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Demand transparency in mining companies’ payments to governments.  The Publish What You Pay network of civil society organisations campaigns on this issue globally.Hold firms and their executives accountable for abuses.  Stop Corporate Immunity

Finally, demand cleaner lending policies for bailed-out banks.  One of WDM’s allies on this front is Platform — an organisation combining art, activism, education and research.

Let’s share how we get on!

Bankers Anonymous is WDM’s current campaign.  Basic thinking is that banks’ involvement in food speculation is akin to a gambler’s harmful addiction.  A group of us did a stall outside Cambridge Guildhall, 6 April 2013, making that point.

This involved radio phone interview, posing for press photographer, wearing vulture mask and bowler, pumping out action cards as leaflets, gathering signatures on action cards as petitions.  Many thanks to Sue Woodsford for dredging out a table from under a heap fo jumble!

Pictures are at  http://bit.ly/ZgH5go .  They’ll be on this blog eventually too.

What can we do better, to bring about justice for the world’s poor?

What can we do better, to strengthen our links with like-minded neighbours?

What would you like us to know?

Co-secretary Clare Baker’s prepared a questionnaire for group members, friends and supporters.  Fill it in and we’ll have your take on those questions!

Thanks.

Growing change — the food sovereignty DVD that wowed those of us who saw it at the group meeting in November — is on again!

This time it’s at a Transition Café Evening in the CB1 internet cafe, 32 Mill Road, 19:30 Thursday 21 February.  Ceri Galloway and our own Sue Woodsford will show the DVD and lead a discussion about food sovereignty around it.  See you there?

WDM’s petition calls on George Osborne, in the name of stable food prices, to limit the amount of trading that speculators can do.

Cambridge WDM activists Sue Woodsford and Aidan Baker took that petition round the Market Square and Petty Cury on Saturday 15 December, and the good people of Cambridge filled up five sides of petition in an hour!

One person signed while the crook of his other arm held a placard for a fast-food chain.  Peace be upon him.

Click here for more about WDM’s food speculation campaign.

 

 

Group co-secretary Clare Baker on 6 July delivered a petition with 2143 signatories to Vicky Ford, Euro MP for the East of England, calling on her to vote for strong new rules to tackle financial speculation on food.Vicky Ford MEP is an alternate member of a key committee in the European parliament that will vote on financial reforms which could prevent financial speculation by banks and hedge funds driving up food prices.

The average UK household’s annual grocery bill has risen by £132 in the past year. In developing countries, where people typically spend 50 to 90 per cent of their incomes on food, steep price hikes in recent years have driven millions of people into hunger and poverty.

Campaigners from the Cambridge World Development Movement group are calling on Vicky Ford MEP to support the European plans to tackle food speculation, as intense lobbying by the financial sector is threatening to derail the new regulations.

Vicky Ford MEP is in a key position to tackle the problem by using her vote next week to back strong new rules which will benefit food consumers everywhere. Financial speculation benefits nobody except a few wealthy bankers. But it is fuelling high food prices, putting pressure on squeezed family budgets, and forcing millions of people into hunger worldwide. We are delivering a message from thousands of people to say that we need tough new rules to curb food speculation. Food is essential for human survival, and should not be subject to financial gambling.

We’ve since heard that the vote, which was to have taken place on 9-10 July, has been postponed to September.   But there was no harm in getting WDM’s point across now!