Today RAN is launching the next phase in our Global Finance Campaign, targeting NY-based JPMorgan Chase with ads, action, and a new website at www.dirtymoney.org.

JPMorgan Chase has even got a Friendster profile!
Check it out on Friendster
FIRST NAME: JPMorgan Chase LAST NAME: Villain

We'll be posting news, campaign events, and other goodies there over the course of the campaign.

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JPMorgan Chase is one of the biggest and baddest banks in the world.

# JPMorgan Chase runs the Trade Bank of Iraq, essentially privatizing the Iraqi economy behind closed doors and greasing the wheels for friends at Bechtel, ExxonMobil, and Halliburton to make a killing off of no-bid reconstruction contracts.

# Lee Raymond, CEO of ExxonMobil, sits of the board of JPMorgan Chase.

# JPMorgan Chase has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to two of the most destructive gold mining companies in the world, Newmont Gold and Freeport McMoRan, which have been accused of poisoining local communities and hiring paramilitary death squads to torture and in some
cases kill local opponents to their mines.

# JPMorgan Chase finances Burlington Resources, a corrupt oil company hell-bent on drilling for oil on indigenous territory in Ecuador, against
the will of the Shuar people who live on the land and say NO to oil exploration.

The list goes on and on. For more details and to take action, visit www.dirtymoney.org today!

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The JPMorgan Chase campaign comes after a year filled with major changes from two of Chase's biggest competitors, Citigroup and Bank of America. While these companies are nowhere near perfect, they are at least taking big steps towards changing the way they do business, dealing for the first time with human rights and indigenous issues, global climate change, and
protection for fragile ecosystems and forests around the world.

JPMorgan Chase, on the other hand, has refused to make any changes, and missed its own deadline of October to produce a public environmental policy.

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If you're interested in the campaign or in learning more about how to get involved, contact Dan at dan[at]ran.org or call us at 800-989-RAIN

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Read more below from our press release:

Global Finance Campaign Targets JP Morgan Chase

New ads call on JP Morgan Chase to stop making 'investments of mass destruction.'

DirtyMoney.org profiles JP Morgan Chase 'IMD of the Month' case studies.

JP Morgan Chase misses October deadline and postpones environmental policy until 2005.

For Immediate Release: November 16, 2004

San Francisco - Rainforest Action Network today announced an advertising campaign and web site targeting JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), the largest
U.S.-based bank still operating without a comprehensive environmental policy. The outdoor ads, which were introduced in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. over the weekend, are a first response to JP Morgan Chase backtracking on its commitment to provide a policy to the environmental community by early October.

In an April 21, 2004 letter to Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network, William B. Harrison, Jr., chairman and chief
executive officer of JP Morgan Chase, committed "to build a broad policy framework by the beginning of October, which will include targets and timelines on initiatives." An 11th hour letter dated September 30, 2004 from David A. Coulter, vice chairman of JP Morgan Chase, disappointed the
environmental community by postponing the release its planned policy until April 2005 at the earliest.

Beneath a bold red headline reading "Stop IMDs," the new ad depicts a larger-than-life version of Chase's logo framing the seldom-seen environmental devastation caused by destructive investments. The ad calls on customers to "go to DirtyMoney.org and tell CEO Bill Harrison to stop profiting from environmental destruction." DirtyMoney.org profiles case studies linking JP Morgan Chase directly with investments of mass destruction around the world. The web site will continue to profile a JP Morgan Chase "IMD of the Month" until the company fulfills on its commitment to meet or beat new industry best practices on the environment set by Bank of America and Citigroup earlier this year.

"JP Morgan Chase is making a killing off of radical resource extraction from the most ecologically fragile ecosystems on Earth," said Ilyse Hogue, director of the Global Finance Campaign at Rainforest Action Network. "JP
Morgan Chase built its financial empire on oil exploitation and continues to profit from investments that are causing global warming. It defies explanation that JP Morgan Chase hasn't embraced the most fundamental reforms like joining the United Nations Environmental Programme Finance
Initiative or signing on to the Equator Principles. We must ask what is JP Morgan Chase waiting for? The Pentagon considers climate change a greater national security threat than terrorism, and this month's Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an unprecedented four-year study by over 300 scientists, provides clear evidence confirming that the Arctic ice sheet, Earth's early
warning system for global warming, is melting. It's time for America's second-largest bank to cut to the chase and stop making investments of mass
destruction."

Rainforest Action Network campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through grassroots organizing, education and non-violent direct action.

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