PHA-Exchange> A Call to Health Professionals to Participate in anti-WorldEconomicForum Events

[Aviva]

> Dear Friends and Colleagues:
>
> From January 31 to February 4, heads of the world's largest transnational
> corporations and world political leaders will meet at the WORLD ECONOMIC
> FORUM (WEF) in New York City.
>
> For the second year in a row, in dedicated and informed opposition, the
2nd
> Annual WORLD SOCIAL FORUM (WSF) will be meeting from January 31 to
Febrary 5, in Porto Alegre, Brazil.  (www.forumsocialmundial.org.br)  Here,
> international representatives from human rights to labor to student
> organizations will stand is solidarity against the present state of
> globalization.  The WSF states:
>
> "The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition
to
> a process of capitalist globalization commanded by the large multinational
> corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the
> service of those corporations' interests....Our alternatives respect
> universal human rights...of all citizens - men and women - of all nations
> and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and
> insitutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty
> of peoples." > World Social Forum Charter of Principles, Number 4
>
> Acting in parallel with the WSF in Porto Alegre, teach-ins and mass
> demonstrations have been planned by multiple groups in New York during the
> same time period.  From demonstrations in Seattle against the 3rd WTO
> Ministerial Conference in Nov/Dec 1999 to those in Quebec against the
Summit
> of the Americas in April 2001, the events in New York City on Feb 1 and 2
> may prove to be a similar mass protest against harmful and secretive
> international trade policy and negotiations.
>
> This letter is a call for health professionals to stand in solidarity as a
> health community against the disastrous effects of profit over health and
> human rights of people worldwide.  Effects include: Destruction &
> contamination of the environment, long work hours, dangerous/toxic work
> environments, no benefits, no unionization, sexual abuse, very low wages,
> malnutrition....
>
> International ANSWER is one group organzing mass events
> (www.internationalanswer.org) on Feb 1 and 2.  There are five actions you
> can take with international ANSWER:  OMITTED, BECAUSE IT PERTAINS TO
ACTIONS IN NEW YORK CITY..

Other activities are listed on the ANSWER website.  Also,
housing/transportation needs are addressed on website.
>
> Thank you for your time and interest,
> In solidarity,
> Debbie Daniels, MD
> Doctors for Global Health Volunteer,
>    Social Medicine - Montefiore
> daniels_debbie at hotmail.com
> Jen Cohn, MSII
> AMSA, Doc Bloc
> jecohn at mail.med.upenn.edu