Sarajean's notes

The UN Special Rapporteur on racism and discrimination was in Japan around the same time that the anti-discrimination NGO network celebrated its 6-month anniversary. I attended IMADR's forum on Feb 27 - it started with commentary and responses to the Japanese government claim from Doudou Diene. The panle that followed was also interesting. There were two comments which left deep impressions - one was from a zainichi Korean who admitted that she did not know about the other groups and their issues but wanted to see this as a point for us all ﾐ Ainu, Okinawan, Koreans etc. to learn about each other. The other was from Hideki who said it has been 6 months and some people say we have not done any thing - but the creation of the network of organizations is of great significance. This is an accomplishment - we do not have many NGO coalitions here in Japan and so many of the groups in the network are tiny, far apart and not wired. Salute the people of IMADR and the members of the NGO netw...

I recently was walking to kamiyacho station afte rmeetin gwith chuk from the Asia Foundation and saw a small group of protestors blocked by a lot of Japanese police -- i talked to them for a while and foudn out that they were protesting the Vetos by Russia in the UNSC. The vote involved a resolution which would have urged Burma to ease repression and release political prisoners . Find out more: UN vetoes prolong Burma agony, Simon Tisdall , The Guardian China, Russia veto UN Burma resolution Bangkok Post http://www.bangkokpost.net/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=115990 VOA http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-01/2007-01-13-voa2.cfm?CFID=41873506&CFTOKEN=24607598

I tried throughout Feb to encourage people to buy fair trade chocolate for Valentines Day but found I did not have enough places to refer people to ... only people tree/global village. I asked at one chocolate shop and you would have thought I had 4 eyes and had blue hair... One of the key probelms with asking people to buy alternative products is not having the alternatives in shops or not having the shops nearby to refer them to. write me if you have any info on shops in tokyo where you can buy fair trade chocolate - i am still also looking for a dvd/video with info on chocolate and child labour. let me know if you have something.