The European Action Day is an initiative of the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ – a European network bringing together over 250 civil society organisations present in 15 European countries to take measures that will stop corporate abuses and provide access to justice for victims of these abuses. 'From mercury poisoning in South Africa to child labour in India, companies, including European ones, continue to get away with breaches of environmental and human rights standards,' states Ruth Casals, ECCJ’s coordinator.

World leaders have an historic opportunity to reform the global economy to ensure that the one in six people who live in extreme poverty benefit from economic recovery, international agency Oxfam said today ahead of the G20 summit in Seoul. Oxfam is calling on the G20 to forge a new Seoul Development Consensus to replace the failed Washington Consensus of the past. The new consensus should combine financial support for health, education and poor farmers in developing countries with action to make the global economy work in the interests of poor countries.

Alemayehu G. Mariam remembers the victims of the June and November 2005 massacres in Addis Ababa, where hundreds of people were killed by police for protesting the result of the general election. The author examines the use of police brutality by the government of Meles Zenawi to silence political opposition. He argues that the culture of impunity must stop and that it is imperative that the world continue to bear witness to the killings. ‘The Ethiopian massacre victims now belong to the whole of humanity,’ Mariam writes, remembering the men and women who died. ‘They must be remembered by all freedom-loving peoples throughout the world, not just Ethiopians.’