Social forum to discuss war and globalisation

BY BILL MASON

BRISBANE — "In the face of a US-led war on Iraq and the looming World Trade Organisation meeting in Mexico in August, the Brisbane Social Forum wants to create an axis of hope — discussing how another world is possible", according to the brochure promoting the BSF, to be held at the Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm, over the weekend March 21-23.

"Last year, 400 people and 70 organisations participated in the inaugural Brisbane Social Forum. The BSF is not just for organisations and activists. Everyone concerned about issues of peace, social justice and globalisation is welcome to attend."

A keynote speaker for this year's event will be Anuradha Mittal, from India and co-director of the US-based Food First, which campaigns for global food security. She was a participant in the protests against the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in 1999. She has written and edited numerous books, including The Future is in the Balance: Essays on Globalisation and Resistance.

The other keynote speaker is US author and journalist William Blum, whose works include Rogue State, a "mini-encyclopaedia" of US interventions around the world, re-released and updated after 9/11. He was one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, a pioneering alternative newspaper in the US. Blum maintains the foreign policy section of Znet.org.

Blum is speaking at a public meeting on March 20 in the Brisbane City Hall at 7pm on the theme "War on terror or expansion of the American empire?". For more information on the BSF, visit <http//www.brisbanesocialforum.org>, or email <info@brisbanesocialforum.org>.

From Green Left Weekly, March 19, 2003.

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From GLW issue 530