Speakers who are currently on tour addressing a variety of topics include:

Better Neighbors: A New Way Forward for North America Trade and Immigration Tour

Ann Wright	Dahlia Wasfi, MD
Iraq War Veterans	Omoyele Sowore
Hector Sanchez	Nina Rizzo
Manuel Pérez Rocha	Miguel Pickard
Carleen Pickard	Sanaz Meshkinpour
Jason Mark	Earl Kingik
Acknowledging the Past, Imagining the Future	Mary Anne Hitt
Shannon Biggs	Medea Benjamin
Anna Baltzer	Aimee Allison
Carmencita Chie Abad

Wright, Ann

Mary Ann Wright has been a career military woman, a State Department diplomat, and for the past few years, an influential spokesperson in the anti-war movement. She remained in the Army for 13 years in active duty, with another 16 years in the Army reserves, retiring as a Colonel. On March 13, 2003, the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, Col.. Ann Wright sent a letter of resignation to then Secretary of State Colin Powell believing that without the authorization of the UN Security Council it would be a disaster. Since resigning, patriotism for Ann Wright has been as an anti-war activist. She helped organize Camp Casey, she has been arrested five times in the past year for protesting Bush’s policies, and has referred to herself cheerfully as a “felon for peace”. This retired Army Colonel has also recently been temporarily banned not only from two military bases for placing postcards there about a showing of the documentary “Sir, No Sir”, but from the US Capitol area and the National Press Club, for voicing opinions and questions concerning Bush’s policies and the Iraq war. Her upcoming book coauthored with Susan Dixon, "Dissent: Voices of Conscience", highlights the stories of those in the Bush administration and other governments who have had the courage to speak out. It will be published in November, 2007 by Koa Books.

• Anti-War in Iraq

Wasfi, MD, Dahlia

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi was born in 1971 and spent her early childhood in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, until she returned with her family to the United States in 1977. Dr. Wasfi graduated from Swarthmore College in 1993 with a B.A. in Biology, and in 1997 graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In February/March of 2004, after years of separation, Wasfi visited Iraq to see her family in Basrah and Baghdad. She journeyed to Iraq again for a 3-month visit in 2006. Based on her experiences, she is speaking out against the negative impact of the U.S. invasion on the Iraqi people and the need to end the occupation.

• The Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq & Need for Withdrawal of U.S. Troops
• The Sanctions' Impacts on Iraq's Medical System
• The Human Toll of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
• Depleted Uranium: Iraqi & U.S. Victims
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Iraqi & U.S. Victims
• Blind Patriotism: A Thin Veil for Racism
• Status of Healthcare in Iraq Today

Veterans, Iraq War

Iraq Veterans have first-hand knowledge of the occupation of Iraq. Their voices are unique, poignant and bridge divides across the political spectrum. The actions the Iraq Veterans are taking to end the occupation are inspiring and the leadership, strength and courage they offer to the peace movement invaluable. Youth throughout the country, especially low-income youth and youth of color, are being targeted by recruiters and they deserve to hear the truth from Iraq Veterans before they make a decision about joining the military.

• The Occupation of Iraq: A Veterans Perspective
• Lies My Recruiters Told Me Before I Joined
• Counter-Recruitment

Sowore, Omoyele

Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian who has spent the last 15 years working to promote human rights and democracy in Nigeria, and to stop the militarization and violence that multinational oil companies have brought to his country. In 1989, he took part in student demonstrations protesting the conditions of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan of $120 million to be used for a Nigerian oil pipeline – the IMF loan conditions were to reduce the number of universities in the country from 28 to just 5. In 1992 at University of Lagos, Sowore led 2,000 students in protest against Nigeria’s notorious kleptocracy. Police opened fire, killing seven. Sowore was arrested, interrogated and beaten, but he refused to back down in his struggle for decent education in his country. He’s been imprisoned eight times and tortured, but he remains committed. “We've had supposed democracy for six and a half years and people still can't eat,’ he says. ‘Who has benefited? There's no basic health care. We don't have running water. We don't have electricity, no basic education…Shell and Chevron are among the biggest corporations in the world and they have benefited only a few people, the clique that runs the country. The Niger Delta area is polluted, occupied and heavily militarized. People get killed on behalf of the major oil companies everyday, that cannot be right.”

• Oil Exploration, Human Rights & Global Governance
• Youth empowerment & Student Activism
• A Call for Peace: The Non-Violent Struggle for Human Rights and Justice in Nigeria
• Oil & Human Rights in Nigeria: A Voice from the Frontlines

Sanchez, Hector

Currently on tour with Carleen Pickard and Manuel Perez Rocha, Hector Sánchez is the Policy Education Coordinator for Global Exchange's Mexico Program. He represents the program in Washington, D.C., where he coordinates efforts to inform and organize legislators and key organizations in support of new priorities on trade and immigration. Hector has over 10 years of policy, research and community organizing experience in the education, government, and non-profit sectors. During the five years prior to joining Global Exchange in the summer of 2007, Hector worked at Education Trust where he developed and led an initiative to improve public education for this country's immigrant and Latino community.

• The Push and Pull of Free Trade and Immigration
• Effective Lobbying Around Trade

Rizzo, Nina

Nina Rizzo is the California Freedom from Oil Campus Organizer at Global Exchange. She studied Geography as well as Conservation and Resource Studies at UC Berkeley. She organized for the recent sweatfree and climate campaigns for the University of California; uses these experiences to work with students and other organizations to get climate and sustainable transportation policies and programs in order to address the climate crisis.

• Global Warming and Sustainable Transportation
• Student Activism/Campus Organizing
• Oil and Human Rights

Pérez Rocha, Manuel

Manuel Pérez Rocha is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. where he directs an advocacy and research project on "the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the NAFTA Plus Agenda." Manuel works in coordination with the Alliance for Responsible Trade in the United States and is a member of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC). He has worked for more than a decade with Mexican and international civil society organizations and networks including the Hemispheric Social Alliance and Oxfam International doing advocacy work for fair economic relations among countries, particularly for trade with justice.

• Impacts of NAFTA on Mexico
• The Push and Pull of Free Trade and Immigration
• Security and Prosperity Partnership

Pickard, Miguel

Currently on tour with Carleen Pickard, Hector Sanchez, and Manuel Pérez Rocha, Miguel Pickard is the co-founder of the Center for Economic and Political Investigation for Community Action (CIEPAC) in San Cristóbal, Chiapas, México. At CIEPAC, Miguel is involved in a number of research topics that are of particular concern to the grassroots groups in Chiapas (free-trade agreements, the SPPNA, the mining companies, resource use and preservations by the indigenous peoples), and in preparing educational materials based on these topics.

• Impacts of NAFTA on Mexico
• The Push and Pull of Free Trade and Immigration
• Security and Prosperity Partnership

Pickard, Carleen

Currently on tour with Manuel Perez Rocha and Hector Sanchez,Carleen Pickard works with the Council of Canadians and is based in Vancouver, BC. The Council of Canadians is Canada's largest citizens' organization, with members and chapters across the country. Carleen works with communities to protect Canadian independence by promoting progressive policies on fair trade, clean water, safe food, public health care, and other issues of social and economic concern to Canadians. The bulk of the Council's work is currently focused on stopping the 'deep intergration' project of Canadian and US corporations who are lobbying the federal government to move beyond NAFTA toward deeper integration with the U.S.

• The Impact of Free Trade On Canada
• Trade Agreements
• Water Security

Meshkinpour, Sanaz

Sanaz Meshkinpour speaks out against military intervention and sanctions in Iran. She is a Iranian American activist of Jewish and Muslim parents, working in San Francisco as Global Exchange’s Middle East Program Coordinator. Sanaz has family in Iran, Israel and the US - she regularly visits friends and family in Iran. In her dynamic presentation, Sanaz weaves her critical analysis of the situation, with personal stories of her family and their travels.

• Preventing a US Invasion of Iran
• No Sanctions! No War!

Mark, Jason

Jason Mark is the coauthor (with Kevin Danaher and Shannon Biggs) of the new book Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grassroots (PoliPointPress). His new book charts the efforts of local communities to create a more ecologically sustainable and socially responsible economy. The book tells the stories of people who have successfully grown urban farms; built wind power projects; fought toxic polluters; created networks of locally owned enterprises; established worker coops; and founded businesses that place people and the planet before short-term profit. The book is an inspiring "greenprint" for how, together, we can realize a more safe and humane society. Mark is the co-manager of Alemany Farm (www.alemanyfarm.org), a 4.5-acre farm in the middle of San Francisco. Alemany Farm uses organic fruit and vegetable cultivation to give "at-risk" youth meaningful job training and to educate the public about our reliance on natural systems. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the human rights group Global Exchange. Mark holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from Georgetown University.

• Connecting the Peace and Environmental Movements in Order to Break Our Addiction to Oil
• Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power
• No Blood or Oil: Breaking America’s Petroleum Addiction
• Corporations and “Free Trade”: The REAL Agenda Behind the WTO and FTAA
• Connecting the Global Peace and Global Justice Movements
• International Observation of the US Elections
• Organic Agriculture

Kingik, Earl

Earl Kingik is a member of the Native Village of Point Hope, Alaska. Earl is an Inupiat subsistence hunter and whaler, and has extensive historical contributions promoting Inupiat subsistence rights as a former board member of the Beluga Whaling Commission, Western Arctic Caribou Herd board member, Pt. Hope city council member, field archeologist and Wildlife and Parks Director. Earl is concerned with climate change, offshore and onshore oil development, and their effects on Indigenous land and subsistence rights.

• Climate Change
• Environmental Consequences of Oil Drilling
• Indigenous Peoples and the Environment
• Offshore oil and gas

Imagining the Future, Acknowledging the Past,

This speaking tour explores Israeli and Palestinian experiences of 1948, the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis and the role of the right of return in any just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Israel, Palestine and the Right of Return

Hitt, Mary Anne

Mary Anne Hitt is the executive director of Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit organization that brings people together to solve the environmental problems having the greatest impact on the central and southern Appalachian Mountains. The organization works with communities across Appalachia to tackle two major causes of climate change: mountaintop removal coal mining and the construction of new coal-fired power plants. She grew up in the mountains of east Tennessee, just outside Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

• Climate Change
• Mountain Top Removal and Coal-fired Fuel Plants in the Appalachian Mountains

Biggs, Shannon

Shannon Biggs is the Director of the Local Green Economy program at Global Exchange. She recently co-authored a book, Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots. Shannon holds a Masters in Economics/Politics of Empire and Post Colonialism from the London School of Economics, and a BS in International Relations from San Francisco State University. Her current work focuses on assisting communities confronted by corporate harms to enact binding laws that place the rights of communities and nature above the claimed legal “rights” of corporations.

• Busting the myth of “bigger is better”--the real economics of local and green
• Is “localization” the antidote to economic globalization, climate change and other ills?
• Organizing models for local citizen control and local legislation
• Fundraising 101: the basics in fundraising for social change

Benjamin, Medea

Medea Benjamin, Founding Director of the human rights group Global Exchange, has struggled for social justice and human rights in Asia, the Americas, and Africa for over 25 years. She helped shine the national spotlight on US sweatshops overseas, derail the plans of the World Trade Organization and promote “fair trade” over “free trade.” Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, Medea has been organizing against a violent response. She traveled several times to Afghanistan, including with a delegation of 9/11 families, to highlight civilian casualties caused by the US invasion. She is a leading activist in the peace movement and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice. In October 2002, Medea made national news for interrupting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as he pitched his plans for war against Iraq to Congress. After the invasion, Medea traveled several times to Iraq to organize the Occupation Watch International Center in Baghdad. Medea also co-founded Code Pink, a women's peace group that has been organizing creative actions against the occupation of Iraq. In 2005, Medea organized a delegation of US military families who lost loved ones in Iraq to the Iraqi/Jordanian border to bring a shipment of humanitarian aid for the people of Falluja. In 2005 Medea was nominated as one of 1,000 exceptional women from around the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She is also the author/editor of several books, including Stop the Next War Now.

• Ending the War in Iraq
• Stop the Next War Now
• CODEPINK: Women for Peace
• Building a Global Movement for Peace and Justice

Baltzer, Anna

Anna Baltzer is a 28-year-old Jewish American Columbia graduate, Fulbright scholar, and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. She is a three-time volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service, where she documented human rights abuses in the West Bank and supported the nonviolent movement against the Occupation. She has spent most of the past few years in Palestine or on tour with her book, Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.

• Palestine Occupation
• Israeli Activism
• Censorship
• 1948 Nakba
• Nonviolent Resistance

Allison, Aimee

Military recruiters have unprecedented access to our public school campuses and a $3.7 billion dollar budget to convince young people to sign up. So what can parents and concerned community members do to balance the equation, expose the myths that recruiters tell, and give young people more options for their future? Aimee Allison offers a number of effective strategies that communities have used to counter recruitment in her new book Army of None: Strategies to Counter Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World (Seven Stories Press, 2007). After serving four years as a combat medic in the Army Reserves, Aimee Allison earned an honorable discharge as a Conscientious Objector during the Persian Gulf War. Today, she writes and speaks about the experience and role of GI resistance in ending war, supports soldiers applying for CO discharges, and advocates for military women's issues with the Service Women's Action Network that she co-founded this year.

• Counter-recruitment
• Veteran perspective
• Woman's military perspective

Abad, Carmencita Chie

Carmencita "Chie" Abad speaks from personal experience about the hardships endured by millions of workers in sweatshops around the world. Chie spent six years as a garment worker on the Pacific island of Saipan, a U.S. territory. She endured wretched conditions, frequently working 14-hour shifts in order to meet arbitrary production quotas for her employer, the Sako Corporation, which made clothes for the Gap and other retailers. When she tried to organize a union, Chie was met by fierce resistance from management and eventually lost her job. She now lives in the U.S., where she educates Americans about the inhumane factory conditions occurring worldwide, including on U.S. soil. Chie was instrumental in forcing 26 major retailers to settle a lawsuit in September 2002 to improve conditions in Saipan. Her story is an inspiring example of how people can win if they stand up for their rights and the leadership she offers from her years as of organizing within the anti-sweatshop is empowering.

• Sweatshops and the Global Economy
• Sweatshop Labor in the Garment Industry
• Tour of Sweatshops in San Francisco's Mission District