For Avaaz members in Canada: Save the Planet - Stop Harper
Dear friends,
For the last two years, the Harper government has done everything it could to wreck the world's efforts to fix climate change. At UN negotiations, Canada has been voted the WORST country in the world on climate change 3 times! Now, it's election time, and we have to make sure that Harper pays the price at the polls for his reckless and un-Canadian climate policy. Avaaz is targeting 3 of Harper's top lieutenants (including Environment Minister John Baird) where it will hurt them the most -- at the grass roots. Together, we will try to stop their re-election with ad campaigns telling their constituents just how irresponsible they've been in the name of all Canadians. We'll beat them not by supporting any one party, but by appealing to all voters to help save the planet by voting for the candidate most likely to beat the Conservatives. Below, are the first two of a series of ads we will be running.
For Avaaz members in the US: No Blank Check for Wall St.
Dear friends,
Last week Wall Street's risky schemes collapsed, threatening global meltdown -- the next 48 hours could be even more important, deciding America's financial fate for decades to come. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a former investment banker, is strong-arming Congress for $700,000,000,000 of our money to bail out the financiers who created this mess.
Congressional leaders are in a race against time, and wavering. Some, like Senator Chris Dodd, have started drafting better proposals -- making those who created this crisis on Wall Street bear more of the cost and share any benefits, creating safety nets for Main Street, and introducing regulation to stop a repeat of this catastrophe. There's no shortage of decent solutions, but with the markets yo-yoing and Paulson pushing for a deal in days, Congress looks all too likely to accept the bulk of what experts are now calling a "financial coup d'etat" -- unless the American people speak up loud, clear and fast. Follow the link below now to send a message to your own representatives (please personalize it to make sure it is read!):
This week world leaders gather at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Here, all focus is on a multi billion dollar bailouts of financial institutions and the real untold scandal -- global poverty -- risks being forgotten. France, Canada, and Italy are threatening to slash their development aid budgets and break their promise to assign a mere 0.7 % of national income to the world's poorest. If these countries retract on commitments, others may follow -- it's time to raise the alarm.
The poorest of the poor need our help to make a global call and hold these leaders to their word. Our message is so important, UN poverty expert Jeff Sachs has agreed to deliver it on Thursday in his speech to world leaders at the United Nations:
In recent years, millions have been galvanized by a vision: that ours can be the generation that ends extreme poverty. With other crises vying for our attention, the strength of this vision is now being tested. Let's join together and ensure that leaders keep their promises -- so that the promise of human potential in even the poorest communities can be unleashed.
Avaaz is now featuring a PayPal fundraising widget, through MySpace IMPACT, so you can quickly and easily make donations to Avaaz.org and encourage friends and family to do the same! Please continue to support our work and invite others to do the same!
For Avaaz members in Italy: Send Tremonti an urgent message
Dear friends in Italy,
It's great to have so much to be proud of in Italy – the finest food, great football teams, and a world-class reputation as romantics. Italy has done some amazing things around the world too -- in Mozambique alone, Italian aid has helped save tens of thousands of mothers from dying in childbirth.
But from next year when Italy hosts the G8, the government is proposing to cut this life-saving money by 170 million euros, shaming Italy in the eyes of the world. Instead of keeping the promise made alongside everyone in Europe to raise overseas aid, this budget would savagely cut our already-small contribution.
We've heard that Finance Minister Tremonti could submit the budget to Parliament as soon as this week, and we've got his email address -- so before it's too late, let's flood him with messages from around Italy calling on him to reverse these cuts, and show him how much outrage he'll face if he doesn't. Click this link to send your own message, then spread the word to friends and family -- together we can save both Italy's reputation, and countless lives around the world:
Even in tough times, Italy must keep our promises and pull its weight in the world. The shortfall in aid is tiny fraction of the national budget, but it'll make an enormous difference to the poorest around the world, bringing hope and saving lives. Italy wants to see more mothers' lives saved, not less -- it's common sense.
So let's hope Tremonti can admit the government made a mistake, and do the sums again -- and let's make sure he can't miss the message. With an overwhelming flood of messages, from us and our friends and family all over Italy, our voice could be irresistible. Click here to remind Tremonti a promise is a promise, and forward this message far and wide:
For Avaaz members in Australia: Climate Failure Not a Plan
Dear Australian members,
have just a 5 day window to influence the final Garnaut climate change report – the report that looks likely to shape Rudd's climate policies for years to come.
If the PM adopts Professor Garnaut's draft report released last week, you can say goodbye to any claim on global leadership on climate change – not to mention the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu Wetlands. Garnaut's current draft gives up on a decent global deal to avert climate catastrophe before we've even tried.
The Garnaut Secretariat has agreed to accept public input into the final draft before next Monday, so let's take full advantage of the opportunity. Put your name to this petition, tell your friends -- and, if enough of us join together, we'll deliver with GetUp a massive notice to Professor Garnaut before the Monday 3pm deadline:
It is unlikely that the PM will announce deeper cuts than those included in the Garnaut Report - that's why it is so important that we demand Garnaut be as ambitious as possible. Up against some of the most ferocious lobbying this country has seen, we only have these few remaining days, to counter the voices of big business and the polluting industries.
We've all worked so hard to get to this point, let's not let the government stumble at this hurdle by getting bad advice. Garnaut wrongly believes that there isn't the political will to form a bold global consensus and so has recommended a 10% carbon pollution reduction target by 2020. Before he makes his final decision, let's leave him in no doubt that Australians are part of the global consensus, and we demand bold action on climate -- with the delivery of this petition:
Professor Garnaut agrees that without significant emission reductions we face catastrophic climate change, he just needs to be persuaded that the national and international will is there to take the necessary steps to avert it. That is one thing we can provide him with. Put your name to the petition now, and we'll deliver it to him direct before this small window closes.
On Monday Lehman Brothers, one of the world's biggest investment banks, went bust with debts of $613 billion, and other institutions and markets are plunging. Many are calling this the worst moment since the Crash of 1929 -- the global financial crisis is at the tipping point, and citizens everywhere must raise our voice for action in the public interest. Our jobs, savings, pensions and public services are in danger because of the financiers' folly -- now the snowballing crisis risks triggering a global recession, hurting the poor most and drowning out all the other issues we care about.
Trillions of public money are being staked to stop a global meltdown, but no-one's addressed the basic causes yet -- so we're launching an urgent campaign for regulation to stop the financiers' risky practices, which have saddled the world with unsustainable levels of debt and risk. A former prime minister has promised to help deliver our call to European leaders next week, we'll bring it to US Congress and the next president too -- but we need a massive outcry to get them moving -- so please follow the link below now to sign the petition, then forward it widely to friends and family:
Global financial markets sometimes seem untameable -- but the rules that govern them are full of simple flaws and loopholes, and if we seize this moment and act together we can fix them. Cut free by deregulation and driven by greed, the financiers built up huge debts and risks without proper oversight, seeking short-term returns from tax dodges and engineering spaghetti-like financial complexity. Left without decent rules, they thought they could make up their own, and the profits rolled in for a wealthy few -- then it all came tumbling down, with the rest of us left to pay the price for the failure of their dangerous games. Even champions of the free market are now calling for better regulation.
We're finding powerful allies flocking to the cause, like former Danish Prime Minister Poul Rasmussen who's pledged to take our campaign to fellow European politicians at a key vote on proposals for global financial reform next Tuesday, saying "By taking action on this issue, Avaaz members can show European and world leaders the strength of public support for more transparency and better regulation. Reform of our financial markets is a vital step towards a fairer globalisation -- and your voice can help to make it happen."
Last week the US effectively nationalised its biggest mortgage providers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; last night, it did the same to the world's biggest insurance company, AIG. Still the crisis rolls on. Adjustments are inevitable, but if we fail to address the fundamental causes of the financial crisis global recession will be deep and long, and future disasters even bigger. For too long we've left global finance alone because it seemed too complicated for ordinary mortals to get a grip on; but it turns out that common sense and public scrutiny were needed after all.
These markets touch the life and heart of every one of us, from the shop-floor worker to the chief executive, the woman giving birth in hospital to the pensioner facing a penniless old age. Society doesn't end where the market begins -- and with leaders apparently paralysed, our voices are urgently needed to help set a course beyond this crisis. So sign the emergency campaign today at this link, and forward this message to family and friends who might be affected too:
Imagine the sea rising around you as your country literally disappears beneath your feet, where the food you grow and the water you drink is being destroyed by salt, and your last chance is to seek refuge in other lands where climate refugees have no official status. This is not a dream, it's the fearful reality for millions of people who live on islands around the world, from the Maldives to Papua New Guinea.
That is why these small islands are planning the unprecedented step next week, ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting, of calling on the Security Council itself to address climate change as a pressing threat to international peace and security.
This is a creative move born of desperation, a challenge to global powers to end their complacency and tackle this lethal crisis with the urgency of wars. This effort could help shift the tenor of the world's debate -- from a far-off storm cloud to a life-threatening crisis here and now. But the island states' campaign will meet fierce opposition from the world's biggest polluters, so they need our help. Sign the petition now to raise a worldwide chorus of support for this call -- our signatures will be presented to the UN by the islands' ambassadors as they introduce their resolution next week:
For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated -- the Arctic ice is melting more quickly than almost anyone anticipated. Now, small island nations -- where homes are, at most, mere meters above sea level -- are preparing evacuation plans to guarantee the survival of their populations. They are on the frontline, experiencing the first wave of devastating impacts from climate change which soon will threaten us all.
President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific, recently said:
Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns. We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high tides. These are not theoretical, scientific losses -- they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods.... For island states, time is not running out. It has run out. And our path may very well be the window to your own future and the future of our planet".
Beyond the islands, countries like Bangladesh -- population, 150 million -- face losing large parts of their landmass. The experience of our planet's most vulnerable communities serves as a warning sign of the future world we can all expect: extreme weather growing in intensity, conflict over water and food supplies, coasts disappearing and hundreds of millions made refugees.
The more signatures we raise to be delivered to the UN next week, the more urgently this call will ring out to protect our common future. Sign now:
The small islands' brave campaign for survival is our campaign as well. Just as sea levels rise or fall everywhere at the same time, the choices of every person everywhere affect the future of our common home. By standing with the people at the front line of the climate crisis, we show them, and ourselves, that we recognize our fundamental shared humanity -- and the responsibilities that come with it.
With hope, the Avaaz team
PS: Read the petition at http://islandsfirst.org/draftres.pdf
Hopes are slipping away for a deal to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis. Yesterday, Robert Mugabe announced plans to ignore the ongoing negotiations with the opposition MDC party, form a sham "Government of National Unity" with a breakaway opposition faction, and open parliament next week.
This weekend, when Southern Africa's 15 leaders, including Mugabe, meet at a major summit in Johannesburg, they will look out upon a sea of red. Thousands of Southern African trade unionists and other citizens will march to the summit waving red cards -- the football penalty symbol for expulsion -- and call for Mugabe to go. The organisers have appealed to Avaaz for international support, and will carry signs at the march representing the "red cards" sent by Avaaz members.
before the crisis becomes even more desperate -- to announce that the Mbeki-led negotiations have failed, and to launch a new and fairer negotiating process immediately. The region's powerful trade unions have threatened that unless Southern African leaders take action now, they will refuse to handle goods coming to or from Zimbabwe and will squeeze Mugabe out. A massive march this weekend backed by 100,000 supporters from around the world will be a overwhelming signal to Southern African leaders that they must act nowClick below to send a red card, and pass this message along to friends and family!
Four and a half months have passed since the people of Zimbabwe voted for Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change on 29 March. Hyperinflation has exploded to an unimaginable 40,000,000%, and millions now face starvation. The EU, US, and UK have pledged a $1.9bn financial aid package to stabilise Zimbabwe's economy, feed the hungry and combat hyperinflation -- but only if Mugabe is removed.
Meanwhile, distribution of food aid by local and international humanitarian agencies has been prohibited by Mugabe's government. Torture camps remain in operation, political violence continues in some rural provinces, and 12 opposition MPs languish in jail on trumped-up charges. The Mbeki-led talks are collapsing, as Mugabe and his military high command insist on retaining control.
The people of Zimbabwe need strong allies willing to take bold action. Already, more than 300,000 Avaaz members -- including tens of thousands in Africa -- have signed petitions, donated funds, and written to their leaders in global campaigns for democracy and justice. After Avaaz flew a 280-square-metre banner over an Mbeki-chaired United Nations meeting, South Africa finally called for the release of elections results. In April, trade unions and civil society groups including Avaaz led a successful campaign to block a Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe. Now, as the crisis accelerates, our voices matter more than ever -- we can send an electronic wave of red cards to Johannesburg and bolster the efforts of on-the-ground advocates pressing for change.
Join the global outcry now, and then pass this message along!
The conflict in Georgia is spinning out of control. Russian troops have moved deep inside the country in what looks not far short of full-scale invasion, and tens of thousands of civilians are in danger, with many becoming refugees overnight.
Diplomats are scrambling to find a solution, and the European Union has proposed a ceasefire and withdrawal of all forces to their previous positions. China has also called for an "Olympic Truce", an ancient tradition that asks all countries to cease hostilities during the Olympic Games.
A humbled Georgia has agreed to the ceasefire, now French and Finnish foreign ministers are bringing the proposal to Moscow. In the next 48 hours, a massive global public outcry would show Russian and Georgian leaders that the world wants a ceasefire, and continuing the invasion would seriously damage Russia's international reputation. Click below to sign our emergency petition and then forward this email to your friends and family. We'll publicize the petition in the media and deliver it to the UN Security Council and Russian government:
Russia and Georgia have a long history of tensions, but the recent hostilities were sparked over a small region called South Ossetia, which is seeking separation from Georgia. For years South Ossetia has had de facto autonomy, but after clashes between Ossete militia and Georgian troops, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the army to occupy the small province. The Russian army immediately responded by driving the Georgian army out, bombing targets, attacking towns and taking control of large swathes of territory deep within Georgia.
History teaches us that small wars easily spark larger ones. Saakashvili has applied to join NATO, angering Russian Prime Minister Putin, who may be using the invasion to forcibly remove the Georgian leader from power. If Russia tries to remove a democratically elected President by force, the conflict could escalate dangerously, as Georgia is a close ally of the United States. The Georgian and South Ossetian people could become victims of a great global contest for power in the oil rich region.
Wars get more vicious and harder to end the longer they last. The best time to stop this one is right now -- let's act now, and help make a ceasefire the first step in a peaceful, negotiated solution to the root causes of conflict in this troubled region.
