One of the practical initiatives that came out of the 1998 Taking Control: The Fightback Against Transnational Corporate Power Conference was the creation of the Taking Control list server (electronic discussion group). It serves as a useful (and private) electronic network for circulating and discussing material relevant to the fightback against transnational corporate power. For instance, CAFCA regularly sends out press releases and other material through Taking Control.

Membership is free but conditions apply.

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Thanks to the generous help of Converge which provides free web facilities to worthy organisations, Foreign Control Watchdog has its own web site. Overseas Investment Commission decisions will not go here because they are already available on CAFCA’s web site at:

Our sister organisation, Anti-Bases Campaign, has also established its own Website, once again thanks to the good people at Converge. Melanie Thomson did the hard yards setting it up, before heading off for her Big OE, in London; Joe Davies has put in an enormous amount of work finishing it.

It’s a much more visual site than either the CAFCA or Watchdog ones, with splendid colour photos of the Waihopai spybase domes. It includes pages on Waihopai, plus the other bases at Harewood and Tangimoana; a history of the ABC; the latest issue of Peace Researcher; an upcoming events page (such as the October 2001 NZ speaking tour by Canadian ex-spy, Mike Frost); ABC submissions on various spy agency Bills; and an excellent selection of links to the Websites of kindred organisations and publications in Australia, Britain and the US. Check it out.The address is:

www.converge.org.nz/abc/abc.html

This is the issue of Watchdog that asks all due members to pay your annual membership. Plus we also ask you for donations (CAFCA only does this once a year). Our regular income has been noticeably down over the past year or so, so donations are more crucial than ever. We have a variety of theories about why the income is down (ranging from the one that we never do well financially under Labour governments, to that most of our correspondence now arrives by e-mail, which eliminates the regular flow of donations tossed in with letters). More and more people are reading Watchdog on line and accessing the CAFCA Website for information (both would have been done by snail mail, in the past) and as the whizzkids of the cyberworld have painfully found out, nobody makes any money from the Internet. But it still costs us plenty to function in the real world.

There’s no crisis. We don’t owe anyone any money, nor are we in any imminent danger of closing down. But if we had more, we could do more, and make a better job of what we do already, on very slender resources. We know times are tough for you – that’s a given. All we can say is, if you value the work that we do, please donate generously.

One simple way for members and supporters to donate to CAFCA is to remember us in your will. That way you can probably guarantee that you’ll get one of Watchdog’s famous obituaries.

The nomination form for the Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation operating in New Zealand in 2001 can be accessed at: http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/Roger/index.html

Nominations close on October 31^st. The 2000 winner was announced at a wonderful event in Wellington, back in April. A crowd of nearly 150 was entertained by the Brass Razoo Solidarity Band, Strumpet, and Choir Choir Pants On Fire (their rendition of that wonderful 1970s feminist anthem "Hey you fuckers, get off our backs" proving a crowd favourite). Leading unionist, Michael Gilchrist, revealed an unexpected talent as a stand up comedian, and many thanks are due to Jim Delahunty, of CORPWATCH, for both MCing the evening (in a splendid bow tie) and for organising the event. Prue Hyman, from Womens Studies at Victoria University, spoke on behalf of the judges (Tranz Rail was the winner – again). Murray Horton flew up from Christchurch and spoke, on behalf of the organisers.The next morning a small group went to Wellington Railway Station, with the phantasmagorical Award, to present Tranz Rail management with their winner’s certificate. But, guess what? Head office had moved to Auckland.