Global Justice Now Edinburgh and Lothians

Rio+20 insights in October

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Marcus Gustafsson (Y-Climate Action, YMCA-YWCA of Sweden, World Alliance of YMCAs) will be speaking at our October meeting (8th Oct).

He was an accredited delegate at the Rio+20 summit and so can give us the inside track on what went on and some insight into what the summit outcomes mean. Hopefully it will inform our future campaigning and pressure on UK govt. Marcus’ bio is here: http://scenetwork.co.uk/research-assistants

Our Lady Luck stall at the farmer’s market was very successful, we got rid of all our action cards. A special thank you to Lord Luck, (Vivek) and Lady Luck (Saskia). The money scarf and sunglasses certainly attracted people!

Our next stall on food speculation is on Saturday 11th August at the One World Shop , underneath St. John’s Church, West end of Princes Street which is where the craft fair is held during festival fringe time.

 

Lady Luck is coming!

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On 29th July we’re planning to hold a stall at the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market. Lady Luck will be there enticing people to place a bet in the casino of food speculation to see if they will win and eat well, or loose and go hungry that day. Fears are however that the fat cat bankers might be there to play and rig the odds in their favour!

The stall will raise awareness of WDM’s food speculation campaign and ask market shoppers to sign postcards to George Osborne calling for regulation to stop big banks playing casino-style games with the price of basic food which pushes up prices and leaves poor families going hungry. We’re looking for volunteers to help on the day, please get in touch if you can spare an hour.

We had planned our July meeting to include a discussion on Rio+20 but our planned speaker is out of the country for the summer, we hope to re-arrange for September or October. Instead we watched the 30min documentary ‘Seeds of Freedom’ available to stream or download from http://seedsoffreedom.info.

Climate Justice Fund and our AGM

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WDM Edinburgh and Lothian held its AGM in May and at the start of June we discussed future campaigning plans for WDM to help continue the campaign for climate justice. Great that local groups can feed into the process of developing new campaigns.

Next meeting in July we’re planning to discuss the outcome of Rio+20 – the international negotiations on sustainable development – and find out more about the Climate Justice Fund, a new Scottish Government initiative to promote climate adaption and begin repaying our climate debts to the Global South. We’re still searching for a speaker!

Next meeting is 7pm 9 July in Quaker Meeting House – as always second Monday in the month.

P.S. this is the first website update from me, and first in a long time, hope to be more regular in the future!

Local campaigners hold food protest at Barclays Bank

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This morning, members of the Edinburgh WDM group held a protest at the Barclays branch on George Street.  This was to highlight the role that the bank  is playing in creating hunger by pushing up the price of key staple foods, through its reckless speculation on the global food markets.  Barclays is the UK’s biggest player in food speculation.  For more information and to take action go to www.wdm.org.uk/food.  It’s time to stop big banks like Barclays preying on the poor.

Stop Barclays Betting on Hunger

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Preying on the poor

Barclays Capital and other investment banks are betting on food in financial markets, driving up food prices and leaving millions around the world facing hunger and poverty.  WDM Edinburgh will be be joining other groups across the country to highlight this issue, by doing a stunt outside Barclays.  Come along and join us:

Outside Barclays on George Street, 11 am, Saturday 9 April.

It’s time we stood up to the banks and put an end to their greedy behaviour.  For more info and to take action go to: www.wdm.org.uk/food-speculation

Food for Thought: Film Night

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WDM Edinburgh and Lothians are hosting a film night on Wednesday the 15th of December at the Brass Monkey pub on Drummond Street.

The film which we’ll be showing,  Food Inc. ,  reveals the malign workings of the US food industry and is sure to give you plenty to chew on while you sit back and relax over a pint in the comfortable surroundings of the Brass Monkey.  So gather your friends and head on down for a laid-back evening of film and discussion.

The evening kicks off at 7pm, which gives you plenty of time to get to the bar, have a chat and get comfortable before the film starts at 7.30pm.  We hope to see you all there!

Free Entry – All welcome!

Watch the trailer for Food Inc. below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0[/youtube]