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Action at Citibank
Citibank is a leading financer of forest destruction. Today activists shut them down at several downtown SF locations.
More will be posted here soon ... including video clips and so forth.
But here is the deal so far ... There were four downtown banks that were targetted by forest activists for nonviolent civil-disobedience to draw attention to Citibanks destructive investments and partnerships. There were five different affinity action teams and several were arrested. One team may be given felony "property destruction" charges. Please check back on this for updates later and also look at the Rainforest Action Network's site for background information on Citibank's history of misguided investing. Todays actions here were in solidarity with activists in Equador who are protesting Citibank's investment in oil projects on indigenous and pristine lands there.
Cheers, Crazy Jeff
http://www.crazyjeff.net
http://www.ran.org
But here is the deal so far ... There were four downtown banks that were targetted by forest activists for nonviolent civil-disobedience to draw attention to Citibanks destructive investments and partnerships. There were five different affinity action teams and several were arrested. One team may be given felony "property destruction" charges. Please check back on this for updates later and also look at the Rainforest Action Network's site for background information on Citibank's history of misguided investing. Todays actions here were in solidarity with activists in Equador who are protesting Citibank's investment in oil projects on indigenous and pristine lands there.
Cheers, Crazy Jeff
http://www.crazyjeff.net
http://www.ran.org
For more information:
http://www.ran.org
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Activists in Sydney, Australia staged a simultaneous action against Citibank on Thursday, November 14 as part of a day of protest against the World Trade Organisation which held a "mini-ministerial" meeting in Sydney on thursday and Friday.
As part of a march through the city, between 2000 and 3000 people gathered at the Citibank located across the street from the town hall, in the centre of Sydney. Hundreds of police stopped protesters from approaching the bank, which was forced to close for a number of hours.
Protesters outlined Citigroup's environmentally destructive practices, but also focused on Citigroup's important role in the push for a WTO agreement on services - the GATS.
David Hartridge, then director of the services division of the WTO, said in 1997 that "without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services sector, particularly companies like American Express and CitiCorp, there would have been no services agreement and therefore perhaps no Uruguay Round [the negotiations that led to the WTO's creation] and no WTO,”
The GATS – General Agreement on Trade in Services – aims to force counties to privatise their services sectors - from health and education to water, post and public transport. The winners are the large multinationals like Citigroup which then make massive profits out of previously public services. The losers are the public, who have corporate profits put ahead of the provision of their essential services, with corresponding price hikes and deterioration of service quality. Significantly, under GATS, it is almost impossible for governments to take services back once they have been privatised.
GATS also contains a "Neccessity Test" which allows a WTO panel of 3 unelected trade bureaucrats to strike down legislation made by national parliaments if it is deemed "restrictive to trade". The neccessity test has already been used to rule against environmental and social regulations which might hinder corporations from making maximum profits.
For more on the protests against the WTO in Sydney on Nov 14-15, see sydney.indymedia.org
As part of a march through the city, between 2000 and 3000 people gathered at the Citibank located across the street from the town hall, in the centre of Sydney. Hundreds of police stopped protesters from approaching the bank, which was forced to close for a number of hours.
Protesters outlined Citigroup's environmentally destructive practices, but also focused on Citigroup's important role in the push for a WTO agreement on services - the GATS.
David Hartridge, then director of the services division of the WTO, said in 1997 that "without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services sector, particularly companies like American Express and CitiCorp, there would have been no services agreement and therefore perhaps no Uruguay Round [the negotiations that led to the WTO's creation] and no WTO,”
The GATS – General Agreement on Trade in Services – aims to force counties to privatise their services sectors - from health and education to water, post and public transport. The winners are the large multinationals like Citigroup which then make massive profits out of previously public services. The losers are the public, who have corporate profits put ahead of the provision of their essential services, with corresponding price hikes and deterioration of service quality. Significantly, under GATS, it is almost impossible for governments to take services back once they have been privatised.
GATS also contains a "Neccessity Test" which allows a WTO panel of 3 unelected trade bureaucrats to strike down legislation made by national parliaments if it is deemed "restrictive to trade". The neccessity test has already been used to rule against environmental and social regulations which might hinder corporations from making maximum profits.
For more on the protests against the WTO in Sydney on Nov 14-15, see sydney.indymedia.org
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