-----Original Message-----from: Mona LaVine: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is our last announcement as FilmsForPeace has lost its ISP and it's
venue at EZTV. We will return in spring of 2006 with more documentaries
on issues of social justice, with our events calendar and with a report
back from the World Social Forum/Americas (in Caracas Venezuela)
-- Mona and Arin (Films for Peace)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16th, 7:00 PM
Films For Peace presents:
"A SCHOOL OF THEIR OWN" (1 hour)
EZTV
1629 18th Street, Ste 6
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(access north from Olympic only - parking lot across
from Cross Roads school)
$5 Donation
In the remote country of Nepal the unique Riverside School educates
low-caste and tribal children, 50 percent of
whom are girls.
There, children flourish in an environment free of the gender prejudice,
oppression of the caste system, and abusive teachers found in government
schools - and in their society. These children are growing up to create
a new Nepali citizen free of the prejudices that have divided this
feudal monarchy.
But the school - and children in Nepal - are threatened by a bloody
7-year civil war in which they are caught in the middle. We follow the
children's struggle to learn - and we learn that the Maoists in the
countryside are conscripting children into their army! Nepal is a
country trying to find its way to democracy.
FRIDAY DECEMBER 16TH at 7:00PM
EZTV
1629 18th Street, Ste 6
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(access north from Olympic only - parking lot across
from Cross Roads school)
$5 donation
Film-maker Debra Kaufman, who writes for The Hollywood Reporter,
supported a child in Nepal for several years before she decided to visit
her. This film, a labor of love, allows us to go inside a country seldom
seen in the news.
After the screening, Ms. Kaufman will lead the discussion, updating the
current situation in Nepal and sharing her insights of its people. This
is one of the first screenings in Southern California. We are
privileged to have the film maker with us.
Questions: call Mona at 310-452-9681 .
We have outgrown our space at EZTV and need to find a new location. Any
help with this would be appreciated.
We want to stay in Santa Monica or West L.A. area.
=====================
THE SANTA MONICA DEMOCRATIC CLUB
presents
" WAL -MART"--"THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE"
Date: Thursday Dec. 15th 2005
Time: 7:00 PM Sharp
Place: St. Annes Community Room 20th and Colorado
Santa Monica
The Santa Monica Democratic Club will show Robert Greenwalds' latest
expose' documentary film that is playing to rave reviews, and
overflowing
crowds entitled: "WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE"
The film takes us behind the glitz and into the lives of workers and
their
families, business owners and communities, in the USA, China, and South
America, in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way we
think, feel
and shop.
See, hear and feel the prejudice, disregard of laws and ethics, the
negative
economic consequences of a Wal-Mart in a community, and their
disgraceful
business practices.
Free Parking, No charge, Refreshments, Public invited, Stimulating
discussion!
============================================
AND AFTER ALL THE HOLIDAYS EATING!
MONDAY, JANUARY 2ND, 2006 - 7:30 TO 9:30 PM.
Free Lecture: LICK THE SUGAR HABIT by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.,
author of LICK THE SUGAR HABIT and
LICK THE SUGAR HABIT SUGAR COUNTER.
Learn the pathway that sugar takes in the body leading to a
suppression of the immune system and opening the door to infectious
and degenerative diseases. Techniques given to LICK THE SUGAR HABIT
including a gum you chew that will make sugar taste like cardboard.
A food demo will be given how to put a healthy cooked meal on the
table in 9 minutes. There will be other hands on experience and
question and answer time. Go to www.nancyappleton.com
<http://www.nancyappleton.com/> for more info.
Where: Home in Santa Monica, email for reservations,
address and directions: Nancy Appleton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
(This is a fascinating evening. Nancy is a walking encyclopedia of
information !
- Mona of FFP) .
================================
ARTICLE
WTO-SPECIAL: Free Trade or Fair Trade?
by Jason Nardi
The international fair trade movement is pushing for new rules to
protect marginalized producers.
ROME, Dec 10 (IPS) - But first, it is specifying what fair trade is -
and what is not.
U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick spoke of the need for "fair
trade" on his visit to China in October. "The Chinese economy and
consumers will benefit from more openness to U.S. goods," he said.
"American farmers, manufacturers, and service providers are ready to
compete in China, but to do so, they need full and fair access."
But the fair trade Zoellick was referring to is worlds apart from what
the international fair trade movement has been promoting for the last 40
years.
Free trade and fair trade seem two incompatible visions.
Supporters of fair trade say that exchanges between developed and the
less developed countries take place on uneven terms, and should be made
more equitable by protecting the weaker countries.
Free traders maintain that in the long run markets will correct the
imbalance, and both rich and poor countries will benefit from full
access to each others' markets. In this way, free traders hold that free
trade is fair trade.
In a joint statement ahead of the Hong Kong trade ministers' meet next
week, four leading fair trade networks have set out their
recommendations on the major issues of the Doha trade development round:
agriculture, commodities, non-agricultural market access, and special
and differential treatment.
"A key principle in trade policy currently missing from the WTO is that
every country should have the right to food security and sovereignty,
and should be entitled to protect strategic sectors in its economy,"
says Monica Di Sisto, co-author of the common position statement.
"The fair trade movement also believes that rich countries have a moral
obligation to stop all forms of trade-distorting subsidy and dumping on
world markets, as the impact of these practices on the poorest has been
devastating," she added in her statement.
The four associations are based mostly in Europe, but their members
represent many southern producers and distributors.
They are the Netherlands based International Fair Trade Association
(IFAT), the Germany based Fair Trade Labeling Organizations
International (FLO-I), the Network of European Worldshops (NEWS!)
representing approximately 2,500 fair trade shops, and the European Fair
Trade Association (EFTA), with a special advocacy office in Brussels.
According to FLO-I, fair trade labeled sales grew as much as 42.3
percent between 2002 and 2003. EFTA believes such sales now exceed half
a billion euro a year worldwide.
The fastest growing markets are Belgium, France, Italy and the United
States, with growth rates between 80 percent and 700 percent.
More than 4,000 small-scale and marginalized producer groups and
hundreds of thousands of workers in more than 50 developing countries
are said to participate in fair trade supply chains.
More than five million people in Africa, Latin America and Asia benefit
from fair trade terms, fair trade promoters say. Most of this trade is
in traditional commodities produced by small farmers or crafts people.
In a controversial move, some multinational companies have also begun
marketing under fair trade labels. The Swiss firm Nestlé has launched a
fair trade certified coffee branded 'Partners' Blend' that comes from
five small producers cooperatives in Ethiopia and El Salvador.
This coffee, the label declares, "helps farmers, their communities and
the environment." The fair trade label has been released by the
Britain-based Fairtrade Foundation, a part of FLO-I, even though many
groups boycott the company for promoting artificial milk to
breastfeeding mothers.
The groups say this artificial milk only encourages women to stop
breastfeeding their infants, and indirectly provokes the death of
thousands of children from lack of clean water and money to buy the
milk.
Paolo Pastore, director of Transfair Italy (a certifier of fair trade
products, and member of FLO-I) is against certification of a single
product, which he says can lead to whitewashing of an otherwise
unverified company.
"We are not afraid of working with multinational companies on fair trade
issues, but only if they demonstrate that they are effectively moving
towards being socially responsible, respecting the international norms
of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor
Organization (ILO), as well as allowing others to monitor their
behavior," he told IPS.
"That means that the change has to happen 360 degrees, and not just on
one product or in one field," he said. "The same has to happen at the
government level: to promote really free and globalize trade,
regulations must consider not just the economic and commercial aspects,
but also a better distribution of resources, the cancellation of debt
for the poorest countries, and the well-being of people who live there."
The fair trade movement will hold a 'fair trade fair' one block away
from the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre where WTO trade negotiators will
meet.
The three-day event is being organized by a group that includes the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (U.S.), Équitterre (Canada),
Gerster Consulting (Switzerland), Oxfam Hong Kong, and the Asia Fair
Trade Forum (the Philippines). It is being sponsored by the Swiss and
Canadian governments. (FIN/2005)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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