A Utopian vision
Activists railed against globalisation in Davos while theoreticians debated an alternative platform in Porto Alegre, writes Faiza Rady

Dakar vs Davos
Africa's scholars and activists are opting for the Dakar Manifesto, in opposition to their leaders, who instead are pinning their hopes on Davos, writes Gamal Nkrumah

Aftershocks Mini-manoeuvres A small mistake Prizefighters Testing the waters

A new departure?
President Bush intends to reassess America's Middle East strategies and priorities while revamping the diplomatic set-up in the region, writes Hoda Tawfik from Washington

Year of the earthquake
INDIAN Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee sent out a call for civilians, recovery teams and military units alike to approach the state of emergency following the violent earthquake that rocked western India on Friday morning on a "war footing".

A luta continua "Sebastiao Salgado made photos of them. Chico Buarque sung them. Jose Saramago wrote books about them: five million landless peasants walk around, vagrants between dream and desperation, in the uninhabited immensity of Brazil. Many of them organised themselves in the Rural Landless Workers' Movement (MST). From the encampments in the sides of highways come a flow of people, walking silently in the night, to occupy empty latifundios. They break the locker, they open the doors and walk in. Sometimes, they are welcome by pistoleiros from the personal militias or the soldiers, the only ones that work this unworked land. The landless workers' movement is guilty: not only do they violate the right of property of parasites, but they also dare to show disrespect to the national duty: the 'landless' people cultivate food on the land they conquer, though the World Bank determined that southern countries should not produce their own food and live off the subsidies begged on the international market." Eduardo Galeano Message of support for the MST