En enero de 2021, el Foro Social Mundial celebrará su vigésimo aniversario.

Desafortunadamente, el coronavirus hará imposible un foro real y festivo. Sin embargo, podemos  intentar convertir  esto ‘malo’ en ‘bueno’ e iniciar un proceso de renovación utilizando el FSM virtual de enero de 2021 como un trampolín para un proceso político verdadero hacia un Foro presencial en la Ciudad de México en enero de 2022.

Siempre  hemos  estado hablando del «proceso del Foro», pero de hecho nunca ha existido entre foros. Cada Foro tenía que empezar de nuevo, sin tener en cuenta los resultados de un Foro anterior, sin mirar hacia el próximo Foro. Es uno de los fracasos de todo este «proceso» y una de las fórmulas equivocadas para describirlo. Los diferentes FSM hasta ahora han  sido eventos, no procesos.

International lawyers are drafting plans for a legally enforceable crime of ecocide – criminalising destruction of the world’s ecosystems – that is already attracting support from European countries and island nations at risk from rising sea levels.

Read the article by Owen Bowcott

In January 2021 the World Social Forum will celebrate its 20^th anniversary.

Unfortunately, the coronavirus will make a real and festive forum impossible. Nevertheless, we can try to turn this ‘bad’ into a ‘good’ and start a renewal process by using the virtual WSF of January 2021 into a stepping stone for a real political process towards a ‘real’ Forum in Mexico City in January 2022.

We have indeed always been speaking about the ‘Forum process’, but it fact it has never existed in between forums. Every Forum had to start anew, without taking into account results of a former forum, without looking ahead to the next forum. It is one of the failures of this whole ‘process’ and one of the mistaken formulas to describe it. The different WSF’s till now have been events, not processes.

The UN General Assembly has convened a Special Session on the Covid-19 pandemic at the level of Heads of State and Government on 3 and 4 December next. It took more than a year of discussions to overcome the opposition of certain states, notably the United States of former President Donald Trump.

The holding of this Special Session (the 37^th in the history of the UN) is of considerable importance. It is a unique opportunity to define and implement joint actions at the global level to fight the pandemic in order to ensure the right to life and health for all the inhabitants of the Earth. As the President of the UN General Assembly wrote in his letter of convocation: «Let us not forget that none of us are safe until we are all safe».

This is a historic moment and a unique opportunity.

Read the article by Riccardo Petrella

‘O futuro começa agora. Da pandemia a utopia’

con un capítulo sobre el Foro Social Mundial

Leer más

by Roberto Savio

Now, it is certainly difficult to believe that the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK, India, China and Canada, and the President of the European Council, and the President of the European Union – leaving aside the United States – ignore the impacting data on the increase of poverty provided by all the international organisations. The creation of the G7 and the G20 has been the most visible attempt of the great powers to displace substantial debates and decisions from the United Nations. It was certainly not due to lack of information that they ignored the appeal of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Gutierres, who implored action in his intervention against the unfolding drama of the poor of all over the world, which is nullifying all progress achieved in the last two decades.

The data that the G20 ignored all converge on two conclusions: the impact of the Covid-19 virus is stronger than expected, and it will bring about a global social imbalance that will have a lasting impact on several millions of people – in fact, about 300 million people.

This comes on top of an already dire situation. According to the World Bank, 720 million people will be living in extreme poverty (less than 1.90 dollars a day). Of those, 114 million are the direct result of Covid-19: that is 9.4% of the world’s population. According to the UN World Food Programme, more than 265 million are already starving, and many will die. And according to the International Labour Organization 200 million will lose their job.

Read the article

El foro ya tiene su sitio web y ya se puede enregistrar:

Sitio web:* : https://wsf2021.net

Pré-inscrição Já!* : https://framaforms.org/contacto-inclusion-proceso-fsm2021v-1604754077

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights 70 yearts after: would it be possible today?

Read the article

The financial and big business elite who meet in Davos every year needs more than ever a counterweight. That is the opinion of popular movements from all over the world. Therefore, they have now decided to organize the World Social Forum WSF 25 – 30 January 2021 with actions and meetings around the world connected online for a week.