eurozone. Its model of economic rectitude is in essence 
monetarist and threatens to create "Thatcher-Blair regime" conditions 
throughout Europe.

ECONOMIC POLICY DIVORCED FROM ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: It is not possible to 
run the economic policies of the European Central Bank without causing 
adverse effects upon the social and physical environment. This is because 
the downward pressure upon public spending and deficits in the Eurozone, 
combined with World Trade Organisation pressure through its General 
Agreement on Trade in Services, are bound to lead to cuts in effective 
environmental protection by local, regional and national agencies which are 
primarily state-funded. Since the Treaty of Amsterdam commits EU states to 
sustainable development, it can be argued that the policies associated with 
the Euro are incompatible with the treaty obligations of EU member states.

LOCALIZATION AND REGIONS: Greens believe economic decisions should be taken 
as near to citizens as possible. In practice, this means a larger economic 
role for local and regional government. Since the Euro represents a 
continental-level centralisation of basic economic decision-making, with 
the threat of more powers being ceded to the European Central Bank quite 
clear in the Maastricht Treaty, the inherent centralisation of the Euro 
must be rejected.

Related links:

No Euro Campaign:
--> www.no-euro.com

Reports on GATS: see websites of Green MEPs:
--> www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk

--> www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk

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CALL FOR FEMALE FILM-MAKERS

Cinefemme, a company promoting women filmmakers is putting
together Sci-Femme: women, technology and the future. Sci-Femme seeks 
visionary women to show their art  whether it is film, video, 
internet, robotic, or traditional painting and such to make Sci-Femme a 
community expression.

Sci-Femme’s goal is to encourage women to explore, debate and bring their 
unique perspectives to areas that are traditionally male dominated. 
Cinefemme believes in the art of cinema and that women’s views are often 
under-represented.

Promote female filmmakers, extend your network and help provide a 
supportive atmosphere for the exchange of information, ideas, and vision.

Visit the website for details:

--> www.cinefemme.org/

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JOBS

People and Planet have opportunities for volunteers to support enthusiastic 
Sixth Formers campaigning for Fairtrade and global justice. If you'd like 
to empower young people to make a difference, gain new skills and help 
campaign for a fairer world - become a People & Planet Mentor!

Further information from Ruth, email: action at peopleandplanet.org or visit 
their website:

--> www.peopleandplanet.org/

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QUOTE/UNQUOTE

"The Powers tell us, for example, that we have to choose between being 
optimists or pessimists. The pessimist sees the glass as being half empty, 
the optimist sees the glass as half full. But the rebel realizes that 
neither the vase, nor the water which it contains, belong to them, and it 
is someone else, the powerful, who fills it and empties it at his whim. The 
rebel, on the other hand, sees the trap. But he also sees the spring from 
which the water issues forth."

- Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
 From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, March 2003.

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DIARY DATES

JUNE

*Trade, GATS & the Environment - Threats & Opportunities*
Thursday June 26th 2003
The Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Russell Square, London WC1
email: sslater at earthsummit2002.org

*INSIDE COLOMBIA: DRUGS, DEMOCRACY AND WAR*
Latin America Bureau presents an evening of talks and discussion about the 
current situation in Colombia and prospects for peace.
Tuesday 24th June 2003
7.00pm (sharp) to 9pm
Macmillan Room, 204 Portcullis House, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

JULY

*Spiritual Aspects of Social Justice ­ Inner & Outer Activism*
David McNamara & Gordon McAlpine
Location:    Newbold House, Forres, Scotland.
Dates:        26th July ­ 1st August 2003
Cost:        £200 for accomodation & all meals
        + donation to workshop facilitators

This week is an opportunity for those dedicated to and interested in social 
justice work to gather and share, learn and practice both outer and inner 
processes for developing a more just and harmonious world. This is not a 
workshop in the sense of simply coming to learn a new skill. Rather this 
week is for those who want to both learn from and share with others.

The week will explore a blend of inner and outer practices:

- Meditative practices such as creative visualization and energetic focus, 
Tibetan Buddhist Tonglen meditation (receiving and giving), and mindfulness 
practice. Such practices will be undertaken in the context of creating 
inner clarity, alignment and power to be of service, as well as to 
influence the energetic systems of the outer world.
- Study and discussion of the work of successful leaders for social justice 
from a spiritual basis, such as Gandhi, King, Mandela, the Dalai Lama and 
Tich Nhat Hahn.
- Sharing about our own work in the world: our successes and failures, 
learnings and concerns, visions and needs. The aim is both to increase our 
individual knowledge and understanding, and to build an effective network 
of support and empowerment.  This will include the exploration of the place 
of art, music, and celebration in the social justice work.
- Group-building and decision-making techniques and skills.
- Engaging in some process of change in the local area around Findhorn, or 
in educating the local community about this work.

For more information:
Email:    newbold at findhorn.org

Visit the website:

--> www.newboldhouse.org

Phone:    +44 1309 672 659

*Violence Against Women - Challenges within the Law*
Wednesday 9 July
A full day conference for women, evaluating current domestic and 
international law in this context and identifying key areas for change.
Britannia Street Conference Centre, Britannia Street, London WC1X 9JP.

More details here:
--> www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/conference.htm

More Diary Dates on GreenNet:
--> www.gn.apc.org/calendar/calindex.shtml

Please add your events to the calendar here:
--> www.gn.apc.org/calendar/add.shtml

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The AlterNet News is edited by Joanne Doyle for GreenNet:
---> www.gn.apc.org

Please note that opinions expressed in AlterNet are those of the
contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the GreenNet 
Collective.
To subscribe or unsubscribe see:

http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/alternet-l
For more information on this service and how to use it, contact
joanne at gn.apc.org

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