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On 28 April, Cambridge WDM and a bald-headed eagle protested outside Barclays in Cambridge. Food speculation by Barclays Capital (a near relative of the bank) has driven millions into poverty worldwide.

Sue Woodsford worked her usual magic at assembling a display and a couple of banners.  Some group members held banners, some pumped out leaflets, some even managed to engage with passers-by.  Star Radio had rung earlier that morning to say they meant to run news of the protest in the afternoon.  Anyone catch that?

WDM has more on the campaign.

Photos by Sue Woodsford and Fabiola Blum.

Kirsty Wright, WDM climate justice campaigner, addressed a small group in Cambridge at 19:30 on Weds 17 November. Kirsty has first-hand experience of both the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit and the 2010 People’s Conference on Climate Change, in Bolivia.

Photo of Illimani by Kirsty Wright

Kirsty writes in her blog:

“Yesterday, I went to visit the Khapi community at the foothills of the Illimani glacier that overlooks La Paz, dominating the skyline. Illimani has long been said by indigenous Aymara communities to be a guardian of the people. There’s certainly some wisdom in this. Not only is the glacier the source of water for the hundred of communities who live in the hills below it, as well as upwards of twenty percent of La Paz’s water supply (some estimate that it is closer to forty percent), but these agricultural communities are also the gardens of the La Paz, providing fruit and vegetables to the city dwellers below.

‘The snow used to come down to there’ said the village leader I was speaking with, pointing to the bottom of a thin slither of snow, as the sun set behind us, layering the glacier  with a warm orange glow. ‘When we were children we used to be able to walk up and touch the snow. Now you can’t get to the snow at all.’”

WDM’s Cancun Watch has news of another climate meeting — the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico.

Cambridge WDM members joined other local groups at the Squire Law Library, Cambridge, on Saturday 6 November, to lobby MP Julian Huppert about climate change.   See Anne Miller’s report to The Big Connection.

Members of Cambridge WDM were at the national AGM and Activists’ Gathering in Sheffield on 19 June. The picture, by Clare Baker, shows policy officer Tim Jones telling the gathering about WDM’s campaign against food speculation. Cambridge members have been busy with that as well!

28 April: just 8 days before the election, Cambridge Parliamentary candidates Tony Juniper (Green) and Julian Huppert (LibDem — now MP for Cambridge) expressed support for a WDM campaign. Activists from the World Development Movement and the student group People & Planet protested outside the St Andrew’s Street branch of RBS subsidiary NatWest. They demanded that public money should stop financing companies involved in devastating activities, such as oil extraction from tar sands.

RBS has been involved in financing tar sands related companies to the tune of $7 billion, since its bail-out by the UK public. Extracting oil from tar sands in Canada has come under the spotlight as highly controversial because it violates Indigenous People’s rights and contributes more to climate change than conventional oil extraction.

The protest was one of many across the country around the bank’s AGM on 28 April.

Yes, you’ll find the group on Facebook! See you there!