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BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday urged U.S. President Barack Obama to return the military base of Guantanamo to Cuba after applauding his decision to close the prison for terrorism suspects there. The anti-U.S. Cuba ally has tense relations with the United States and was been one of the most outspoken critics of former President George W. Bush, though he has kept open the possibility of improving ties with Obama. "Now he should return Guantanamo and Guantanamo Bay to the Cubans because that is Cuban territory," he said in a speech at the World Social Forum...

BELEM, Brazil — South American's most adamantly leftist leaders joined 100,000 activists Thursday in this steamy Amazon city, receiving a hero's welcome as they demanded what they called a long-needed overhaul of capitalism. The presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela mingled with activists of all stripes at the World Social Forum, an annual protest against the World Economic Forum held for the planet's rich and powerful at the Swiss ski resort of Davos. Arriving Thursday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the forum should be transformed from an event that traditionally debates global problems into one that proposes solutions. "We...

With a disparate cast ranging from Roman Catholic nuns to anarchists, there is one thing the 100,000 leftist activists at the World Social Forum in Brazil can agree on -- it's hard to hate Barack Obama. Former President George W. Bush was a favorite target of vitriolic anti-U.S. protests at previous editions of one of the world's biggest gathering of grassroots groups, whose inaugural meeting coincided with the start of Bush's first term in January 2001. A week after Democrat Obama's inauguration as U.S. president, the sentiment against Washington at this year's forum in the sweltering Amazon city of Belem...

NAIROBI, Kenya - More than 80,000 people gathered for an annual anti-capitalist conference in Kenya's capital on Saturday, marching on Nairobi's largest slum to protest global policies they say hurt the poor. The World Social Forum will be a chance to showcase "Africa and her unbroken history of struggle against foreign domination, colonialism and neocolonialism," according to a statement on the event Web site. To begin the forum, thousands of protesters marched from Kenya's sprawling Kibera slum to downtown Nairobi. About a third of Nairobi's total population, at least 700,000 people, is crammed into a single square mile in Kibera,...

Associated Press CARACAS, Venezuela — Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who just announced that she is weighing a run for Senate, plans to protest again outside President Bush's Texas ranch, Venezuela's president said today with Sheehan by his side. Hugo Chavez, his arm around Sheehan's shoulders, told a group of activists that Sheehan had told him that during Holy Week, in April, "she is going to put up her tent again in front of Mr. Danger's ranch." "She invited me to put up a tent. Maybe I'll put up my tent also," Chavez said, to applause from activists invited to...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the U.S. government an "immoral empire" and repeated accusations of spying Friday, threatening to arrest any American officials caught gathering intelligence on his military. Chavez's warning came hours after his vice president, Jose Vicente Rangel, accused officials at the U.S. Embassy of involvement in a spying case involving several Venezuelan naval officers who allegedly passed sensitive information to the Pentagon. Chavez focused his speech to thousands of activists on summoning a global "battle" to resist what he termed U.S. imperialism. The frequent and vocal critic of U.S. global policy used especially harsh...

Cindy Sheehan went to Caracas, Venezuela to put her thumb in the eye of the Bush administration. She was leading the World Social Forum, a far-left “alternative” to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, to cavort with fellow leftists. Less well known was that her trip was sponsored by the Venezuelan foreign ministry. The price of that was obligatory praise of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who’s rapidly plunging in the opinion polls for his incompetence and corruption. “I admire President Chavez for his strength to resist the United States,” she said. Sheehan, who knows nothing of Venezuela, was easy to...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - To the beat of drums and trilling whistles, thousands of activists from around the world showed their opposition to globalization and the Iraq war at the opening Tuesday of the World Social Forum backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The six-day conference got under way in Caracas amid a light drizzle as activists paraded along wide avenues chanting "Socialism, yes! Imperialism, no!" About 80,000 people signed up to attend the forum, including tens of thousands from outside Venezuela, organizers said. Cindy Sheehan, an American peace activist whose son was killed in Iraq, addressed a sea of...

CARACAS (AFP) - Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, joined more than 10,000 anti-globalization activists in Caracas, where she hailed Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez. "I admire him for his resolve against my government and its meddling," said Sheehan, who gained notoriety when she camped outside US President George W. Bush's ranch last year to protest the Iraq war. She said she hoped to meet Chavez later in the week.

Hugo Chavez, Cindy Sheehan Highlight Socialist Forum: The Bush-bashing "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan will join leading third-world America-hater Hugo Chavez on Tuesday, when the two team up to address the 6th World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela. Sheehan and Chavez will headline a list of yet-to-be-announced speakers from places like Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Colombia, according to the web site VHeadline.com. The Forum will officially commence after a 2-day street festival, which began on Sunday, Vheadline says. "Tens of thousands" of Chavez and Sheehan's fans helped kick off the event by staging a march under the slogan "Contra la Guerra...

U.S. antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan will open the World Social Forum in Caracas on Tuesday together with other political and cultural leaders from diverse nations with a mass action, organizers for the event said Sunday. Sheehan, mother of a dead soldier in Iraq who achieved notoriety from heading various antiwar actions against the government of George W. Bush, will give a speech at a march that will kick off the World Social Forum en the Venezuelan capital, said dará Edgardo Lander, a member of the organizing committee of the event. In the action for which the activist will assist, "she...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proclaimed to activists at the World Social Forum Sunday in Brazil, that "socialism is not dead" and announced an "agrarian revolution" in his country with the seizure of 20 million hectares (49.3 million acres). Mr. Chavez visited Lagoa dos Juncos, a ranch belonging to the MST Brazilian Landless Movement in Tapes, some 110 miles from Porto Alegre where the World Social Forum is being held. Lagoa dos Juncos is a farm which is considered a model cooperative by the MST. "For those who say that socialism is dead, here we have people proving that it did...

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil -- Sporting a red shirt embossed with a picture of the revolutionary Che Guevera, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome Sunday at the World Social Forum, where activists greeted him with hugs and cries of "Here comes the boss!" Tens of thousands of people attending the six-day gathering held to protest the simultaneous World Economic Forum in Switzerland consider Chavez their strongest voice against the U.S.-sponsored spread of liberalized trade in Latin America, a move they say benefits multinational companies while enslaving workers. "Now the imperialist forces are starting to strike against the people of...

2005 World Social Forum-Brazil Coverture Third Day The Brazilian writer and former Catholic priest Leornado Boff said the colonialism, the inheritance of the slavery and the transformation of the country in a great multinational company are the biggest problems (he called:"the three wounds") Brazilian society has to face up to. According to him the Catholic Church can't have the right to talk about dignity because it is seated in the blood of millions. He still defended that the first right is the right to the life and that ,other freedoms must come later, including the right of going and coming,...

"Where are the slave costumes?" shouts a stressed director, followed by "Get me the lion's head!" The adrenalin is flowing in advance of a dress rehearsal for "Spartacus Returns" in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. The ballet-cum-play about freedom has already been staged eight times in Bangalore and at the recent World Social Forum in Bombay (Mumbai). The work tells the story of Spartacus, a gladiator-slave in ancient Rome who led thousands of others in a freedom revolt before being captured and crucified in 71BC. It then has Spartacus reappearing as a child in modern slave conditions - criticism...

The top agenda item for the Palestinian "peace" groups today is dismantling Israel by the Right of Return, flooding the country with Arab terrorists after running Israelis out of the West Bank and Gaza. And the Ford Foundation foots the bill to advance these groups' goals.

Anti-globalisation activists have called for the world to unite against the United States at a rally of 100,000 people in Bombay. The World Social Forum is holding discussions and demonstrations on issues from Iraq to child labour. But the agenda focuses on organising opposition to the US, which demonstrators accuse of military aggression and unfair trading practices. Speaking at the rally, attended by demonstrators from 130 different countries, former US attorney general Ramsey Clark said: "If the United Nations is to survive, countries have to stand up to the United States. "If the US dominates the United Nations as it...

Roy hopes Saddam's fate for Bush AFP[ SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2004 02:55:18 PM ] Social activist Shabana Azmi, left, speaks as freedom fighter Lakshmi Sehgal, and writer Arundathi Roy, right, look on at the opening ceremony of the World Social Forum in Bombay on Friday. (AP Photo) BOMBAY: Writer Arundhati Roy, who wants an ongoing anti-globalisation conference to launch a campaign to shut down US companies, said Sunday she hoped President George W Bush would share the fate of the captured Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "If Saddam Hussein deserves to be humiliated and have his fillings counted and his...

BOMBAY: Writer Arundhati Roy, who wants an ongoing anti-globalisation conference to launch a campaign to shut down US companies, said Sunday she hoped President George W Bush would share the fate of the captured Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "If Saddam Hussein deserves to be humiliated and have his fillings counted and his hair checked for lice on primetime TV, then so does George Bush," Roy told about 100 people at a leftist convention on the sidelines of the World Social Forum. "Saddam Hussein surely ought to be tried for crimes against humanity. But so should all his accomplices in the...

BOMBAY : Anti-globalisation activists called for the world to unite against the United States as 100,000 people from 130 countries met off a Bombay highway in the movement's first forum since the Iraq war. The World Social Forum, billed as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum of business and political leaders which opens Wednesday in Switzerland, is holding discussions and demonstrations on issues from Iraq to child labour. But the common thread for the diverse set of activists is opposition to US President George W. Bush, whom forum leaders accuse of endangering world security and bending trade rules...

THE World Social Forum (WSF) at Nesco Grounds in suburban Goregaon resembles a small town, a bizarre international village whose only industry is progressive politics. Stalls line the streets promoting every cause and issue from the oppression of Dalits to food security to the rights of the transgendered. But even when it’s not centrestage, one issue above all seems to be everywhere: Iraq. Pink flowers in their sunhats, a line of Japanese files silently through the middle of a packed press conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and the vice-president of Vietnam, Ngyugen Bihn. Between them they carry...

World Social Forum changes priorities to take aim at Indian caste system By Khozem Merchant in Mumbai Published: January 17 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: January 17 2004 4:00 Delegates at the World Social Forum in Mumbai will today tell India that it must dismantle its caste system, which actively discriminates against 200m poor people. The demand to end India's ancient form of social division will form one element of a shift in priority for the WSF, a gathering of 70,000 social activists from 30 countries that opened yesterday in India's booming financial hub. Previously the WSF, a coalition of...

MUMBAI: Coming down heavily on US military campaign in Iraq and globalisation, the World Social Forum (WSF) began here on Friday night with a pledge to launch campaign for a new international order ensuring social justice at all levels. Speakers from different countries urged the US and its allies to stop their show of power in various parts of the world and hand over Iraq to Iraqis while Indian anti-globalisation leaders criticised growing fundamentalism in the country in the context of post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. Captain Laxmi Sehgal, the INA veteran, said globalisation was a danger and should be fought...

For the past three years, an annual conference called the World Social Forum has been the biggest international gathering of radicals on earth, attended by all the leaders of the world left. Labor unions, Communist parties, non-governmental organizations, anti-globalization activists, anti-American 'peace' groups, multiple heads of state, and the representatives of armed guerilla insurgencies all gather yearly at Porto Alegre, Brazil, to make new connections and plan for the future. While the organizers of the World Social Forum claim the event is a "open meeting place" for those interested in building "a planetary society centered on the human person,"...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized his opponents Sunday after arriving at the World Social Forum to meet with sympathizers among the 100,000 activists gathered to protest American-style capitalism. Chavez, who left his country despite a 56-day general strike, lashed out at Venezuelan opposition leaders, predicting they would fail in their bid to oust him from power. "Our struggle against the terrorists and fascists has further strengthened the will of the Venezuelan people," Chavez said after arriving at this far southern Brazilian port city. "It is one thing to try to get rid of me, and another thing to succeed. I...

Anti-globalization protesters greeted Brazil's new leftist president like a rock star at the World Social Forum on Friday, cheering the one-time revolutionary as one of their own. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had breakfast with the socialist mayor of Porto Alegre, talked with forum organizers and held an afternoon meeting with former Portuguese President Mario Soares, founder of Portugal's socialist party. Soares said Silva, who has made fighting hunger in Brazil his top priority, is "real proof that there can be social participation in government." Hundreds of Brazilians and foreigners attending the six-day forum chanted "Lula! Our President!" when...