Press Releases

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- May 10, 2018 Media Contact:Anuradha Mittal [email protected] +1 510-469-5228 Mercy Albaran [email protected] +1-510-816-0486 In the past year, tens of thousands of Maasai have been left homeless and have faced starvation as their homes were burned and livestock displaced under government orders to preserve ecosystems and attract more tourists.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- April 17, 2018 Media Contact: Frédéric Mousseau, [email protected], +1 510-512-5458 Oakland, CA — As government officials from around the globe descend on Washington D.C. this week for the World Bank’s spring meetings, a new brief by the Oakland Institute urges member states to deliver the final blow to the Bank’s ranking programs — the Doing Business Report (DBR) and Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA). The DBR and EBA face a growing crisis of legitimacy and confidence.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- April 3, 2018 Media Contacts: Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute [email protected] +1 510-469-5228 (PST) Nyikaw Ochalla, Anywaa Survival Organisation [email protected] +44(0)7405972145 (GMT) Oakland, CA — Today, charges against Pastor Omot Agwa, an indigenous land rights defender from the Gambella region of Ethiopia, were finally dropped by an Ethiopian court. In March 2015, Pastor Omot was arrested in Addis Ababa while attempting to travel to Kenya to attend a food security conference.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contacts: Anuradha Mittal, [email protected] Oakland, CA — On February 14, 2018, Mr. Okello Akway Ochalla, an indigenous Anuak leader, Norwegian citizen, and the former Governor of the Gambella region of Ethiopia, was released after being held as a prisoner on trumped up charges in an Ethiopian jail for nearly four years. In March 2014, while visiting relatives in South Sudan, Mr.

Media Contact: Anuradha Mittal [email protected] +1 510-469-5228 OAKLAND, CA — The revelations that led to this week’s resignation of World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer point to flawed methodology and political manipulation in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. Romer admitted that the Doing Business rankings may have been manipulated to make Chile’s economic environment look worse under the sitting socialist president Michelle Bachelet. These revelations add to a long list of concerns that have been raised by civil society in recent years.

Media Contact: Anuradha Mittal [email protected] +1 510-469-5228 Oakland, CA — Until yesterday, the Ethiopian government refused to even acknowledge the presence of scores of political prisoners in the country. Then on January 3, 2018, the government announced that it would release all of its political prisoners and close the notorious Maekelawi police station. The surprise announcement came after years of political suppression that saw the deaths of over 1,000 people and the arrest of over 26,000 in 2016-2017 alone, as well as the imposition of a 10-month state of emergency.

Press kontakt: Frédéric Mousseau [email protected] +1 510-512-5458 Oakland, Kalifornien — I anknytning till klimatmötet One Planet Summit i Paris, släpper Oakland Institute en rapport om kolkolonialism (Carbon Colonialism: Failure of Green Resources’ Carbon Offset Project in Uganda) som avslöjar västerländska företags falska klimatlösningar. Rapporten exponerar det norska skogsindustribolaget Green Resources fortsatta urholkning av livsmedelsförsörjningen och livsuppehället i Kachung, Uganda, där människor hindras från att använda sin egen mark.

Media Contact: Frédéric Mousseau [email protected] Oakland, CA — As the One Climate Summit begins in Paris, the Oakland Institute's new report, Carbon Colonialism: Failure of Green Resources’ Carbon Offset Project in Uganda, lays bare the false solutions to climate change promoted by Western corporations and institutions in Africa. This scathing exposé reveals how Green Resources, a Norwegian industrial forestry and carbon offset project, continues to undermine food security and livelihoods by excluding people from their own land in Kachung, Uganda.

Biofuels Are Not the Solution to Airlines Growing CO2 Emissions Oakland, CA — On October 13, 25 countries convened by the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rejected the 2050 Vision on Sustainable Aviation Fuels that included volume-based targets for biofuels proposed by the ICAO Secretariat. The ICAO Secretariat’s proposal intended to see 128 million tons of biofuels a year being burned in plane engines by 2040, going up to 285 million tons (half of all aviation fuel) by 2050.

Media Contact: Anuradha Mittal +1-510-469-5228, [email protected] New research documents Palestinian resistance & resilience 70 years after the Nakba & 100 years after the Balfour Declaration. Oakland, CA — Today, the Oakland Institute releases Palestine: For Land and Life, an extensive project comprised of nine reports and multimedia materials.