World Development Movement blog

Last week was a big week for our campaign to regulate food speculation, with developments on the relevant legislation in both the European parliament and Council of Ministers. 

Guest post by Jonathan Treat

Bernardo Vásquez was the second anti-mining activist to be shot dead in Oaxaca in the past two months. Three others at the scene of the assassination of Vasquez were also shot and remain in serious condition.

"One thing is clear: this was a political hit. Bernardo was murdered because he dared to speak out." (Dawn Paley)

Knutsford is a small town in East Cheshire, just 16 miles from Manchester. It's known locally for customs such as ‘sanding the streets’ on May day and the three-hour endurance race for penny farthing bicycles every ten years. It’s also home to UK chancellor, George Osborne, who is the MP there.

Today, we take the campaign to regulate food speculation ‘home’ to George Osborne. The local newspaper, the Knutsford Guardian is running a WDM-sponsored, advertisement in this week’s version of the paper:

The news that Greg Smith, executive director of Goldman Sachs’ European equity derivatives business, resigned yesterday accusing the Wall Street bank of being morally bankrupt is the latest reminder of the morally dubious practices of one of the world’s biggest investment banks. Among its many divisions is a commodity derivative trading arm - big enough that the firm is generally regarded as one of the two top players in food and other commodity speculation, which experts increasingly agree is contributing to global food price spikes.

This week I read a recent report by Friends of the Earth Europe. ‘Farming Money: How European banks and private finance profit from food speculation and land grabs’ is an interesting read for anyone concerned about poverty and social justice issues. 

Guest post by Homaira Abdullah, used to be activism and events intern

As we come to the end of Fairtrade Fortnight, we have a chance to reflect on what Fairtrade has achieved and how it fits into the wider narrative of food sovereignty.

Here in Scotland there is a lot of pride amongst parliamentarians over our climate change act, considered one of the most ambitious pieces of climate change legislation in the industrialised world. Of course, as climate change campaigners, we realise the challenge lies in its implementation, but we have been watching with interest the gusto with which the First Minister Alex Salmond travels the world (carbon emissions from aviation aside!) promoting Scotland’s climate change act.