Thousands of activists are gathering in India's financial hub of Mumbai for the World Social Forum that starts this weekend, the first time the annual anti-globalization meeting will be held in Asia.
Iraq was expected to be the focus at the forum, first organized three years ago as a counterpoint to the meeting of business and government leaders at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos.
Activists say the Davos meeting, scheduled for Jan. 21 to Jan. 25, is elitist and neglects the interests of the vast majority of the world's population.
"This globalization hurts developing countries. It harms the poor and makes them poorer and leaves the rich nations far richer," said Shanti Patel, a former Indian Parliament member who is a spokesman for the Jan. 16 to Jan. 21 World Social Forum.
"This is a platform to raise our voice on a world level against multinational control and imperialist globalization," he said.
Some 100,000 people from across the world are expected to attend the six-day event that seeks to address capitalism's downside, unfair global trade, foreign debt, poverty and the right to food, water and land. The meeting culminates with a street march.
The forum will take place in Goregaon, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai -- a city of 12 million people which has been gearing up for the visitors.
The walls outside the venue are splattered with slogans such as "Resist globalization," and "Another world is possible" -- a phrase coined at the earlier forums which took place in Brazil.
Paintings by Indian artists of doves and trees and women joining their hands in prayer against yellow and maroon backdrops adorn three Mumbai trains to create awareness about the forum.
Meanwhile, police vans patrolled outside the venue.
Participants will pack into open stadiums to hear speeches from Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights lawyer who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, and Arundhati Roy, the Indian novelist who won the 1997 Booker Prize.
Organizers in Mumbai said war would be a key focus of this year's forum.
"Last year, anti-war groups converged at the World Social Forum in Brazil to protest against the impending war in Iraq," said organizer Gautam Modi. "This year, too, we seek to turn public opinion against war and in search of alternatives."
The forum has also spawned a rival conference called the "Mumbai Resistance," which will run from Jan. 17 to Jan. 20, and calls itself the "real struggle against imperialist globalization."
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
RSS