VAN JONES
The World Economic Forum, meeting in New York City, has named Jones as one of the “100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow.” Jones, who founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, said today: “I think it is a grudging admission on their part that the growing movements against corporate-led globalization and the incarceration industry must be taken seriously. I will accept the award — not for myself, but for the thousands of activists and concerned community members who will be locked out. The WEF meeting is essentially a gathering of 3,000 economic royalists, who dominate decision-making for 6 billion people around the world. They represent the opposite of true democracy.”
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CAROLA REINTJES
Director of the Spanish Network of Solidarity Economy, Reintjes said today: “We are working with hundreds of groups throughout the world to build micro-businesses, fair trade processes and other forms of economic solidarity without centering on the profit motive.”
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JOHN CAVANAGH
Cavanagh is director of the Institute for Policy Studies and coauthor of Field Guide to the Global Economy. Returning from the World Social Forum, which concludes today in Porto Alegre, Brazil, he said: “The term ‘anti-globalization’ was always a misnomer. It is a global justice movement, and it’s emerging as a global democratic movement. As the World Social Forum shows, it is moving beyond merely protesting against institutions like the WEF.”
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SVEND ROBINSON
A member of the Canadian House of Commons and of the New Democratic Party, Robinson has just returned from Porto Alegre, where he participated in the emerging World Parliamentary Forum.
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JEFFREY RUBIN
Rubin, an associate professor of history at Boston University, is on a MacArthur grant in Porto Alegre, writing a book on democracy and grassroots innovation. He said today: “Since winning the elections in 1989, the Workers Party has tried to implement a process by which people decide exactly how to allocate the municipal service budget.”
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ALEJANDRO BENDANA
Director of the Center for International Studies based in Nicaragua and a member of Jubilee South, Bendana said today: “A tribunal on the foreign debt, held in Porto Alegre at the WSF, has determined that much of it is illegitimate and possibly illegal because it was illegal regimes that contracted it.”
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ORONTO DOUGLAS
Douglas is deputy director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, which has confronted oil giants.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167