By: George Dor, From: Pambazuka News

How do we challenge neoliberalism and corporate globalisation? Can we develop demands that enjoy the support of those most severely affected and simultaneously lay the ground for an alternative system? How do we develop educational programmes that encourage critical thinking in countries where such thought is actively discouraged? Can the demand for reparations for damage caused by neoliberalism and its predecessors be conceptualised as part of a process of fundamental change? These are the types of questions that are tackled in the series of articles in this week’s Pambazuka News. The articles …

What is the FTAA?

The FTAA is the acronym for the “Free Trade Area of the Americas”, an agreement being promoted by business and government sectors in the United States to increase and consolidate their domination over the populations and countries of the hemisphere while at the same time securing their hegemony at a worldwide level. The FTAA was formally launched at the First Summit of the Americas, held in Miami in December 1994. At the beginning of that year, the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA (Canada, Mexico and the United States) officially came into effect. The expansion of that …

Project for the New American Century
By Arundhati Roy. January 2004

LAST JANUARY thousands of us from across the world gathered in Porto Allegre in Brazil and declared reiterated that “Another World is Possible”. A few thousand miles north, in Washington, George Bush and his aides were thinking the same thing.

Our project was the World Social Forum. Theirs - to further what many call The Project for the New American Century.

In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side …

The World Social Forum (WSF) is an annual meeting held by members of the alternative globalization movement to coordinate world campaigns, share and refine organizing strategies, and inform each other about movements from around the world and their issues. It tends to meet in January when its “great capitalist rival”, the World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The first WSF was held from 25 January to 30 January 2001 in Porto Alegre, organized by many groups involved in the alternative globalization movement, including the French Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC). The …