Events
Protest Chevron’s Tax Grab!
The Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) has called for a rally at the Contra Costa County Administrative offices to protest the appeal of Chevron’s tax assessment.
Protest Chevron’s Tax Grab
651 Pine Street, Martinez
Thursday December 15, 2011
11:30 AM – Gather and Leaflet Area
12 Noon Rally
RPA says:
“The Chevron Corporation is currently appealing its property tax assessment and trying to get the county to pay them a refund of $150 million dollars at hearings in Martinez. If ordered to pay these refunds, County, City, and school districts would have to slash vital health, education and public services and lay off employees.”
“Chevron, which has long had reduced property taxes thanks to loop holes in Proposition 13, is able to hire an army of expensive lawyers to try to bully the county into accepting a settlement. Community groups, unions, and everyone who cares about justice say it is time to stop the 1% from bleeding the rest of us. We are the 99%, Chevron is the 1%!”
The Richmond City Council Resolution asking Chevron to drop its property tax appeals notes the following:
- Chevron Corporation. (formerly Standard Oil) has successfully operated an oil refinery in Richmond since 1904, thus contributing to the corporation’s high profitability for over 100 years
- Chevron declares that it wants to be a good neighbor to Richmond and Contra Costa County residents
- Chevron has posted record profits in each of the last five years, and its profits of $7,830,000,000 ($7.83 billion) for the third quarter of 2011 are double its profits for the third quarter of 2010
- Chevron’s charitable contributions to worthy local organizations in 2010 amounted to $3.7 million, which represents a mere 0.047% of the profit it made in just three months
- These cuts would inevitably result in the layoffs of city, county, school district, fire and water, etc. workers at a time when we are already experiencing record unemployment and the worst recession since the 1930’s Depression
- These layoffs would result in less income available to purchase goods and services contributing to a downward economic spiral damaging our business community
- Chevron has stated it wants to maintain good a good relationship with Richmond and that it specifically wants to help ameliorate the very problems that the cuts triggered by its potential refunds would exacerbate
- If Chevron were to withdraw all of its property tax appeals it would remain a highly successful and profitable corporation and would experience no negative consequences
- The Richmond City Council respectfully asks Chevron Corporation. to withdraw and dismiss all of its property tax appeals on past years’ assessments and pay the full amount due on current and future property tax assessments for the Richmond refinery.
Read the full resolution by the Richmond City Council
Get the flyer for the protest and rally
Teach-In 5/23, Protest at Chevron AGM 5/25!
Teach-In on the True Cost of Chevron
Monday, May 23, 2011 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
David Brower Center, Tamalpais Room
2150 Allston Way
Berkeley, CA
Join JINN, Emem Okon from the Niger Delta and members of communities from around the world that have been impacted by Chevron’s reckless business operations at this teach-in on the True Cost of Chevron. This event is being held just three days before Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting when the company will release its own annual report.
Then, join us for the rally/protest outside of Chevron’s AGM May 25!
Leaders from Chevron-affected communities that will be traveling from their homes to join us in the Bay Area for these events include:
- Emem Okon, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Nigeria
- Humberto Piaguaje, Amazon Defense Coalition, Ecuador
- Mardan Pius Ginting, WALHI – Friends of the Earth Indonesia, Indonesia
- Gitz Crazyboy (Ryan Deranger), First Nation Dene/Pikini (Blackfoot), Alberta, Canada
- Elias Isaac, Open Society Initiative, Angola
- Bryan Parras and Liana Lopez, Texas Environmental Advocacy Services and the Gulf Coast Fund, Houston, Texas
- Tom Evans, of the Native village of Nanwalek, CookInlet Keepers, Alaska
What Chevron’s annual report won’t tell you (or the company’s shareholders) is the true cost paid for Chevron’s business operations around the world: the lives lost, the wars fought, the communities destroyed, the environments decimated, the livelihoods ruined, and the political voices silenced. Nor will it describe the global resistance movements gaining voice and strength against Chevron’s particularly callous method of operation.
The Teach-In on the True Cost of Chevron will have the real scoop on Chevron’s destructive business and the movements gaining steam around the world to hold the company accountable.
Learn more at: http://truecostofchevron.com/
Protest at Chevron’s Shareholder Meeting
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 · 7:00am – 11:00am
Chevron’s World Headquarters
6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd
San Ramon, California 94583
Join us! Biodiesel Bus leaving from Justin Herman Plaza (Market & Embarcadero) in SF at 6:30 am!
RSVP to cheryl@justiceinnigerianow.org to join JINN, Emem Okon from Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in Nigeria on May 25th . JINN and Emem are joining people from communities around the world who are impacted by Chevron’s irresponsible operations. Be a part of this gathering in San Ramon, CA to confront Chevron at its annual shareholder meeting. You will be joining people from Nigeria, Angola, Alaska, Ecuador, Indonesia, Canada, Texas, California, and more. The communities represented have two things in common: they all come from communities that have suffered the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits, and they’re all fighting back.
Join us for a colorful and fun rally outside Chevron’s headquarters in support of human rights, environmental, economic and climate justice, and more!
Want to learn more about the True Cost of Chevron before the Protest? Join our Teach-In on May 23
Across the globe, Chevron’s outdated practices are putting our climate and the health of communities at great risk.
DIRECTIONS
From Berkeley or SF, take 80 to 24 (Caldicott Tunnel). Then 680 South. Off at Bollinger Canyon. Make a left onto Bollinger over bridge. Chevron HQ on right.
Drivers will have to park in Whole Foods parking lot across the street or at San Ramon Central Park (on left after Bishop Ranch One E).
From 580, take 680 N. Make a right at Bollinger Canyon Exit.
HQ is between Walnut Creek and Dublin Pleasanton BART stations. There are buses from these stations that go to Bishop Ranch (the corporate business park that Chevron HQ is located in).
RSVP here to let us know if you will join us on May 25th: cheryl@justiceinnigerianow.org
For more information on Chevron’s toxic legacy around the world: http://truecostofchevron.com/
JINN presents sneak preview film screening with Q&A
Sneak preview & California Premier of The Naked Option, a film about the Nigerian women’s movement
7PM Saturday May 21st
Victoria Street Theatre
2961 16th Street, San Francisco
Q&A with Naked Option Director Candace Schermerhorn and Emem Okon from the Niger Delta
Tickets $10
THE NAKED OPTION reveals the inspiring story of an organized group of Nigerian women who use the threat of stripping naked in public, a serious cultural taboo, in their deadly struggle to hold the oil companies accountable to the communities in which they operate. The women, at the risk of being raped, beaten or killed, are trained and armed, but not with anything you can see. Through the leadership of the courageous, charismatic, and inexhaustible Emem J. Okon, these women are taking over where men have failed, peacefully transforming their ‘naked power’ into 21st century political action and mobilization. THE NAKED OPTION celebrates the perseverance and power of an organized group of women! A Q&A will follow the screening with film director Candace Schermerhorn, women’s rights activist Emem J. Okon, and Laura Livoti founder and director of Justice in Nigeria Now (JINN).
Presenting Partners: Justice In Nigeria Now, CounterCorp; Partner and Funder: Global Greengrants; Fund Coalition Partner: Women’s Earth Alliance; Special thanks to Rainforest Action Network, The True Cost of Chevron Network and the Global Fund for Women.
SFIFF 2011: The Pipe
Review, Trailer and Showtimes
Documentary about the power of Shell Oil and their total disregard for the people of a small village in County Mayo, Ireland.
Showtimes for The Pipe:
MON May 2 – 6:30pm (PFA – Berkeley)
What happens when an off-shore gasoline Corporation with enough money to influence Government decides to start drilling on the mainland, specifically, the small united village of County Mayo, Ireland? Risteard O’Domhnail‘s debut documentary shows exactly what transpires, with the ending result being one that will have you leaving the theatre and proceeding directly to the spa in order to calm the anger pulsating throughout your nerves.
The Pipe is another one of those documentaries to join that long list of one-sided non-fiction take-to-action type films. At least this one has the good manners of informing us in the opening minute, rather than in the closing credits, that members of Shell Corporation refused to willingly take part in this film. Sure, it would have been nice to see both sides of the coin, but this is one instance where not hearing the other side of the story not only didn’t bother me, but would have taken away from witnessing the village’s struggle as well. There’s a sense that The Pipe was made with a sentiment of, if the village can’t receive any straight information from their adversaries than why should the viewer. Believe you me, this film’s strength lies in its ability to evoke anger from its viewer even though the viewer is fully aware they will never hear from the opposition. Not an easy thing to do.
As in almost all documentaries, especially ones in where the subjects being filmed are activists, the question of hamming it up for the camera will no doubt arise. I like to think of myself as someone who is not easily tricked into believing that everything is an absolute truth simply because it’s in a documentary format. Clearly, there are other voices needed to be heard in order to arrive at a fully informed verdict. But, putting all of that aside, I was still able to immerse myself completely in Risteard O’Domhnaill’s documentary.
Break the Silence
with Kambale Musavuli, of Friends of the Congo
Imagine that millions have been killed and continue to die,
hundreds of thousands of women have been systematically raped
the 2nd largest rainforest in the world is being destroyed
and mass crimes have been committed and remain widespread
- yet the world has been deadly silent.
This is modern-day Congo. Join the global movement – Break the Silence!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
6:30pm-8:30pm
University Center 222
University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
free and open to the public
Mr. Kambale Musavuli is a Congolese activist who speaks out
internationally with the ultimate aim to mobilize the global
community to help bring an end to the conflict in the Congo and
provide support to the people of the Congo as they strive to control
their enormous natural wealth and build lasting peace and stability in
the heart of Africa.
Sponsored by the African Studies Program
Three great events this week:
1) JINN Sweet Crude film screening & Q&A with Emem Okon 3/23 in San Francisco
2) JINN Brown Bag discussion with Emem Okon 3/24 in San Francisco
3) Black Gold world film premiere 3/26 in Palm Beach
Join JINN for a screening of the award winning documentary film Sweet Crude, with special guest Emem Okon from the Niger Delta
Wednesday March 23, 2011
7:00 PM reception, 7:30 PM film screening
Followed by Q&A with special guest Emem Okon
Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia Street (@21st) San Francisco, CA 94110
ATA phone: (415) 824-3890 web: www.atasite.org
JINN website: www.justiceinnigerianow.org
Tickets $10- $50 sliding scale
Sweet Crude is about Nigeria’s Niger Delta ‐ the human and environmental consequences of 50 years of oil extraction, the history of non‐violent protest, and the members of a new insurgency who became the young men of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). The film confronts issues of human rights, resource control, environmental justice and mainstream media agendas. The film crew was imprisoned by the Nigerian military in an effort to suppress the film. It didn’t work. This film should be seen by as many people as possible. For more about the film, watch the trailer, visit the website, and see the review in Variety.
With Special Guest Emem Okon: Emem Okon is a women’s rights activist and advocate from the Niger Delta’s oil impacted region of Nigeria. Ms. Okon is the founder and the Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development Resource Centre. Ms. Okon was a leader of the powerful women’s protests of Chevron Corporation for its environmental and human rights abuses in Nigeria which garnered international media attention when a group of women took over an oil installation and threatened to take off their clothes if the company did not negotiate with them.
Join JINN for a brown bag discussion Thursday 3/24 with special guest Emem Okon, now visiting here from the Niger Delta.
JINN Brown Bag Series
March 24, 2011
12:00-2:00pm
Global Exchange Conference Room
Global Exchange
2017 Mission Street, 2nd Floor
(@ 16th, BART 16th Street Mission)
San Francisco, CA 94110
t: 415.255.7296
This event is free of charge
See above for Emem Okon’s bio.
Catch the world premiere screening of Black Gold on Saturday 3/26 in Palm Beach.
Black Gold has been selected for competition at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. The Festival runs from March 23rd to 28th in Florida. Black Gold will screen on 9pm Saturday, March 26th at the Muvico Parisian. It’s a world premiere!
Watch the trailer and if you aren’t near Palm Beach, look for a screening near you.
Email cheryl@justiceinnigerianow.org for more information on the crisis in the Niger Delta.
Help Celebrate JINN’s Project Censored Award
Saturday February 5, 2011 — Berkeley, CA
Justice In Nigeria Now was awarded a Project Censored Award for reporting the story of the bombing by the Nigerian military of the Gbaramatu region of the Niger Delta beginning in May of 2009. The event provides an important opportunity for JINN to further amplify this censored story of the Niger Delta in a context of other censored stories which makes intelligible the connections between the Gbaramatu bombings and resource wars, environmental injustice, devastation of habitats and livelihoods, human rights struggles and the erosion of the commons across the world.
JINN has invited Elias Courson to be on the following panel on behalf of JINN and the Gbaramatu story:
2:30-3:45 P.M- Truth Emergency Panel
JINN will also be recapping the Gbaramatu story during the evening event from 7 -9 PM.
Read JINN’s original story reporting the Gbaramatu bombings.
Read JINN’s special report “Operation Restore Hope Killed the Hope and Livelihood of Tens of Thousands” about the story, the region and the people a year later after the bomb attacks.
See video footage that was smuggled out of Nigeria showing the village of Okerenkoko flattened by the military attacks. This cell phone video was taken by residents who were let in to the area briefly after the bombings.
Project Censored Annual Awards – Top 25 Stories: 2009-2010
& Censored 2011 Book Celebration
Saturday, February 5, 2:30-9pm, Berkeley!
Please join the Project Censored team celebrating their 35th year and release of Censored 2011 book! Project Censored and Media Freedom Foundation Board members and student interns are gathering to acknowledge our collaborative work and past year’s top stories.
There will be a full day of events beginning with afternoon panels including the ongoing Truth Emergency with Peter Phillips, Mickey Huff, Cynthia Boaz, Robert Abele and other Project Censored authors and award winners; the Fair Share of the Common Heritage discussion with Kenn Burrows, James Boyce, Clifford Cobb, and Dorothy Andersen; followed by a reception with Censored 2011 authors and award winners; and an evening of celebrations emceed by Berkeley’s Nora Barrows-Friedman, investigative journalist, with keynote by Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance. Music provided by Vic Sadot and Kevin Glaz. * The Fair Share of the Common Heritage Award in Honor of Alfred F. Andersen.
Location:
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists @1924 Cedar (at Bonita), Berkeley, CA.
Schedule of the Day’s Events:
– 2:30-3:45 P.M- Truth Emergency Panel (Fireside Room, BFUU on Bonita, not wheel chair accessible) – free to the public
– 4-5:30 P.M- Fair Share of the Common Heritage Discussion (Fireside Room) – free to the public
• Note: the evening events beginning at 6 P.M. are sliding scale $5-20, no one turned away for lack of funds.
– 6-7 P.M.- Reception/Light Fare/Socializing/Music (iBFUU main hall, corner of Cedar and Bonita, is wheel chair accessible)
–7-9 P.M.- Project Censored Award Celebration – 7:15-9 P.M. (BFUU main hall, same as Reception), Emceed by Nora Barrows-Friedman, with Keynote: Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance, Project Censored authors, and more…
Come for part of the program or come for all!
Help celebrate media democracy in action with Project Censored!
Co-sponsored by Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, BFUU Social Justice Committee, Flashpoints at KPFA, No Lies Radio (streaming the evening events live at http://NoLiesRadio.org), Media Alliance, Seven Stories Press, and Justice in Nigeria Now.
Contact: mickey@projectcensored.org, peter@projectcensored.org
Distribute this poster for the event.
First Annual Ubuntu* Community Awards Dinner
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
one of the greatest writers, thinkers and philosophers on Africa and the diaspora is keynote speaker -
Saturday, January 22, 2011
4:30 – 8:30 pm
Waterfront Hotel at Jack London Square, 10 Washington St., Oakland
Help us celebrate the this year’s honorees:
Christiana Bendu Hunter, Association of Citizens and Friends of Liberia
Gerald Lenoir, Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Muadi Mukenge, Global Fund for Women
Walter Turner, KPFA’s Africa Today & Global Exchange
Event MC’d by Bay Area’s own Aimee Allison
To purchase tickets in advance, go to Brown Paper Tickets
Please note that if you buy a ticket and let JINN know, we will include you at our table for Justice In Nigeria Now.
This event is a benefit for Priority Africa Network.
* “Ubuntu, the essence of being human….. you can’t exist as a human being in isolation, it is about our interconnectedness.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Grassroots Organizing Cools the Planet!
Teach-in and International Day of Action
Thousand Cancuns for Climate Justice!
Teach-in: 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Wednesday, December 1st
Women’s Building
3543 18th Street, SF
(Childcare and Translation will be provided)
The climate crisis is escalating, but the United Nations process is failing to address the roots of the problem. Each year we are feeling more impacts of the climate crisis on our communities, cultures and ecosystems –– drought, floods, displacement and the rising cost of food, water and energy. But the U.S. and other wealthy governments are refusing to take responsibility.
Farmers, Indigenous Peoples, landless people, low-income urban communities and thousands of people affected by the destruction of the environment are gathering in Cancun during the UN Climate Conference to show the world that there is another way forward. Responding to La Via Campesina’s call for a thousand Cancuns, social movements from around the world are organizing teach-ins and protests to reject false solutions and to support a people’s agenda for climate justice.
Join us to experience real, community-led solutions in the Bay Area!
Community-based solutions cool the planet!
Action: 3:30pm – 5:30pm
Tuesday, December 7th
17th Street & Folsom
Mission Dist. SF
Frontline communities, the communities first and most impacted by the climate crisis, are addressing the root causes of climate change and leading the way toward a healthy, safe and just future.
Join us to work on a community-led solution here in the Bay Area.
Push for the creation of a public park in the Mission on publicly-owned land currently used as a parking lot. We’ll build a garden, celebrate community-based activism and enjoy speakers, theatre and music! Featuring the headRush crew!
Sponsoring organizations:
Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Center for Political Education, Communities for a Better Environment, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Mobilization for Climate Justice West, Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER), People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), Richmond Progressive Alliance, Urban Tilth
You’re invited to a cocktail fundraising event celebrating African women’s leadership
Akili Dada, an international non-profit organization that works to empower African women leaders, is hosting its annual cocktail fundraiser on Saturday December 4th. The event will feature raffle prizes and musical performance by renowned Ugandan artist Omega Okello.
What: Cocktail fundraising event
When: Saturday December 4th, 4-7pm
Where: Trinity Episcopal Church, Menlo Park, 330 Ravenswood Ave, Menlo Park, CA, 94025
Cost: $25 per guest (additional fee for online purchases)
Akili Dada is a leadership incubator that offers scholarships, mentoring, and leadership training to brilliant young women from underprivileged backgrounds. Akili Dada’s competitive and comprehensive scholarships enable bright, hard working, young women a consistent access to a top quality high-school education. Their mentoring and leadership training programs ensure that the scholars have the self confidence, leadership experience, self reflection skills, and broad networks that make dynamic leaders successful. 100% of Akili Dada scholars earn full scholarships to university and earlier this year the Bay Area based organization won a United Nations award in recognition of their innovative work.
Bay Area professionals, students, and anyone interested in learning more about women, education or philanthropy in Africa is encouraged to attend. ALL of the funds raised at this event will go directly toward scholarships for talented and deserving young African women who would otherwise be forced to drop out of school for lack of school fees.
To learn more about the work of Akili Dada, and to purchase tickets for the event, please visit http://www.akilidada.org/home/events
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You are invited to a discussion:
World Capitalist Crisis and PanAfrican Resistance
and the launch of three books:
Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics
(by Horace Campbell, publisher: Pluto)
World Orders, Development and Transformation
(by Eunice Sahle, publisher: Macmillan)
Zuma’s Own Goal: Losing SA’s ‘War on Poverty’
(coedited by Patrick Bond, publisher: Africa World Press)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21st 9:30 am – 12:00pm
MUSEUM OF THE
AFRICAN DIASPORA (MOAD)
685 Mission Street in San Francisco at 3rd (BART: Montgomery or Powell Exit)
speakers:
Horace Campbell, Syracuse Univ. Eunice Sahle, UNC Chapel Hill, Patrick Bond, UKZN South Africa Patricia Daley, Oxford Univ.
This event was originally scheduled to be held at the African Studies Association conference. It has been moved to this location to support United HERE Local 2, which is in dispute with the St. Francis Hotel. The organizers affirm their support for these workers, honor their struggle, and ask for your solidarity.
This is a FREE event, open to the public RSVP requested by email or phone PriorityAfrica@yahoo.com or Tel: (510) 663-2255 -www.priorityafrica.org
Two big SF Bay Area Events: Sun Aug 29 Teach-In and Mon Aug 30 March and Nonviolent Direct Action
On the 5-Year Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in Solidarity with Gulf Coast Communities: MAKE BIG OIL PAY!
* Moratorium on New Offshore Drilling. No Use of Dispersants. Full Access to Media and Civil Society.
* Big Oil corporations pay their debt to all impacted communities – Gulf Coast to Richmond, CA and around the world.
* Big Oil pay for community livelihood and ecosystem restoration, clean energy, public transportation, and healthcare for impacted communities.
* Big Oil Out of Politics!
Big Oil Corporations destroy our health, environment and the livelihoods of our communities. From the Gulf Coast Oil disaster to the Niger Delta, from the Canadian Tar Sands to Richmond, California – these corporations pollute our communities and cause climate change, destroying the environments we depend on. Big Oil makes billions, while buying and lobbying governments for subsidies, against public oversight, and against solutions to climate change. Join us in taking action to stop Big Oil’s destruction and support clean energy and positive solutions.
Sun Aug 29, 1-4pm
Teach-In:Big Oil, Community Resilience and Creative Nonviolent Direct Action
Frank Ogawa Plaza, near 14th St & Broadway (12th St BART), Oakland*
Brief Teach-In on BP, Big Oil and Local Impacts– positive solutions and what we can do. Followed by: * Nonviolent Direct Action: a public preparation for the campaign on nonviolent direct action against big oil and for climate justice. This will prepare participants to join the nonviolent direct action part of the following day’s demonstration, or just learn about what’s involved. Please come on time and stay for the whole time.
* Community Resilience: Movement Generation and Bay Localize teach this workshop to understand the importance of meeting our own basic needs to prepare our communities to weather economic, ecological and social instability. Learn to evaluate our community’s relative strengths and vulnerabilities, and learn concrete skills to build self-reliance and resilience. It covers the topics of; Resilient communities as part of resisting oppression; Food, Water & Energy; Transportation & Housing; Jobs & Economy; Civic Preparedness & Social Service
Mon, Aug 30, 11:30 am
March and Nonviolent Direct Action
Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero BART), SF
Join us for a march on BP and Big Oil’s SF locations: This event is for those who would like to simply march as well as for those who choose to risk arrest taking nonviolent direct action. We’ll be targeting the offices of BP and Chevron for their roles in environmental and community destruction in the Gulf, in the Bay Area, and around the world. We’ll also target the U.S. EPA to demand an end to the use of toxic dispersants, to follow the Clean Air Act that mandates they regulate the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change and stand up to industry pressure to expand drilling and prevent action to stop climate change.
Get Involved:
Form an “Affinity” or Action Group: to participate in the nonviolent direct action– ask your friends, family, co-workers, fellow students or group members. Come to a training on Aug 21 or Aug 29, send someone from your group to the Aug 22 meeting, take the day off work or school and take action!
Get the Word Out: Send this email with a personal note, link to our facebook page at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138322482869220&ref=nf
Watch and share the BP & Big Oil Video Teach-In at:
http://www.youtube.com/ClimateJusticeWEST
Download flyers at:
http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/resources/imagery-and-fliers/
Make copes and get them out.
You can also get postcards and posters at:
SF: Global Exchange (9-5pm) 2017 Mission Street, 2nd Floor (at 16th St.) 415.255.7296
EAST BAY: Bay Localize (10-6pm) call first. 436 14th St. @ Broadway (12th St BART) , Suite 1216, Oakland (510) 834-0420
Sign up for action updates: text message to 40404 with the message “follow mcjwes”
JINN: Contact Diana to participate as a part of the JINN contingent: nicca@igc.org
Join Justice in Nigeria Now for a Happy Hour celebration and Going Away Party on July 28th, 6pm-7:30pm
Join JINN for happy hour on Wednesday, July 28th, 6pm-7:30pm, to celebrate our 2-year anniversary, a groundbreaking new transparency law, the Project Censored Award, and to celebrate and recognize the work of Abby Rubinson as she transitions out of JINN.
JINN turned 2 years old in May of this year, and last week JINN and the Publish What You Pay coalition achieved a major victory when the Senate passed a transparency law that requires extractive industries to disclose their payments to foreign governments on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis. On the same day, JINN was notified that its work bringing attention to the attacks of some oil-producing communities in May 2009 will be recognized by Project Censored.
The festivities will begin at 6pm next Wednesday, July 28th at JINN’s office (also Global Exchange’s office), 2017 Mission St.
Please join us!
Teach-In on BP Spill & Big Oil:
What’s Really Going On, What it Means & What We Can Do
Part of the 3-Month Gulf Disaster Anniversary National Week of Action
Tuesday July 20, 7-9pm
La Peña Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck Ave (at Woolsey next to Ashby BART), Berkeley
Free—donations appreciated. Food will be provided. Featuring:
Rose Braz, Center for Biological Diversity. Since the BP explosion, the Center’s decisive action and in-depth investigating have exposed massive government corruption and lax environmental review, leading to major media exposés and six lawsuits to secure a full cleanup and wildlife protection.
Antonia Juhasz, Director of Global Exchange’s Chevron Program. Antonia will have just returned from the Gulf, meeting with impacted communities and groups. She is an organizer with True Cost of Chevron Network, and the author of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry–And What We Must Do To Stop It.
Lindsay Imai, Urban Habitat’s Transportation Program, advocating for affordable, reliable, and racially and economically just public transit system in the Bay Area.
Carla Perez, Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project and Mobilization for Climate Justice West.
MC: Ana Orozco, Communities for a Better Environment
Join us for a teach in on:
- Impact of the disaster on Gulf communities and eco-systems.
- BP/big oil’s handling and grassroots responses to the spill
- Real causes of the spill and the other disastrous impacts of big oil, including in the Bay Area.
- How we can mobilize in the Bay Area to resist BP, big oil and their environmental and climate pollution.
- Positive solutions we can organize for in the Bay Area to end our dependence on fossil fuels and corporate capitalism.
4:30 to 6:30pm: Nonviolent Direct Action Training: Same location (La Pena), before Teach-in:
Prepare for upcoming mass actions to resist BP/Big Oil and for climate justice (Sunday, August 29th will be a National/Bay Area mobilization– Save the date!)! A free and open to the public workshop on the basics of nonviolent direct action, how it works and how to keep our power in confrontations with authorities before, during and after actions. Please come on time and stay for the whole time.
Training sponsored by Mobilization for Climate Justice West.
Teach-In Sponsored by Mobilization for Climate Justice West & The Center for Biological Diversity
US Social Forum: June 22-26 in Detroit
If you are in Detroit for USSF this week, be sure to include JINN in your plans. Thursday is JINN’s big day!
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Thurs., 6/24, 10am-12pm: “Protecting Community Rights and Resources” workshop, sponsored by Publish What You Pay Coalition, the Sierra Club, and Justice in Nigeria Now.
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Thurs., 6/24, 3:30pm-5:30pm, “Oil and Outrage Flare in Nigeria: Ending Global Climate Crime and Protecting Local Health” sponsored by Justice in Nigeria Now.
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Watch for an announcement on a special screening of Sweet Crude in Detroit during USSF!
More detail on the workshops here:
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Thurs., 6/24, 10am-12pm: “Protecting Community Rights and Resources” workshop, sponsored by Publish What You Pay Coalition, the Sierra Club, and Justice in Nigeria Now.
Learn how countries rich in natural resources like oil, gas, and minerals can benefit from transparency in oil companies arguments regarding their payments and practices. These resources should provide an essential source of financing for improvements to social and environmental well-being.
However, economic dependence on these resources is more often accompanied by poverty, inequality, poor public services, and stunted economic growth, a trend economists call the “resource curse.” And an overdependence on natural resources in a weak or corrupt political system often leads to environmental devastation, human rights abuses, and poor labor practices. Citizens have the right to participate in the decisions that affect their environment. For citizens to combat the resource curse, they need to know how much corporations are paying their government to extract natural resources.
Here in the U.S. a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators have joined together in introducing the Energy Security Through Transparency Act (ESTT). Come find out about an exciting campaign to pass a landmark bill that will close a critical gap in information available to citizens and allow them to push their governments towards more environmentally responsible practices.
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Thurs., 6/24, 3:30pm-5:30pm, “Oil and Outrage Flare in Nigeria: Ending Global Climate Crime and Protecting Local Health” sponsored by Justice in Nigeria Now.
Life in the U.S. is partly fueled by oil extracted by U.S. companies like Chevron in Nigeria. Forty percent of Nigeria’s oil is exported to the United States. Peaceful and militant resistance to oil company human rights and environmental abuses, like the constant flaring of gas, are gaining power. In today’s world, we understand the harm that these poison fires cause to local health, sustainability and the global climate. It is time to hold corporations accountable, end toxic flaring and create the conditions for peace for the 20 million residents of the Niger Delta.
Join Nigerian activist and reporter Omoyele Sowore; Nigerian women’s rights advocate Emem Okon; and Nigerian activist, now in Bayelsa State government, Von Kemedi and JINN for an informative, inspiring workshop on gas flaring, oil impacts, and climate change in Nigeria.
Learn how you can take concrete action to participate in global solidarity campaigns to end gas flaring in Nigeria, pass U.S. transparency legislation to hold all extractive industries accountable, and resolve the root causes of the unrest in Nigeria. Attendees will also have a special opportunity to see 20 minutes of the beautiful and award-winning documentary Sweet Crude before its theatrical release and learn to bring the film and action campaign to local communities.
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Watch for an announcement on a special screening of Sweet Crude in Detroit during USSF!
With thousands of people congregating in Detroit this week, JINN is working on screening the film Sweet Crude during the week. Details are still in the works. Check back here (www.justiceinnigerianow.org/events) or contact abby@justiceinnigerianow.org for the latest updates.
June 21-28: Sweet Crude in Columbus, Chicago, and Atlanta
Publish What You Pay (of which JINN is a member) is bringing Sweet Crude to Columbus, Chicago, and Atlanta to raise awareness of the transparency legislation and to call on the attendees to call their Congressional representative and urge their support.
Please share the invites below with friends in these cities!
o Columbus, OH – Monday, June 21st, 7pm, Studio 35 (3055 Indianola Avenue)
o Naperville, IL – Sunday, June 27th, 7:00pm, DuPage UU Church (4 South 535 Old Naperville Road)
o Atlanta, GA – Monday, June 28th at 7:30pm, Plaza Theatre (1049 Ponce De Leon Avenue)
On the Eve of Chevron’s Annual Meeting . . .
Come to a Special screening of Sweet Crude, followed by Q & A with
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- Macon Hawkins, an oil worker held hostage by armed militants who remains sympathetic to the needs of those living in the Niger Delta;
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- Emem Okon, a leader of Nigeria’s women’s movement; and
- Omoyele Sowore, an activist from a Chevron production area in Nigeria.
This must-see screening takes place at Houston’s Angelika Theater, on May 25th, 8:30pm.
Join us for this powerful documentary about Nigeria, the U.S. and oil, plus Q & A with an amazing set of speakers–on the eve of Chevron’s May 26th Shareholder meeting in Houston!
Friday, May 21, 12:30-1:30pm: Brown Bag with Emem Okon, visiting from the Niger Delta
Justice in Nigeria Now, Global Fund for Women, and the 
International Forum on Globalization invite you to join us for a brown bag with women’s rights advocate, Emem Okon, visiting from the Niger Delta.
Tides Center Brown Bag Series
May 21, 2010
12:30pm-1:30pm
Presidio Building 1014 (Lincoln Blvd. & Torney Ave.)
San Francisco, CA 94129-1755
415.561.6400
Emem Okon is a women’s rights activist and advocate from the Niger Delta’s oil impacted region of Nigeria. Ms. Okon is the founder and the Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre. She is a gender analyst, a trainer, a researcher, and a campaigner against all forms of violence including that directed at women and the environment. Ms. Okon was a leader of the powerful women’s protests of Chevron Corporation for its environmental and human rights abuses in Nigeria which garnered international media attention when a group of women took over an oil installation and threatened to take off their clothes if the company did not negotiate with them. She has coordinated several women’s networks and coalitions in the Niger Delta region, including Civil Society on HIV & AIDS, Gender and Constitution Reform Network, International Network on Women and Environment, and National Coalition on Affirmative Action, to mention a few.
Panel Discussion Lunch in Washington, D.C.,
Friday May 21, 12:30pm-2pm:
US Leadership for Energy Security? The Case of Equatorial Guinea
Space is limited! More information here.
Dance against Chevron with Afrolicious! This Friday, May 21, Benefit Party @ CODA!
Here’s the Facebook event invite: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127580617259365
Join Mobilization for Climate Justice West
outside the “Navigating the American Carbon World” conference in SF-
one of the nation’s largest carbon market conferences – to expose the injustice and ineffectiveness of carbon trading and offset schemes that reward polluters and allow rich countries to evade the real responsibility of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
When: Thursday April 15th, 12-2pm
Where: San Francisco Marriott Marquis (55 Fourth Street, SF – near Powell St BART)
[from http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/2010/04/april-15-rally-against-carbon-trading/]
Join us for a rally, street theater, and fun!
In order to respond to the present climate emergency in a just and equitable way, the rich countries of the world must take a lead on reducing greenhouse gas pollution that is threatening global climate catastrophe. But corporations and rich developed nations are pushing for policies that would allow them to “reduce” emissions by purchasing carbon “credits.” Unfortunately, carbon credits can be created through offset projects which supposedly reduce emissions in developing countries so that the companies or people purchasing the offsets don’t have to do anything to reduce emissions themselves. The problem is that these projects are frequently hard to monitor and fail to deliver the emissions reductions that they promise. Offsets essentially allow rich countries and corporations to purchase indulgences to keep polluting.
For example, the Nigerian government has stated its intention to participate in carbon trading and several oil companies are attempting to receive emissions credits. If this goes unchallenged, Chevron will be allowed to receive emissions reductions credits for ending the illegal and immoral practice of gas flaring in Nigeria. Under carbon trading proposals being considered in the US Congress, Chevron could keep polluting here at home, like at its refinery in Richmond, the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in CA. It’s almost like a bully demanding a ransom to stop beating you up.
More Details: Event Flyer
This weekend:
Two Chances to See Sweet Crude–
followed by Q & A with Film Director Sandy Cioffi!
March 19 in Washington, D.C.:
Sweet Crude screens this Friday at the Environmental Film Festival in DC at 6:30pm at AED’s Globe Theater, 1927 Florida Ave., NW (Metro Dupont Circle, Q St. exit). Director Sandy Cioffi will be present and will answer questions following the screening.
March 21 in Tiburon, CA:
Sweet Crude screens this Sunday at the Tiburon International Film Festival at 7:05pm at 1680 Tiburon Blvd, Tiburon, CA (near San Francisco).
Sandy Cioffi will make a transcontinental voyage to San Francisco in order to attend this screening and answer questions afterward as well.
Whichever coast you’re on, you have an opportunity to see Sweet Crude and talk with director Sandy Cioffi this weekend!
Yoga Benefit for JINN on Mar. 14:
Spring Forward, Breathe Deeply, and Support JINN!
Join us for a lovely yoga practice, where you can breathe deeply for your own health and benefit JINN’s work to protect the health of those across the globe whose air is poisoned by toxic gas flares.
Mark your calendar, tell your friends, and don’t miss this special all-levels yoga class appropriate for total beginners and advanced practitioners taught by beloved Bay Area teacher Kimber Simpkins:
March 14th, 1:00pm-2:30pm for a sliding scale donation of $13-35 at 7th Heaven Yoga Studio, 2820 Seventh Street in Berkeley.
All proceeds go to JINN, as Instructor Kimber Simpkins and 7th Heaven have generously donated the time and space.
RSVPs are helpful, though not required.
December 11: Climate Change Candle Light Vigil for Survival – San Francisco
What: Candle Light Vigil for Survival
When: December 11th 5pm-7pm
Where: San Francisco Civic Center Plaza, across from City Hall at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl.
On the weekend in the middle of the Copenhagen conference — Dec. 11-13 — people will be gathering at important places all over the world for candlelight vigils, in solemn solidarity with the citizens of those nations who will be first to face the challenge to their very survival posed by climate change. Eventually all of us will be hard-pressed by rising seas, spreading drought, and temperatures too hot for growing food. But right now—this year, this decade—there are countries being pushed to the brink. They’re at the forefront of a fight for real change in Copenhagen.
As Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed said last week at a summit for heads of state of the most vulnerable nations: “We will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.” Instead, he and the others called for a “survival pact,” for commitments by the developed world to cut emissions enough to get the atmospheric concentration of co2 back to 350. They know the simple, mathematical truth of global warming: 350=Survival.
In San Francisco, 350.org will be holding a candlielight vigil to reflect on the seriousness of climate change and the political negotiations that will determine our future. They will have an open mic at our vigil, giving attendees the opportunity to express their concerns about global warming.
They encourage people to bring candles, friends, and an item that represents why you are concerned about climate change.
RSVP and help spread the word on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=353232030363
Past Events
