From playfair at asta.rwth-aachen.de Tue Jan 20 02:19:14 1998 From: playfair at asta.rwth-aachen.de (Play Fair Europe!) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 18:19:14 +0100 (MET) Subject: [asia-apec 418] 1000 multinationals will soon meet - action Message-ID: <01ISKJPI1MB6000R0X@fresno.net.uniovi.es> **Please help us to distribute this message** Dear friends, The 1.000 most important multinacionals of the world will meet in Davos, Switzerland, from the 29th of this month to the 3rd of February, to take major political decisions that will influence everyone's lives. If you do not like this way of setting the "Priorities for the 21st century" (as they call their meeting) please do one or more of these proposed actions: 1. Sign the declaration attached to this letter and propose other organisations (trade unions, farmers' organisations, environmental, women's and solidarity organisations, church-related groups, etc.) and individuals to sign it and collect more endorsements. Every person is welcomed to sign - the more signatures, the better. However, in order to have more impact in mass media, we especially encourage you to contact well known persons, like intellectuals, writers, professors, singers, football players, actors... The declaration will be used all over the world as press release. 2. If you collect some signatures, please type the reply forms and email them to playfair(asta.rwth-aachen.de by the 28th of January. We will compile all the signatures and email the complete list to thousands of people and organisations all over the world. Please take into account that we cannot type ourselves thousands of names in one day; this is the reason why we ask you to send the names by email. If you do not have access to email, please fax your list before the 27th of January. 3. Once you receive from us the whole list of signatories, please send it along with the declaration to the local and national media (press, television, radio). 4. Please organise a local action between the 29th of January and the 3rd of February and send your own press release along with the declaration, announcing your action and inviting the press. If you do this, you will multiply the chances of the media publishing something, since journalists tend to report about photogenic stories much more than about declarations. Any kind of action that is visual and can be photographed is good, the range is very broad and you do not need many people to catch media attention. Just to give some examples in increasing order of difficulty, you can stand in front of a symbolic building with some banners (the office of any multinational of your choice, the parliament, the chamber of commerce, the city hall, etc.), or perform street theater (like a symbolic bury of the parliament by the multinationals, or two dinner tables, one full of luxuries and with nicely dressed people around it, and the other with some rubbish and very poor people), or organise an event (a public lecture, a panel discussion, etc) or do a direct action (block the entrance of the stock exchange or squat it, occupy the office of a multinational, etc). Please inform us if you are going to do something (unless you do not want to make it publicly known beforehand), since we want to send the list of planned actions along with the list of signatures on the 29th, so that you can use it too for the media work. Thank you for your attention. The Play Fair Europe! Team ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- (Place), (Date) Press Release Declaration against the Globalisers of Misery Worldwide opposition to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos Throughout this week (29th January-3rd February) the World Economic Forum, the club of the foremost 1000 Transnational Corporations, is holding its Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. During this period, hundreds of actions are taking place in many different parts of the world to denounce this event (1). This meeting is, in the World Economic Forum?s own words, "the world's global business summit" (2), where "each year, major initiatives are launched...which go far beyond the pure business realm". At the Annual Meeting, "1000 top business leaders , 250 political leaders, 250 foremost academic experts in every domain, and some 250 media leaders come together to shape the global agenda." As they boast, "the World Economic Forum has played a leading role in the economic globalisation process... at the beginning of the eighties it played a major role in launching the Uruguay trade negotiations. The foundation has made a contribution to the process and negotiation of financial services liberalisation." We oppose the accelerating centralisation of political and economic power caused by globalisation, and its gradual shift to unaccountable and undemocratic institutions, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO). We denounce the role of "informal" business groups (such as the World Economic Forum) in this process, which only benefits multinational business elites, while increasing numbers of people are going hungry, unable to afford basic health care and education, and forced to cope with environmental destruction. This denunciation of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum is the first coordinated activity of the PEOPLES' GLOBAL ACTION AGAINST "FREE" TRADE AND THE WTO. (3) This declaration has been signed by ***************************** (1) For information about the actions, please get in touch with ...... (local contact) or with Play Fair Europe!, e-mail playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de; fax +34-8-524.11.21 (2) All direct quotations and factual information regarding the World Economic Forum have been taken from the Forum's web page http://www.weforum.org (3) For more information about Peoples' Global Action Against "Free" Trade and the World Trade Organisation (PGA) and its first worldwide conference please contact: local contact: ......... Secretariat: kmp@info.com.ph; web page: http://www.agp.org (ENDS) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- Endorsement to the Declaration against the Globalisers of Misery Please email to playfair(asta.rwth-aachen.de or fax to +34-8-524.11.21 Name of person or organisation: Country: Contact email or fax: Field of action of the organisation / Profession: For organisations: number of members: Do you want more information about the World Economic Forum and similar topics? Are you going to organise an action? If yes, please describe it in a few words: ************************************************************ Play Fair Europe! Oviedo Tel/fax +34-8-524.11.21 Pedro Masaveu 1 10 E playfair@asta.rwth-aachen.de 33007 Oviedo, Spain check http://www.agp.org ______________________________________________________________________ TACHIBANA Masahiko Dept.Chem.,Saitama Univ. Phone:+81-48-858-3388 Email:mtachiba@chem.saitama-u.ac.jp Fax:+81-48-858-3700 ** SAY NO to WIRETAPPING BILL schemed to be passed in DIET next JAN **