Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing - Current crisis in the housing and financial sector
The present report is the first one presented to the Human Rights Council by the new mandate holder, Raquel Rolnik, who took up her position on 1 May 2008. In view of the current crisis in the housing and financial sector, the Special Rapporteur decided to devote this thematic report to the consequences of certain economic, financial and housing policies and approaches that have seriously impacted the right to adequate housing in the past decades and have contributed to the present crisis.
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February 21st, 2009 | Category: downloads and documents, housing crisis | 
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The German network of local movements against privatization - APRI - demands to stop all ongoing processes of privatization and deregulation. In a declaration so far signed by local campaigns and groups, tenants associations and the national campaign against railway privatization “Bahn von unten” the network argues that the crash of the finacial markets had demonstrated the failure of privatisating commons, public property and services. Services and goods with relevance for public well being should be excluded from the logics of capitalist market and be sub-ordinated to democratic controle by the citizens. The network even calls for partcipation in the G 20 protests at March 28.
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February 15th, 2009 | Tags: Germany, privatisation | Category: campaigns & action | Print This Post
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Action day at the occasion of the global financial summit (G 20) , within the global action week against crisis and war: ATTAC Germany, some social movements networks, some trade union departments and left parties are calling for national demonstrations in Berlin and Frankfurt at March 28.
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February 15th, 2009 | Tags: protests | Category: campaigns & action | Print This Post
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During the World Social Forum January 2009 a number of urban movements and networks agreed on some common framework for cooperation in the context of the WSF during the coming years. They fixed their common approach in a document called “Building Convergences at the World Social Forum“. The political part of that document stresses the parallelism of the financial crisis with other threats for inhabitants and it tries to mark “Right to the City” as an alternative orientation.
Below I want to discuss some implications and obvious divergences in this “convergence”:
Is “Right to the City” the becoming unifying slogan or concept for the “convergence” of urban social movements in the world?
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February 14th, 2009 | Tags: Convergence, urban desire, WSF | Category: debate, building alliances | Print This Post
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Seeking for larger and more effective cooperation among organisations active in the alter-globalisation movements has been an issue at the WSF in general. This approach at the WSF was called “convergence”. During the World Social Forum January 2009 a number of urban movements and networks agreed on some common framework for cooperation in the context of the WSF during the coming years.
Find a provisional English transcript from the Spanish original below.
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February 14th, 2009 | Tags: WSF | Category: campaigns & action, debate, building alliances, downloads and documents | Print This Post
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Original transcript appeared on a Brian Mier article, reporting from the WSF in Belem for Vice Magazine :
- editor note : Thanks to Patrick Bond for sharing this article -
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February 12th, 2009 | Tags: Capitalism, Harvey, WSF | Category: campaigns & action, debate, downloads and documents, housing & financial crisis, housing crisis | Print This Post
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According to Reuters European Commission will present guidelines for dealing with toxic assets in the European Union in two weeks’ time after EU finance ministers agreed on 09/02/10 that they need a common approach to avoid distorting banking competition.
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February 11th, 2009 | Tags: bad bank, toxic assets, European Union | Category: news | Print This Post
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Call for debate
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February 8th, 2009 | Category: debate | Print This Post
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“Europe’s time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling. Revolt is in the air.” The Guardian (UK) published a story which tries to give a snapshot of credit crunch reactions across Euroape at a single day, January 30, - from Athens via Paris and Riga to Reykjavik.
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February 2nd, 2009 | Tags: Paris, protests, Riga | Category: news | Print This Post
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