News Archives » About
Land Grabs in Africa Leave Communities Impoverished April 5th, 2012
The problem of land grabbing in Africa and Asia by investment firms and multinational corporations is a serious and growing problem. Governments make deals with large multinational companies while thousands of poor farmers are left with inadequate compensation, low wages, polluted water and exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals that cause health problems.
While problems with land grabs abound, SOCFIN Agriculture. Co. is a particularly egregious company. Owned by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, SOCFINAF Group owns and operates plantations of rubber, oil palm and coffee in Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Liberia. SOCFIN recently has secured 6,500 hectares of farmland for rubber/palm oil production in Sierra Leone.
The Oakland Institute, a California-based think-tank, has detailed a pattern of coercion, lack of consultation, and failure to fairly compensate Sierra Leonean landowners who have been pressured into ceding their land to the corporate giant. Watch this video on SOCFIN’s Sierra Leone’s operations:
Click here to read more »
Faith Community Submits Recommendations on Human Trafficking to the UN Special Rapporteur April 4th, 2012
The Missionary Oblates, through VIVAT International, have supported/endorsed the Recommendations submitted by the ‘NGO Committee to Stop Trafficking In Persons’ to the ‘Special Rapporteur on Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children’.
Learn more… (Download PDF of the Recommendations)
Faithful Budget Released March 22nd, 2012
WASHINGTON, DC — Today on Capitol Hill, prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders unveiled a Faithful Budget document, which encourages the Obama Administration and Congress to maintain a robust commitment to domestic and international poverty assistance programs.
The document has been submitted to all Members of Congress and the Administration. Faith communities will make follow up visits to Congress. The Annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days conference this coming weekend is titled Is THIS the Fast I Seek? Economy, Livelihood and Our National Priorities. Participants will visit their Congressional representatives on Monday and will take the Faithful budget document with them as a blueprint.
Click here to read more »
March 22 is World Water Day! March 22nd, 2012
Water is essential for life, and yet increasingly, both in the United States and around the world, water is becoming a scarce commodity. Once largely taken for granted, clean, accessible, affordable water has become a hotly debated and much studied subject.
We have a few things to share on the occasion of World Water Day that may be of interest:
- Bishop Michael Pfeifer, OMI of the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas has written a reflection on water from the perspective of the drought-stricken region of west Texas, which we gladly share here. The article has been published in the San Angelo Standard Times. (Download PDF)
- The UN Millennium Development Goal on access to water has been met, three years early! The goal was to reduce by half the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. According to a report issued today by UNICEF and WHO, between 1990 and 2010, over two billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells. The related goal on sanitation has yet to be met, but increased attention to this is encouraging.
- Corporations are increasingly examining their water use, measuring risk, and looking at the impacts on local communities and the ecosystems on which they depend. The Oblate Faith-Consistent Investment initiative has focused on water as a key issue affecting the poor, and is engaged in substantive dialogs with major US multinational corporations on the subject. Read the Statement of Principles and Recommended Practices for Corporate Water Stewardship developed by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).
On St. Patrick’s Day, Protect the Irish March 19th, 2012
Rev. Seamus P. Finn, OMI and Eric LeCompte, Director of Jubilee USA – wrote a joint piece on the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of international debt burdens. Their full article can be found on the Huffington Post:
“On the Feast of St. Patrick, there may be no better way to honor the patron of Ireland, who according to legend drove out snakes from the country, than by protecting the Irish people from bailing out a nonexistent reckless speculation bank.
Anglo-Irish Bank (Anglo) financed some of Ireland’s worst property speculators for unsustainable golf courses, hotels and super markets and saddled the Irish people with a massive, unjust debt.
At Jubilee USA Network we know a lot about unjust debts. …”
Read more…
