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<strong>Press</strong> <strong>Report</strong> <strong>Europe</strong> <strong>WSF</strong> <strong>2009</strong><br />
The World Social Forum was born in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 2001, and it also took place in that city<br />
in 2002, 2003 and 2005. India hosted it in 2004, while Venezuela did so in 2006 and Kenya in 2007. In 2008 there was<br />
no one single site, but the forum was held simultaneously in 82 different countries.<br />
(Deutsche press-Agentur)<br />
Sao Paulo - The World Social Forum is set to meet starting Tuesday in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belem, as the<br />
gathering gets renewed strength and meaning from the ongoing global financial and economic crisis.<br />
This is the ninth edition of the forum, a self-declared 'alternative' to the simultaneous World Economic Forum in Davos,<br />
Switzerland.<br />
'The global financial crisis is an opportunity for us, who were born to oppose that neoliberal globalization that is now<br />
crumbling. It is a chance to show that something else is possible,' Candido Grybowski, one of the organizers of the World<br />
Social Forum, told Deutsche <strong>Press</strong>e-Agentur dpa in an interview.<br />
Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil have confirmed<br />
their attendance at debates set to take place Tuesday to Sunday.<br />
The organizers did not rule out the presence of other South American leaders, like Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Rafael<br />
Correa of Ecuador and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay.<br />
In any case, there will be many fewer leaders in the Amazonian city of Belem than the more than 40 that were expected<br />
in Davos.<br />
'Heads of state have never been as lost as now. They are as lost as a peasant in the Amazonian forest,' said Grybowski,<br />
who heads the Brazilian Institute for Socio-Economic Analysis (IBASE).<br />
'Perhaps the only one of them who is a little bit lucid is (new US President Barack) Obama, who at least has a discourse<br />
that falls out of the usual line,' he stressed.<br />
To bring home the point, Grybowski wondered what France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi or Germany's<br />
Angela Merkel may have to say.<br />
'They are all responsible for the crisis, both the leaders and especially the companies and the media who will be there,'<br />
the expert said.<br />
He graphically defined the Davos forum as 'the free university of the large speculative capital, of the bankers.'<br />
Grybowski added that the measures that have been adopted so far to counter the crisis have focused on rescuing<br />
companies and banks.<br />
'We always advocated state regulation (of the financial system), but so far things are only being done to save the system,<br />
not to change that system that is a castle of cards, a casino.'<br />
In such a setting, the World Social Forum gains weight as a space for the emergence of new ideas and to confirm its own<br />
precept that 'a different world is possible' beyond 'what the owners of the world say it is,' he said.<br />
Grybowski said that 120,000 people are set to gather at the forum in Belem, along with hundreds of non-governmental<br />
organizations. There are set to be 2,600 activities to debate not just the financial and economic crisis, but also the energy<br />
crisis, the food crisis and climate change.<br />
The World Social Forum was born in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 2001, and it also took place in that city<br />
in 2002, 2003 and 2005. India hosted it in 2004, while Venezuela did so in 2006 and Kenya in 2007. In 2008 there was<br />
no one single site, but the forum was held simultaneously in 82 different countries.<br />
“Gott Markt ist bankrott” (sueddeutsche)<br />
Die Botschaft des Weltsozialforums nach Davos<br />
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