You handle. Okay, great. So let's let's go for it. All right. It's recording Hello, everyone. Welcome to the webinar about Black Rocks role in Amazon destruction. My name is Nancy Mancias. I am a campaign organizer with code pink. I am joined by my co facilitators who will introduce themselves. Hi, I'm Carly. I work on the divest from the war machine campaign with code pink. My name is Cody and I also work with the divest from the war machine campaign and code pink. And we also and Kelsey, if you'd like to introduce yourself to the participants, please. Yes, hi, I'm Kelsey and I'm a part of code pink divest from the war machine campaign. I've been here for about two months. I'm excited to be on the call. Great. We want to know who you are. Thank you so much for joining us. So please add your first name and where you are from and what inspired you to join us today. Today, our guest is Pendo Marshall Hallmark. Pendo is the climate campaigner at Amazon watch. She has extensive field experience in the United States and Latin America before joining Amazon watch. She worked as an international human rights accompanier with activists in Columbia and later completed a full bright scholarship in Mexico City, exploring socially and environmentally responsible business practices. She studied sociology at Swarthmore College and has completed master's level coursework and business administration at Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology. Welcome, Pendo. I'll go ahead and pass it on to Kelsey who will get us started. Thank you Nancy and thank you to everyone who's joining us on this call. Pendo, I'm really excited to learn more from you about your campaign to expose BlackRock for their role in profiting from the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. I'm wondering if you could tell us all a little more about Amazon watch, the work you all do and how you all develop your campaigns. Yeah, well, first of all, thank you all for having me and I had sort of incorporated answers to some of the anticipated questions into my presentation. So if I can go ahead and start that presentation and I will hopefully answer, get to the point that you just brought up. So yeah, if you just want to hit present. Awesome. So I'm just going to start my name's Pendo Marshall Hallmark as was said and I'm also relatively new to Amazon watch I just started as a climate campaigner pretty recently. And I'm just going to explain a little bit about what Amazon watch is before I get into the campaign that we've been working on with BlackRock. So Amazon watch is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1996 to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon basin. And we partner with indigenous and environmental organizations in campaigns for human rights for corporate accountability and for the preservation of the Amazon's ecological systems. You can go to the next slide please. Oh yeah, sorry. So I'm going to talk a little bit about why BlackRock is a target of ours because I know that Code Pink is also doing some organizing against BlackRock and so I wanted to explain a little bit of why it's a target for a lot of environmentalist groups right now. And some of this you all may already know, but BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager. As of the end of Q4 fourth quarter of 2019 December 31 2019 it had a total of over 7.43 trillion assets under management so it's an incredibly powerful asset management company. It owns a majority stake of been shares of most major publicly traded companies in the world. And because of its position it has a really important say in a lot of leadership decisions on these companies boards. So it really sets an example for a lot of other asset managers, excuse me, asset management firms around the world. And that's important because where BlackRock is putting its money says a lot about where it thinks we should be investing in the future and what are sort of the important industries and economies to be supporting right now. And according to our own research Amazon Watch recently published a report. Just last month actually as of the end of 2019 BlackRock has about 2.46 billion dollars invested in crude oil extraction companies operating in the Western Amazon region and because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The value of these shares may have obviously significantly changed since the end of 2019. Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic is having on the fossil fuel industry I'm sure as a lot of you know the fossil fuel industry is seeing significant limits in its value. So the companies that BlackRock is currently invested in have a long history of violating indigenous people's rights to free prior and informed consent, also known as FPIC, and I can talk a little bit more about that later on. But essentially that's a really key right that indigenous peoples have to be consulted before their land is used for any kind of extractive purposes or really used by any outside companies. So a lot of the companies that BlackRock is currently invested in have a long history of violating indigenous peoples rights to this right and of also wreaking havoc on their environmental on the environment. So if you want to go to the next slide please. Okay, so BlackRock has a majority shareholder status that means it owns over 5% of shares in ADM and BUNCH, which are two of the largest deforestation driving soy companies currently operating in the Brazilian Amazon. So when we're talking about the destruction that BlackRock is having on biomes like the Amazon, we're not just talking about fossil fuel extraction, we're also talking about deforestation commodities, and ADM and BUNCH are soy companies. So if you want to go to the next slide please, and I'm going to explain what BlackRock's big problem is in just a second. So Larry Fink is the CEO of BlackRock and he's sort of known as the consciousness of Wall Street. He gets a lot of credit for his speeches about environmental responsibility and the importance of sustainable finance.  But when you really look closely at what BlackRock's policies are and where it's putting its money, you can see that the company's performance doesn't actually reflect the stated values of its CEO. So if you can go to the next slide please. So you might have to hit it a couple of times. What is BlackRock's big problem? This is the campaign that Amazon Watch has been working on in collaboration with a number of other groups. Next slide please. So the campaign was launched in 2018 and it's a global network of NGOs and social movements that are pressuring asset managers like BlackRock to align their business practices with a climate safe world. And so the major partners on this initiative are of course ourselves, Amazon Watch, The Sunrise Project, not to be confused with Sunrise Movement, Friends of the Earth, Divest Invest Network, CR Club and a few others. And basically we're calling on BlackRock to divest from any and all fossil fuel companies that refuse to transition to clean and sustainable energy. So actually, excuse me, I'm getting ahead of myself. I also want to back up and just explain that BlackRock's big problem is specifically targeting BlackRock as an asset manager, but it's part of a much larger coalition of other campaigns and organizations and groups called the Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition. And the Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition is a collection of indigenous groups, environmental activists, NGOs that are calling for an end to the financing of climate destruction. Not only from asset managers, but also from major banks, from insurance companies, from university endowments and from pension funds. I'm sort of looking at the pipeline, if you will, of money that is contributing to climate destruction because it's investing in climate destructive industries like the fossil fuel industry or deforestation rich commodities like soy, beef, other agribusiness industries. Okay, so now I can go to the next slide please. Thanks. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the demands of the BlackRock specific campaign as it fits into the larger Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition. And, you know, I can go into more detail on any of this during Q&A section if anybody's curious. But essentially the main demands are for BlackRock to divest from any and all fossil fuel companies that refuse to transition to a clean and sustainable energy sourcing. There's another demand to make fossil fuel and deforestation free funds the default option for clients. So if anybody's not super familiar with investing, what we mean by that is a lot of times if you have money saved in a retirement account, you have a 401k, you have an Roth IRA, any kind of retirement account, even if it's handled mostly or managed mostly by your employer. There's a company that would be handling or managing those funds and a lot of times they just get put into just automatically put into a lot of industries like fossil fuel industries like deforestation commodity industries that are obviously contributing to climate change. The major demand of this campaign is to make those kinds of funds opt in so to basically make the default option for anybody that's investing with BlackRock to be completely climate destruction free funds. And then another really important key demand of the campaign is for BlackRock to use its shareholder power and its majority shareholder status and most major publicly traded companies as I mentioned earlier to really push these companies to align their their business practices with a livable planet. So to ask them, you know, if after we sign the Paris Accords, I'm sure everyone here is familiar with companies, governments around the world are being called to align their fossil fuel emissions with a scenario that would reduce that would reduce the amount of global global emissions to 1.5 to an increase of only 1.5 degrees. So we really only have 10 years left to do this and so having the kind of leadership from major companies like BlackRock, which as I mentioned before, is the largest asset manager in the world has over $7 trillion of assets under its management is a really key part of shifting our practices. So if you can go to the next the next slide. I want to talk a little bit about kind of the the finance mindset that we come across sometimes in our campaigns against major financial institutions, you know, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual, there's a lot of different big companies that have a lot of money and a lot of power. So when they get critiqued by groups like Amazon Watch groups like Code Pink, they have kind of this these four steps of neutralizing critiques against them right first one being denial. It's not really our problem, you know, we're, you know, we're just keeping our heads down we don't really have anything to do with the problem finances is really complicated you wouldn't understand. So this is kind of the inevitability of what they're doing, you know, one of the kind of critiques that we hear a lot from people is, is this belief that if BlackRock doesn't do this or if BlackRock does this, some other group will just swoop in and take the shares and the companies that are contributing to fossil fuel that are contributing to climate change so there's sort of this like lack of responsibility and kind of a belief that they just have to follow the market and that their actions actually impact. And then that's sort of linked to the lack of agency right that BlackRock is just a fund manager and it's not their responsibility and it's not even their money that they're just handling it for clients so they really have any sort of say in how to intelligently invest that in more sustainable industries right. And then finally, and I think this is a really important one. A lot of these companies use diversion as a way to distract from the from the larger problem right so they'll do in the environmental we call it greenwashing but you know in other in other kind of campaigns they might they might have a different name for this but it's basically saying look look look we're you know we put X amount of dollars into a sustainable fund and so you know we're done we're done we've already done everything that we can do so we can't really be held accountable for you know you can't you can't accuse us as being of being part of the problem because we've already provided this this nice thing that we're doing so while that is you know always helpful it's not unless it's done on a widespread level and you know really fundamentally changes the priorities of the company greenwashing or investing in these kinds of projects that are going to sort of clean the face of the company really aren't a part of the solution. So if you can go to the next slide please. Alright, so I want to talk a little bit about what's happening on the ground right now in the Amazon. And a little bit about how the current coronavirus pandemic is affecting the people that we work with. And sort of just contextualize this a little bit. It's important to know that the fight against the fossil fuel and the deforestation commodity industry is only the latest in a really long history of indigenous resistance to outside threats and really for over 500 years. Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and across the Americas really have faced invasions of their ancestral territories racial and social discrimination, the constant threat of physical and cultural extermination that's resulted in disease displacement and genocide right so these peoples, particularly indigenous peoples currently living in voluntary isolation are really gravely threatened by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, because of their vulnerable immune systems, the lack of access to health care facilities, the lack of potable water and sanitation infrastructure and their territories. And most of that is due in large part to government neglect of their territories right so the current threat of the virus spreading into the Amazon is exacerbated by government policies that encourage destructive industries. And, you know, it's important to point out that a lot of governments in the Amazon, you know, Ecuador, Peru, Columbia, get a lot of their in Brazil. It's important to point out that a lot of these governments get a huge amount of their GDP and of their budget from promoting extractive industries in Amazonian territories. So, and another major threat is organized crime that is entering into these territories in large part because of government neglect. So, with all of that, you know, not only are indigenous peoples dealing with a threat of global pandemic and the invasion of their territories from unwanted extractivist companies and deforestation commodity companies. They're also on the front lines of climate change. So, on March 18, just a few weeks ago, the Bobonasa River flooded to an unprecedented level and this really devastated the Sarayaku, Paca Yaku and the Teresa Mama communities that live along its banks. So, if you could just press play on that, on that video there. This is a leader from a from that community. I don't know if you can hear it. Maybe closed caption. Oh, yeah, that's too bad. Well, you can, you can, I don't know if people can see the closed caption on there. This is essentially Elena Gualinga. She's a young indigenous leader from the Sarayaku indigenous peoples in Ecuador and Amazon, and she in that video is explaining sort of what just happened after her community was flooded and she's really making a point to emphasize that this is the result of climate change. And it's the result of years of extractive companies destroying their land. So they've been in a really long battle with oil, crude oil extraction companies in their territory, and they've seen a huge amount of devastation to their land. And this flood is really just one example, one sort of consequence of the environmental devastation that they've had in the area. So those photos that you can see are of a bridge that connected the community to other other communities and you can see that the bridge has been completely destroyed by the flooding. This is really unprecedented floods that they've never seen. And on the bottom right, you can see a kind of aerial view of their community. So in collaboration with community leaders, Amazon Watch was able to organize an emergency crowdfunding campaign, and we've raised since launching over $40,000 to help with reconstruction efforts. But really it's important to point out that this kind of destruction is only going to continue and only going to become even more and more frequent as the climate crisis intensifies. So if you can go to the next slide, please. So I kind of wanted to leave people with some next steps, right, and talk a little bit more about how our campaign and the supplementary pipeline coalition have been affected by coronavirus, as I'm sure, you know, everybody, especially organizers are having to kind of pivot at this time.  You all may remember some of the youth climate strikes that took place last year. It was an unprecedented number of participants. I think it was something like over four million people around the world participated in these strikes. And it was a really important moment in the climate movement. So we were really hoping to build off of that momentum and obviously we don't want to endanger folks. So in light of coronavirus, we're going virtual and we're going to be hosting an event called Earth Day Live. Some of you may have heard about it. It's at earthdaylive2020.org and I have a QR code up there on the screen if anybody wants to check it out. But essentially, April 23 in that three-day lineup is specifically going to be dedicated to highlighting the role that big finance plays and that the financial sector plays in the climate crisis. So we're really trying to highlight the responsibility that major financial institutions have in preventing climate change and moving their money out of fossil fuel and deforestation commodity industries. And this includes asset managers like BlackRock, but also insurance companies like Liberty Mutual, banks like JPMorgan Chase. And basically right now, thousands of people are preparing to participate in a global live stream. And during that live stream, they're going to be applying direct pressure to these financial institutions and divesting their money from them. So we really need as many people as possible with us in this fight and the best way for you to get involved is to sign up at that link, earthdaylive2020.org. And more than anything, really, you can control where your money is. You can double check, make sure that your funds aren't contributing to climate change. And we have some pretty cool tools for doing that. So if you're interested in learning how you personally can divest, you want to know what your 401k is going to, you know, what your Roth IRA is funding. You can go to stopthemoneypipeline.org slash tools. The URL is right there. And we have a lot of tips on how you can divest your money, how you can figure out what it's funding currently and what some viable alternative options are. Obviously, we can't advertise a particular fund or a particular bank. But we can give you the resources to try to make that decision on your own. So yeah, essentially, I will end here, but just kind of want to thank everybody for taking the time to listen and to understand kind of the links between these major financial institutions like BlackRock and climate destruction in the Amazon. And really the importance of all of us in being conscious about our consumption and what our money is funding. Thanks. Thank you, Pendle, for that very thorough presentation that really gave us an overview of who BlackRock is, what they do and why we as activists and as a community need to hold them accountable and hold their feet to the fire. But, Pendle, I do have some questions here for you. So let's go to, I have a question here about BlackRock's role as a majority shareholder. Is BlackRock a majority shareholder or a plurality shareholder in most cases? What are examples of companies in which it holds and can vote a majority of shares? Oh, you're on mute. Sorry about that. I have a question. I'm not sure I can speak to the difference between plurality versus majority shareholder, but by majority shareholder I meant that they own more than 5% of total shares in a company and a publicly traded company. So I think I gave an example in the presentation, but I think BUNGE and JBS are two examples of soy companies where BlackRock is a majority shareholder. So that means that they usually it means that they have a seat on the company's board of directors that they are present for any shareholder proposals and they can vote on those. And they can vote on things like, you know, resolutions about how we're going to be accountable to Indigenous communities or what the process is going to be like when we are looking for other lands to exploit. They could even, you know, be informing companies on really pushing them to prioritize more sustainable forms of extraction or if it's an agribusiness company, you know, trying to have more sustainable methods of cultivation. So there's really a wide variety of ways that their leadership could positively affect a general move towards more sustainable energy sector. Yeah, I'm not sure if that answers the question. Well, hopefully it answers some of it. So I have another question here for you, Pendle. You know, doing this work can be really challenging for some, especially around finance and talking about shareholders. So how can someone effectively communicate our concerns to elected officials? What do you suggest we do when we write a letter to our elected officials? And they respond with a polar plate response that basically shows that they did not even read the letter. What do you have to say about that? Yeah, I mean, I think that there's always strength in numbers and in data, having data that can really back you up. One thing that I want to add to the actually to the previous question that I think is probably helpful is the report that Amazon Watch just recently published really highlights a series of not just the major. So let me bring it down a little bit. We were looking at indigenous rights violations, particularly in the Western Amazon, as they were related to crude oil extraction in that region. And we wanted to kind of draw this link for folks between where crude oil extraction was happening and indigenous resistance on the ground to those projects and companies and the financial institutions that were funding them or that had majority shareholder status or that had underwritten them with bonds and loans. So we just recently published a report that identifies five of the five really key financial institutions. Let me see if I can name all of them. BlackRock, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are funding and financing four major crude oil extraction companies that are operating in the Western Amazon that we already have documented evidence of indigenous resistance and violation of indigenous rights that these companies have done. So I think having that kind of data to back you up, you can go to our website, you can check out our report. It's called investing in Amazon crude and really working in numbers to put pressure on elected officials to pressure these companies to change our policies at the federal level around regulation of the financial institutions. Industry, excuse me, is one method. But I think, you know, there's the policy route where we're changing policy and that's definitely an important piece of what we're doing, arguably the most important piece. But there's also just our role as individuals and making sure that our money is really not financing these companies and when it is letting these companies know that you're concerned about that because ultimately they can't exist without your money. So if you're feeling like you're not getting an adequate response from an elected official, I would I would advise, you know, looking at your own funds. You know, talking with other friends sitting down maybe organizing a day where you're going to check out some of those resources that I, that I shared from self money pipeline coalition to just sort of figure out what are some of the, what are some of the ways that our money is contributing to this crisis and how can we let more people know about how they can prevent that from happening. Great. Thank you, Pendle. And I just want to let everyone know that's joining us. If you have any more questions, please put them in the chat box, or in the Q&A section of the screen. And also this webinar is being recorded and will be available to you on YouTube in a day or so. I wanted to open it up to Cody and see if there's anything that he would like to add. He's been listening patiently. And patiently and very wrapped. This is an amazing comprehensive presentation, Pendle. I know I'm learning a lot. And what I'm thinking is that there's so much information here that is so useful for divestment activists in general, but especially ones working on such a big financial monstrosity like BlackRock is. And obviously at Code Pink our focus is on companies that are profiting off of war production. But as you've demonstrated, it's equally important to target the way that company is profit off of fossil fuel industry, deforestation and violating indigenous sovereignty. So I think that there's a lot of possibilities for strong coalition work on a campaign like this. So I'm wondering if you have any lessons to share for the participants about any kinds of coalition work you've done with other movements to target this one company. Yeah, I mean that's a really good question. And I have to be honest, like as I mentioned I'm pretty new to the work. So I can really only talk about the Supplementary Pipeline Coalition and the BlackRock's big problem campaign. But I can say that the campaign is, is, you know, we have some of those key environmentalist groups that I mentioned, but we're also working with, you know, really grassroots community organizing organization. So New York communities for change, for example, I don't know if folks are familiar with them but they do a lot of organizing in Black and Brown communities in New York City. And so really kind of highlighting the link between environmental destruction in the Amazon and environmental racism that's happening here in the United States. You know, we've done some work with groups in California that wanted to get crude oil extraction companies out of communities in California. And there's sort of this, like, you know, I'm not an expert on it, but there's a, there's this dichotomy that we're seeing between, well, California is a huge oil consumer. Where is it going to get its oil from, if it's not going to get its oil from communities in California, then maybe it'll have to get them from, get it from communities in the Amazon. So sort of forming coalitions between those different groups I think is a really key part of this fight and kind of understanding the links between environmental destruction, you know, racism, classism. You know, there's all kinds of ways that this, that this work connects. And so, yeah, I mean, that's, that's what I can, that's what I can say about coalition building but I think if anybody is curious to learn more to kind of brainstorm about other ways that we can support what y'all are doing. Please, please do reach out because I think we're all on the same team. Thank you, Pendel. And we had a question here. Can we post this webinar to Black Rock? Well, can we tweak this webinar to Black Rock?  Go for it. We bugged them plenty on Twitter, so I'm sure they won't be surprised, but please do, yeah. And then a final question. Not part of the script. It's kind of off the script. Just wanted to see if you or anyone at Amazon watch has any thoughts about Larry Fink being tapped to help the White House during this economic crisis that we're going through. Do you have any thoughts or opinions on that? Definitely, yeah, and maybe I can send you, I know that we were part of a statement that we put out with a bunch of other groups, specifically on that exact issue recently so I can find that and send it to you after this webinar to share with folks. But yeah, there's a huge amount of concern from people in the stuff on the pipeline coalition and from Black Rock's big problem campaign in particular because Black Rock has essentially just been handed the reins to a tremendous amount of power and decision making around what our money is going to fund coming out of this crisis and a lot of, I think it kind of goes without saying, but a lot of groups are really using this desperate situation to forward agendas that are going to make it harder to protect the folks kind of on the bottom of pyramid here, you know, destroying social safety nets, destroying environmental protections, and it's really, really important that we call attention to that issue. So yeah, there's a huge amount of concern about Black Rock essentially being picked to lead the country out of this crisis when, as you can see from this presentation, they're really not walking the talk. So yeah, that's a huge concern of ours. Great. Thank you. We are too concerned about him being tapped. I have another question here for you. Are there ways you're working with the Amazonian Indigenous people? Can you share some examples? Yeah. Well, as I mentioned in the presentation, we have been organizing, really this is a crisis, right? So we're not a humanitarian aid organization. We're an advocacy organization and it's important to point that out. But because we're in a crisis mode right now, we've been really called on by a lot of our Indigenous partners to help get as many funds and supplies to the region as quickly as possible. So we've been supporting folks, different Indigenous peoples' crowdfunding campaigns. We've also, we have what's called the Amazon Defenders Fund. We've been able to, fortunately, we've been very successful in fundraising over the last year or so. We've been able to open up new, re-granting opportunities for Indigenous partners. So we have Amazon Defenders Fund, which we've been able to disperse to various Indigenous partners who are asking us for, you know, money. Usually we use that, or partners use that to organize protests or to travel, to meet with one another, to sort of organize coalition-building efforts. And right now it's really all about getting folks supplies, you know, masks, soap, food, you know, people are really, and in the case of the Sarayaku community, the video that I shared earlier, you know, we've raised that money to help them rebuild their communities that are being completely destroyed by climate change. So those are all examples of ways that we work with Indigenous partners. And again, I can't stress it enough, you know, we're not a humanitarian aid organization. We're really trying to kind of redistribute wealth and give folks the autonomy to decide what they want to do with the money. So, yeah, those are some examples of ways that we're supporting folks and we actually just organized a Amazon-wide statement of solidarity among different Indigenous groups that are calling for a moratorium on all entry into the Amazon and into Indigenous territories and asking for an immediate cease, a cease and desist or a seizure of any extractive industries.  I know I'm talking too much, but there's a threat of religious proselytization in the Amazon and the Bolsonaro administration in Brazil has just recently appointed a pretty well-known missionary as the head of the Indigenous sort of relations department of the Brazilian government.  So, yeah, we've been organizing with communities and trying to show a united front against all of these kind of threats. And yeah, you know, I encourage folks to come to our website and learn a little bit more about the work that we do with Indigenous leaders on the ground in the Amazon. Well, incredible work that you all are doing at Amazon watch. Thank you so much, Pendo. I'm going to hand it over to Carly who will be closing us out. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Pendo. And thank you everyone for all of your really insightful questions learned a lot during this webinar.  Obviously, the same companies that are profiting from climate change are also profiting a lot of the time from producing weapons of war. And so here at Code Pink, we also know that if we're going to take on the war machine in all of its forms, we have to start by organizing in our local communities. So quickly, I just wanted to share my screen with folks. And just to go over some of the things that we're doing at Code Pink that really intersect with the work that you're doing, Pendo. Let me just present. So I wanted to share this image because I think it really shows very clearly how the work that you're doing intersects with our work. The image says save the brain force, burn fascism, right? So if we're really going to take on companies that are killing the Amazon, we also have to understand the role that weapons manufacturers play in perpetuating US imperialism worldwide. So, and then of course on the right, you can see the sign this is war is not green and really shows that the US military and in particular the Pentagon is one of the world leading emitters of carbon single largest emitters of carbon. So these connections are really clear between the war machine and making climate change worse. So people can learn more about that connection by going to code pink dot org slash wing, which is our war is not green campaign. Right, so but if, again, if we're really going to take on the war machine, we have to organize my local communities. So I wanted to give people some really quick next steps about how you can actually do that. You know, our divest from the war machine campaign that we run at code pink really focuses on removing our all of our invested assets from companies that derive their profits from US military military and interventions around the world, as well as the global arms trade. So we do this work at the state city and university level. We also work to demand that our politicians stop taking campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers, and then vote to go to war. So as far as next steps go, I would really encourage everyone on this call to make sure that we sign on to our petition demanding that black rock CEO, Larry think who can go mentioned divest from the war machine right black rock is also one of the world's largest investors in weapons manufacturers worldwide. And then, second, I would really encourage everyone here to sign up to join or start a divest campaign in your local community. So we'll send this link around to everyone. But if you sign up there. And you tell us, you know, if you want to work on divesting your city council or divesting your university endowment, or talking to your local politician about stopping to take stopping taking campaign contributions weapons manufacturers code pink organize a way in contact with you, and we can start to build this movement against black rock and weapons manufacturers more broadly. Great. Well, great. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you, Kendall for taking time out of your. Well, it's it's a morning here in in California afternoon on the East Coast. And I just would like to let everyone know that we have five divest from the war machine webinars coming up. So definitely keep your eye out for that. But I think we are done for the day. Thank you so much, Pendo for for sharing your information about black rock and the campaign work that you were doing there at Amazon. Have a great one and stay safe. Thank you so much for having me.


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Our stronger dollar has increased purchasing power. Real wages are up, and inflation is down to 2.6 percent. Sometimes when we shop, we don't realize how much inflation has dropped because prices are still going up, but they're going up much more slowly than before. If food prices had kept rising as fast the last two years, as the two years before we took office, a loaf of bread would cost seven cents more than it does today. A half gallon of milk, 18 cents more, a pound of hamburger, 60 cents more, and a gallon of gas, 97 cents more. The prime interest rate has been cut nearly in half, so costs of business, mortgage, education, and car loans have dropped. The federal income tax on a typical working family is $700 less than if our tax program had not been passed. With parents, students, entrepreneurs, workers, and consumers feeling more secure, opportunities for jobs are expanding. Another workforce in September rose by nearly 400,000 to 101.9 million, the highest level in American history, and the trend will continue. Quality of life is not just more jobs, it's also better jobs, and we're seeing better opportunities opening up for all Americans. Women, for example, filled more than half of all the new jobs in managerial, professional, and technical fields between 1980 and 1982. The number of women-owned businesses is growing five times faster than men's. The future looks brighter. To get a peek at what tomorrow's jobs and products may be, look at the venture capital industry. This is where high-powered capital is invested, and much of the technological revolution is taking place. During the first nine months of 1983, the venture industry raised about two and a half billion dollars, nearly three times more than in all of 1980. The general accounting office has already estimated that previous venture investments of some 209 million is the sample of 72 companies directly generated 130,000 jobs during the decade of the 70s. Well, if 209 million of venture capital generated 130,000 jobs in 10 years, imagine how many jobs two and a half billion will create during the next year. And like interest that compounds growth and opportunities create more growth and more opportunities. Capital spending by business, a key source of higher productivity in new jobs, helped propel the economy forward in the third quarter. Much of the increase in spending went for products of high technology like computers and word processors. We're witnessing an industrial renaissance, and this is only act one. It's being nourished by incentives from lower tax rates, starting with the 1978 capital gains tax reduction, passed incidentally over the objections of the last administration, and followed by our own more sweeping tax cut program in 1981. Our program to create opportunity and bring big government under control, the subsequent decline in inflation and interest rates, and prospects for robust growth have all led to another basic change. America's confidence in their institutions is turning up. After nearly two decades of decline, a 1982 survey by the University of Michigan found people more likely to say they trusted the government to do what is right. Looking beyond the economy, we see more evidence that the quality of life is improving. Life expectancy reached a record high last year, climbing to 74.5 years. Infant mortality declined to an all-time low, with only 11.2 deaths per 1,000 live births, and the number of divorces dropped for the first time since 1962. This crime dropped 3%, the first measurable decline since 1977. Quality education, an American tradition but one neglected for years, will be restored thanks to leadership in Washington and vigorous action by your families at the grassroots. Good things are happening in America. Confidence is returning. Our quality of life is improving because your voices, voices of common sense are finally getting through. Believe me, it wasn't Washington experts who said government is too big, taxes are too high, criminals are coddled, education's basics are neglected, and values of family and faith are being undermined. That was your message. You made reforms possible. With your help, we'll make even more progress because I'll be the first to admit much more progress needs to be made. We're on a new road for America, a far better road filled with hope and opportunities. Our critics may never be satisfied with anything we do, but I can only say those who created the worst economic mess in post-war history should be the last people crying wolf 1,000 days into this administration when so many trends that were headed the wrong way are headed back in the right direction. Thanks for listening and God bless you.


Welcome to session four, Diaspora as Diversity. SDG is the global contract for diversity and tolerance. This is the key to the development of the Diaspora in Southeast Asian countries, especially in the development aspect. This is the importance of diversity and tolerance in the local, global, and regional areas. First of all, we learned from the Diaspora, that is, Moxigar Diaspora, he is a very important founder of diversity and tolerance. He has been in this field for more than 30 years, in charge of strategic policy, using high-tech methods. So he has a very high technology and capability. There are several public and private departments, including Diaspora, and so on, and he will have a 10-minute speech. Hello, everyone. I am very happy to be here to talk about the development of the Diaspora. I will show you the presentation of the PPT, but I will use Spanish to speak, because there is communication. Diaspora, thank you all for welcoming us, to present what we have been doing. I am very happy to be part of this global meeting. I will introduce Moxigar Diaspora. The Diaspora is a service for overseas residents of Moxigar Diaspora. Please take a look at the next one. We have 1,200 million Moxigar Diaspora from all over the world. Most of them are located in several regions. 97% of them are from the United States. In the United States, 600 million people are not recorded. We know that there are 3,800 million people. Moxigar Diaspora is located in the United States. We have made policies to help them, to help these residents. We have also shared our dreams with other countries to achieve our own dreams. We have other residents from other regions who have come to the United States. They have made a huge deal. They are saying Moxigar Diaspora. They have no sense of existence in the U.S., So we, the Moscow government, are doing a lot of hard work to improve their status. We have a lot of people in different faiths. There are a lot of people who are in favor of immigration to the US. This is because they all have skills. They are all talents in other countries' jobs. We would like to briefly talk about the network of our Moscow government. We have three main areas in the US. We have three big areas to protect them. We have a lot of people on the left, a lot of people on the right. We have a lot of people who work in the community. We have a lot of people on the network, including leaders, society, and civil society. These are all members of the network. In 2022, we put the focus on the attention of the community in Moscow. There are three areas. The first is international strategy. We want to establish a global representative network to improve their skills. The second is to fully show or represent these foreign immigrants. The third is to give them power. We want to let our community give them power. We started a series of planning projects to show their interests and interests. The IME is an international group. What are they doing? We created them in 2003. We have four main functions. First is to introduce them to the people of Moscow. Second is to encourage them to establish a conversation. Third is to establish an agreement with the local government. The fourth is to choose some issues to put them into foreign integration. We have so many fields in Moscow. We have so many fields, education, health, finance, and local people. How do we work as a volunteer center? We have the central government's support. For example, in the left is the medical department. The medical department provides $4000 million in funds. They are able to distribute them to every medical department. They have the opportunity to provide different services to these immigrants. We hope to provide these medical services to these immigrants. What activities do you have in the medical department? We have 50 such resources. We can say that the US network of Moscow is the biggest network. We are a bridge network. We support the medical department, as well as the mental and emotional support. For example, during COVID-19, we have a lot of medical institutions to provide mental and psychological support. We have also made some policy strategies to treat mental health and some universities in Moscow. We can expand our medical services, including mental health, so that our immigrants can enjoy these services better. We have mental health services in the university to improve the mental health condition of the immigrants. We also provide these services to women, people in Moscow, and students. We also provide these services to these immigrants during the epidemic period. We have also established a very important project in education. We provide funding to these young people. We also have some websites in the US. They can make better use of these services. We have established a very high-end education system to support students abroad. We also provide financial security We have provided some of them, including banking, social security. You can see a lot of them on this list. We are currently providing services for the women and children overseas in Mexico. This is the second version. At first, there was one in Europe in America. Next, we are going to look at the public participation strategy. We are currently working on the identity strategy. We want them to be able to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also have a project called the leadership project between the two countries. We want them to join the local language and help them learn local language. Another strategy is to establish contacts with overseas communities. We want them to be able to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We have a total of 6,000 members. We want them to be able to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We have a lot of online activities in terms of cultural participation and other activities. A recognition from the government of Mexico to the migrants who have highlighted the rights of our Mexicans. At the same time, we also provide opportunities for them to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also have a lot of activities in terms of culture. We also want them to be able to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also want them to be able to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also want them to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also want them to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also want them to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. We also want them to participate in the election campaign in Southeast Asia. During the election campaign, we want them to provide health services. Thank you for your introduction to Mexico. Next is Gorak's daughter. According to her experience in Turkey, her name is Turkish Wing. She is in the next generation of Turkish women. Okay, now you have 12 minutes to introduce yourself. Thank you. Now let's have a chat. My name is Qiaomin. At the same time, please remember when I was listening to my speech, I am still a Turkish citizen. I have been doing some social activities. Now I would like to introduce my family member. She was born in the United States. She left Turkey because she wanted to divorce her husband. At that time, Turkish women were not allowed to divorce Turkish women. She came to the United States as a local musician. She asked him to get married. At that time, she did not know that she had already got married. She asked Mexico to take care of her husband. She also refused to ask him to get married. She still works in the United States at the age of 87. After that, she became a businessman. At the same time, she divorced when she was 44. My family member is now in the United States. Now she is in the third generation. My family member is now in the United States. I am now in the United States. I am now in the U.S. University. I went to New York City. I started my career in New York City. At the same time, I got a doctor's degree. That is to tell my family members. As long as you work hard, you can succeed. In the United States, I have a network. The network of the United States of Turkey. The network of financial and social aspects. At the same time, I let everyone communicate and share information. At that time, I did not feel that I was 100% of Turkey or 100% of Americans. In 2010, I joined a Turkey network in New York City. My family members are almost the same as my background. I am a professional businessman. That is one of the purposes of our communication. It is to communicate with the country. Some information, some information from Turkey. Through this platform, we help each other to spread the tradition. Help the next generation of Turkey grow. In our network, a digital platform. We help each other to share the good and the bad this year. To develop other members. The group is good together. But how to expand our work? One of our activities is to create resources. We have to mobilize some natural resources to promote economic growth. At the same time, we have to put our work at some important points. For example, women's issues. Women's issues in Turkey are 30% of the labor force. This is equivalent to the average level of the United Nations. The second point is the new job. The new profession has appeared. Let the members share their talents. We want to provide choices for the members. How to do this? First, learn from each other. Find a job opportunity. This is a social network. There are experts from different communities. This is four key points in our work. First, learn from each other. This allows them to gain the ability to work together. This is the so-called social system. Learn from each other in English. 2014. We encourage more people, especially women, to participate in the work. In 2015, we established a platform for men and women to open up. Since the beginning, we have been dealing with social capital this year. We have been working with the youth. We have more than 3,000 members. There are different topics to discuss on a digital platform. The youth group is about 35 to 40 years old. We often discuss the situation in Asia, the United States and Europe. We have been working with the youth in this area. In 2011, we established a platform called NIA. There are some partners in Turkey. We collected $151 million in dollars. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We have a partner in Asia, Europe and the United States. After that, Turkey and the United States have a meeting. There are 120 companies participating in the work. Through this platform, we encourage young Turkish women to provide fitness activities and facilities. On the screen, we see different partners. We didn't get any public funds. We all have a common understanding and a common passion to interact on the platform. We established a digital platform. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. We are working with the youth in Turkey. I will join your platform. Next is Abdulla Yeva. She is a lawyer. She is a social activist in Turkey. She has launched a lot of social activities in Central Asia. You have 10 minutes. I have to switch the translation. I heard English and French at the same time. In my introduction, the key point is the legal framework. Through this framework, you can do your job. I heard English and French at the same time. In addition, you can do your job. You can do your job. 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And when I walked down those steps, I flipped and fell.  Dr. A started to prescribe me 120 hydrocodone. I started taking them. And then he said, OK, so you're going to see me in a month. The addiction, the love for these pills happened so fast because within three weeks, before I went back to see the other doctor that he was referring me to for the therapy, he was writing the same script for me. And I was trying to figure out a way to keep both scripts. So at this point, I didn't know what I was doing. I was taking 35 pills a day, which was six at a time all day. Like if I didn't have them for a certain amount of hours, I would start feeling withdrawal. I know so many people that raise kids that are in the church and they think, OK, my kid has a 4.0 GPA. My kid has scholarships. But at the end of the day, I was one of those children that was raised up in a great home. And the audiologist said, you're going through some type of hearing loss. Are you taking any drugs? And I was saying to this guy, no, I'm not taking any drugs. I'm fine. One of my primary physicians said to me, he said, Ms. Ellis, I can't prescribe him anymore. I can't prescribe you anymore, Lord said. That's why you went deaf. He was writing down notes because I couldn't hear. I just realized that I was at the end of the road because my name was being flagged so many times in all these different pharmacies. And I never took a painkiller since then at that moment. But that was August the 8th, 2010. I had my son, Houston, at 24 weeks guest station on the back of an ambulance. I was fully deaf. I got the first implant surgery on the right side when he was two years old. And I had never heard his voice. We have to tell our stories because there are so many pathways to recovery. And people need hope and whole towns are dying. And people need to see people like me that are striving and thriving and you can overcome it.