The Guardian (London) | February 1, 2002
Four policemen have been tailing Jose Bove, the French farmer and activist, who is in Brazil to attend the second World Social Forum - the anti-capitalist counterpoint to the Davos World Economic Forum in New York.
Mr Bove became the unwitting star of last year's inaugural event, also in Brazil, when he helped destroy a plantation of genetically modified soya and was ordered to leave the country. He has returned to Porto Alegre as an organiser of the summit, which has grown from 4,000 delegates last year to 40,000 this.
Under the banner of "Another world is possible", the broad collection of left-leaning activists is set to discuss alternative visions of how the world should work.
Nobel laureates like Guatemala's Rigoberta Menchu and Argentina's Adolfo Perez Esquivel are expected to attend the forum, which was started in 2001 with the intention of becoming an annual mirror to Davos.
Six French junior ministers and three French presidential candidates will be present, as will United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson.
"It's about the policies governing globalisation that give a pre-eminence to economic and business concerns to the complete exclusion of labour, human rights and judicial concerns," said James Garrison, a delegate to the forum and chief organiser of the Commission on Globalisation.
Alex Bellos in Rio de JaneiroThe Guardian (London):
