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Thai Temple

Monkey in the Penang Botanical Garden

Little Monkey in the Botanical Garten (before his grandfather started to show me his teeth...)

In a Chinese Temple

Just Married!

Hi Friends,
as you can see, we got to see a bit of Penang- the city the conference is taking place in. On Sunday we moved from Pulau Jerejak to Penang for the Bi-Annual General Meeting of Friends of the Earth International. After checking-in to the new hotel, six of us went on a tour with a taxi-driver who showed us the highlights of the city. From various Thai temples we went to the botanical garden (where some monkeys showed me their teeth), Chinese temples and "Little India".
Yesterday, regional meetings took place. Luka and I joined the FoE Europe meeting and discussions around the "STAP" and "MDS" and other papers and positions. After intensive meetings, we had a nice indian dinner close to the hotel.
At the moment, I am in a conference room, together with 47 representatives from member groups from all of over the world, where the BGM just started with several welcome adresses, the adoption of the agenda, election of ombutspeople, the approval of the agenda of the last BGM ( which took place in 2008 in Honduras) and the approval of reports (of the Executive Committee, the Chair, the International Secretariat etc.) is going on right now.

I just want to end this post with Friends of the Earth International's vision of the world:

"Our vision is of a peaceful and sustainable based on societies living in harmony with nature. We envision a society of interdependent people living in dignity, wholeness and fulfillment where equity and human and peoples' rights are realized.

This will be a society built upon peoples' sovereignty and participation. It will be founded on social, economic, gender and environmental justice and free from all forms of domination and exploitation such as neo-liberalism, corporate globalization, neo-colonialism and militarism."

Love,
Fluxy