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UPDATED 02/05: World Social Forum: Peace,
Health and Little Violence
While the 15,230 delegates representing 4,909 organisations from
131 countries debated alternatives for globalisation and urged an
end to wars as they gathered at the conferences and seminars of
the II WSF, a multitude of anonymous people worked behind the scenes.
Their task: to ensure peace at an event that officially drew 51,300
participants to Porto Alegre (though estimates put the number higher
due to the influx of people in the last days of the Forum).
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UPDATED 02/05: A Year Full of Work Before
Porto Alegre 2003
With tears and chants, the World Social Forum II ended today at
Porto Alegre’s Catholic University Campus.While thousands of participants
emotionally shared the feeling – repeated over and over again through
loud speakers – that this world has a chance to be different, if
people wish so, Carlos Haddad, of the WSF’s Brazilian Committee
reminded everybody of the tasks ahead before the next appointment,
Porto Alegre 2003.
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UPDATED 02/05: FSM: Paz, Saúde
e Pouca Violência
Enquanto os 15.230 delegados de 4.909 organizações
de 131 países debatiam alternativas para a globalização
e pediam o fim das guerras nas conferências e seminários
do II Fórum Social Mundial, uma multidão de pessoas
trabalhou nos bastidores anonimamente.
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UPDATED 02/05: WSF Support for Permanent
UN Forum on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Monday’s WSF conference on human rights was wide-ranging as panellists
touched on issues ranging from state repression of the trade union
movement in Indonesia, to Israeli occupation of Palestine, to the
urgent needs of millions of people for shelter.
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UPDATED 02/05: Building Civil Society:
Internet Skills Are Not Enough
Civil society organisations should appropriate the new information
technologies to promote their objectives, but doing so will not
be enough if they do not also renovate their strategies and mechanisms
for grassroots participation, action and theories in the field of
communications.
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UPDATED 02/05: Stop! We want to get off
Economists from southern countries yesterday made a rather belated
appeal for trade treaties and agreements signed by poor countries
to be revisited, slowed down or stopped, because they pushed their
economies into a deeper abyss.
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UPDATED 02/05: Democratising Democracy
Democracy cannot be half-hearted if it is survive in the age of
neo-liberalism, is what leading practitioners had to say at the
Conference on Participatory Democracy.
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UPDATED 02/05: Give God Some Credit
In a world that seems to have abandoned spirituality to focus on
material existence, WSF participants were walked through the basic
tenets of eastern religion as a tool for socio-economic development
at Monday’s Principles and Values conference.
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UPDATED 02/05: Internet ‘Dashboard
Device’ for Navigating Development
Navigating the development seas can be a hazardous enterprise for
your ordinary activist, who faces neo-colonialist pirates armed
to the teeth with all manner of ready-to-fire data.
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UPDATED 02/05: Global vs. Regional vs.
Local
On the last day of conferences at the WSF at Porto Alegre some
of the top ideologues of the worldwide opposition to neo-liberalism
and corporate-driven globalisation tackled some sticky questions
facing the movement.
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UPDATED 02/05: Civil Society Urged to
Join Anti-TRIPS Fight
Popular support for the struggle against the World Trade Organisation’s
agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) is essential if the movement is to advance, say advocates
of such apparently unrelated areas as free access to software and
banning patents on living organisms and life-saving medications.
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UPDATED 02/05: Irradiation: Opponents
Fight to Be Taken Seriously
What can you do when your NGO’s stance is rejected by reputable,
internationally-recognised organizations? When transnational corporations
repeatedly insist that your position has no merit? For the US-based
organisation, Public Citizen, the answer is to fight on – a David
taking on the Goliaths of this world.
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No Excuses for Domestic Violence
To thunderous applause Jurandir Freire Costa, the only man on a
panel otherwise consisting of six articulate and outspoken women,
began by saying all the right things: domestic violence is an aberration
and must be stopped. Men must be held accountable for their crimes.
Society must make a greater commitment to getting rid of patriarchy.
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Juan Somavía: Trabalho decente
deve ser o piso social da globalização
O Diretor Geral da Organização Internacional do Trabalho
(OIT), o chileno Juan Somavía, diz que ele faz de seu mandato
um instrumento de promoção do ”trabalho decente”.
Nesta entrevista, fala de suas impressões sobre o Fórum
Social Mundial, do papel da OIT, dos direitos dos trabalhadores
e da necessidade de integração entre os objetivos
econômicos e sociais da globalização.
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Juan Somavía: Decent Work
Should be the Social Foundation of Globalization
Juan Somavía, the Chilean Director General of the International
Labor Organization ( ILO) says he makes his mandate an instrument
to promote decent work. In an interview, he gives his impressions
about the World Social Forum, the role of ILO in promoting decent
work for all, workers rights and the need to integrate economic
and social objectives in policies, processes and institutions to
transform globalization.
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Mano dura con los inmigrantes en Inglaterra
El Ministerio del Interior de Gran Bretaña propondrá
al parlamento una serie de medidas legislativas para deportar inmigrantes
indocumentados a un ritmo de 2.500 por semana.
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Blair Could Surpass Idi Amin with
New Expulsions
A White Paper being prepared by Britain’s Home Office aims to send
back potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.
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Enron Saga a Lesson against Globalisation
While the latest Enron internal report, released Saturday, confirmed
what everybody already knows – that top Enron executives took millions
of dollars ‘they should never have received’ – Indian economists
say this saga teaches valuable lessons against corporate globalisation.
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Olivio Dutra: A Positive Balance from
the II Forum
The governor of the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, Olivio
Dutra, summed up the proceeds of the II World Social Forum in a
very positive note as the host and person responsible for the meeting’s
infrastructure and accommodations.
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Olivio Dutra: Balanço Positivo
do II Fórum
O governador do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Olívio Dutra,
faz um balanço bastante positivo do II Fórum Social
Mundial na condição de anfitrião responsável
pela infra-estrutura e hospedagem do encontro. "Está
funcionando bem, há um clima de receptividade e hospitalidade
do povo de Porto Alegre e do Rio Grande do Sul, e as conferências
e oficinas estão muito concorridas", disse o governador.
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‘The alternative is not civil
society but civil disobedience’ – Naomi Klein
After the euphoria of gathering thousands of people from all corners
of the globe at the second WSF at Porto Alegre it was time for activists
to reflect hard about the shape and future direction of the entire
movement.
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‘A alternativa não é
a sociedade civil, mas a desobediência civil’ – Naomi Klein
Após a euforia de congregar milhares de pessoas de todos
os cantos do mundo no segundo Fórum Social Mundial em Porto
Alegre, a hora chegou para que os ativistas reflitam seriamente
sobre a forma e a direção futura do movimento como
um todo.
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Contrôler les institutions
internationales pour manifester notre solidarité
Comme l’Allemagne, l’Espagne, l’Italie ou le Royaume-Uni, la France
est un membre important de l’Union européenne (UE) et elle
peut contribuer à infléchir ses politiques, voire,
dans certains cas, à les mettre en échec, notamment
à l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) ; elle dispose
d’un siège d’administrateur au Fonds monétaire international
(FMI) et à la Banque mondiale ; elle est membre de l’Organisation
de coopération et de développement économiques
(OCDE) où les décisions se prennent par consensus
et requièrent donc sa voix ; elle fait partie de l’Organisation
du traité de l’Atlantique Nord (Otan), régie en théorie
par la même règle de l’unanimité ; elle est
membre titulaire du Conseil de sécurité de l’Organisation
des Nations Unies (ONU).
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Walden Bello: ‘The World Economic Forum
is on its way out’
Walden Bello, a Filipino environmental activist and executive director
of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, spoke with TerraViva
about the second World Social Forum, its emerging contours and outlook.
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Walden Bello: ‘O Fórum Econômico
Mundial está em baixa’
Walden Bello, ambientalista filipino e diretor executivo da Enfoque
no Sul Global, sediada em Bangkok, falou à TerraViva sobre
o Fórum Social Mundial, seus contornos e seu panorama emergentes:
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Latin American Women Ready for Rio+10
Women from around the world are anxious to play a leading role
at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio+10), next September
in Johannesburg, South Africa, where women’s groups from Latin America
plan to shine the spotlight on the importance of social justice.
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Mujeres de America Latina listas para
Río+10
Grupos de mujeres de todo el mundo están ansiosas para participar
como protagonistas en la Cumbre Mundial sobre Desarrollo Sostenible
(Río + 10), que se realizará en septiembre del año
próximo en Johannesburgo, Sudáfrica, y las de America
Latina dicen que se se ocuparán de destacar el tema de la
justicia social.
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Frei Betto: ‘We don’t know where to
hang our dreams’
A school should be a laboratory for social inclusion, says Brazilian
writer and liberation theologian Frei Betto, ‘a laboratory in which
the outcomes of this Forum become the ongoing work of education,
of teaching our students that a different world is possible.’
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Frei Betto: ”Não sabemos onde
dependurár os sonhos’
A escola deve ser um laboratório de inclusão social,
diz o escritor brasileiro Frei Betto. "Um laboratório
onde o que está sendo gestado neste Fórum fosse um
trabalho permanente da educação, de exercitar nos
alunos que é possível um mundo diferente", acrescenta.
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Future WSF: Palestine or Bust
Will the next WSF – or at least the one in 2004 – be held in Palestine?
A formal invitation is being drafted for presentation to the WSF
Secretariat, said Palestinian representative Mustafa Barghouthi
at a press conference Sunday.
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Self-Confidence Key to Preserving Cultural
Identity
To many people, Africa is all about war and more war. Not that
there is a shortage of conflicts on the continent, but that is not
all there is to Africa. However, to shake off this rotten image,
Africans, and the developing world in general, first have to regain
their self-confidence, according to the WSF conference on culture
and identity yesterday.
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Prefeito Tarso Genro: "Em
Porto Alegre, o mundo se dá as mãos"
O mundo se deu as mãos mais uma vez em Porto Alegre para
clamar por uma nova sociedade fundamentada na cooperação
e na solidariedade, disse ao TerraViva o prefeito de Porto Alegre,
Tarso Genro, em uma breve entrevista sobre o II Fórum Social
Mundial e sobre as perspectivas do terceiro fórum, que também
será sediado na capital gaúcha.
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INTERVIEW: José Antonio Ocampo
José Antonio Ocampo, Undersecretary General of the United
Nations is here at the WSF with a message from the UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan. Ocampo, who is also the Executive Secretary
of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
is making a pitch for civil society participation in the upcoming
Conference on Financing for Development at Monterrey, Mexico.
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