Press Report Europe WSF 2009 - OpenFSM!

Press Report Europe WSF 2009
Effigies of Bush were often burned at leftist rallies but that particular form of protest is now much more unlikely with
Obama, the United States' first black president.
Many are grappling with the loss of Bush, who was so unpopular in much of the world that he helped radical groups
recruit members and get protesters onto the streets.
"Certainly this will present a difficulty for the movement," said Altenir Santos of Brazil's Revolutionary Communist Party,
who was handing out leaflets and selling hammer-and-sickle T-shirts on the first full day of the forum on Wednesday.
Energized by economic crisis, world leftists meet (Reuters UK)
Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:49pm GMT
BELEM, Brazil, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Thousands of leftist activists, energized by the faltering global capitalist system,
marched through the Amazon city of Belem on Tuesday as an international forum began under the banner of "another
world is possible."
Undeterred by a huge Amazon rain downpour, soaked participants at the Ninth World Social Forum danced, sang and
drummed their way through the steamy Brazilian city, doing some justice to the local media's description of the event as
a tropical Woodstock.
The forum, which brings together groups ranging from communists to environmentalists to spiritual healers as well as
government leaders, was brought to Belem partly as a way of drawing global attention to the destruction of the Amazon
rain forest.
Often criticized as out of touch with the mainstream, the 6-day-long event has been given extra clout this year by the
global economic crisis that has seen even capitalist bastion the United States pump public money into its tottering banks.
"New governments require new consciousness, new economies require new consciousness -- I would like to see
something fundamental (from the forum) to counter the world crisis," said Cho Tab Khen Zambuling, a spiritual leader
from Chile.
Zambuling, a white-bearded 61-year-old wearing flowing white robes and prayer cymbals, used to be more commonly
known as Alfredo Sfeir-Younis, a director of the World Bank. He is now head of the Zambuling Institute for Human
Transformation.
The annual forum, which began in 2001 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, is expected to draw about 100,000
attendees.
Five leaders of Latin American countries, many of which have shifted to the political left in recent years, are expected to
attend this week's forum, which as in previous editions is timed to coincide with the Davos business-leaders forum in
Switzerland.
At the opening march, Japanese peace activists waving fans mingled with Amazon Indians in indigenous dress and
members of the Brazil Communist Party hoisting hammer-and-sickle flags. Samba drums and beer vendors helped keep
up the Carnival atmosphere.
"ANOTHER WORLD"
The theme uniting the disparate groups is that "another world" with more social justice, indigenous rights and greater
respect for the environment should emerge from the global economic crisis. As in previous years, the forum will have its
own currency as a model of keeping wealth within a community.
"Now is the time. There must be a radical change." said Martin Herberg, a 28-year-old German with the Rosa Luxemburg
Foundation, a leftist research group.
"It can't just be austerity policies from international institutions like the IMF. There has to be land reform and I think now is
the time for some banks to be nationalized."
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