Wednesday 27 October 2010

Food Speculation and Worst Lobby Awards

Back in June I mentioned WDM's new campaign on food speculation, Stop Betting on Hunger. I've been meaning to write more about it, but have been so busy with work and my naughty back playing up, that I've not had a chance to blog much recently, let alone about this campaign. Anyway, now I don't have to, because Kevin has blogged about it, and as he has covered it so well, I figure it's better to direct you to his blog about Goldman Sachs and food speculation.

His blog conveniently links to the EU Worst Lobby Awards, where you can vote for the worst lobbyist in the EU. And rather unsurprisingly, who turns up on the list of Worst EU Lobbyists, but Goldman Sachs. I urge you to vote because by being part of the Worst Lobby Awards, you are helping to highlight the issue of the behind-the-scenes lobbying by corporations and their industry bodies in the EU. And how fun would it be to see Goldman Sachs trying to avoid being given an award for worst lobbyist!

Thursday 7 October 2010

West Papua - Cameron replies

Back in July I blogged about the West Papuan's who hoped that David Cameron might be the hero they were looking for. Cameron let the West Papuan independence movement believe he supported their aims. I finally received a response from Cameron's Foreign Office*, via my MP Andrew Smith, a copy of which I'm inserting here.

Sadly, though as I expected, Cameron and his government have no intention of supporting the West Papuan's in their call for independence. The letter makes it clear:

"The UK supports the territorial integrity of Indonesia and does not support the calls for independence of the provinces of Papua and West Papua. This has been the policy of successive governments and it remains unchanged by the current Government."

So no, Cameron isn't going to do anything about the terrible situation in West Papua. And Indonesia can continue to attack and destroy West Papuan's and their homes, or just outright murder them.


*The letter comes from Jeremy Brown, Minister of State, on behalf of Cameron and his dodgy government.