flightaid.org
In the UK Press, Thursday 27th January 2005: http://www.timesonline.co.uk
The principle is simple. All passengers on the world’s airlines are taxed $1 per flight. This would raise the sum of $3 billion dollars a year. The money raised would be used to fight poverty and disease in the developing world. Funds would also be used to promote long-term economic development in the poorest countries on the planet.
The difficulties are immense. President Jacques Chirac supports this idea but the rest of the world’s political leaders need to be persuaded that all of us, however we vote, support this tax. Each person who signs this petition will increase the chances of the world’s first humanitarian tax becoming a reality. Your support will give the world’s political leaders the confidence to act. This petition will also re-assure the Chief Executives of the world’s airlines that Flightaid has mass support from passengers across the globe.
44 Years on
‘For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty……….…
…….To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them to help themselves, for whatever period is required – not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.’
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Inaugural address
20.1.1961
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