Lucia Newman

Legalising drugs a solution to the violence?

Almost five years ago, Mexicans watched their President Felipe Calderon send soldiers out onto the streets of cities like Ciudad Juarez, announcing an unprecedented frontal attack on the country’s drug cartels.

Then, they saw the death toll rise year by year, from around under 3,000 in 2007 to almost 20, 000 in 2010. This year could be even higher.

When I went to Cancun for the Climate Summit in late November, a taxi driver told me that the leve of violence was seriously disrupting the economy - especially tourism - and that he hoped the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) , which ruled Mexico for 70 years, would be brought back to power in the next presidential elections.

Fear and loathing in El Salvador

I had not returned to El Salvador for 20 years, since the end of the country’s civil war, so I was of course, expecting it to be very changed.

I knew that there was now an acute economic crisis, and that the right-wing death squads that used to terrorise the country when I was covering the war in the late 1980s, had been replaced by violent gangs and drug traffickers.

I also knew that for the first time in its history, central America’s smallest and most densely populated country had a moderate left-wing president, Mauricio Funes.

Lula's Iranian gamble

Whether or not the Iranian uranium swap deal just bartered by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (with Turkey's co-operation) lays the grandwork for an ultimate solution to the conflict, it is worth noting those who were laughing at President Lula last week are not laughing anymore.

The US state department and others in the G8 and in Brazil, had been ridiculing President Lula for even attempting to mediate in the conflict.

"He's letting Brazil's emerging power status get to his head" and "He thinks he's playing in the majdor leagues!", a top level US state department official recently mocked.

In Brasilia, respected analysts such as Andre Cesar told me that he thought Lula's "inflated ego" was the driving force for his involvement in messy issues like Iran and Palestine, adding that he risked making a fool of himself.

"What makes Lula think that he can succeed where the United States, Russia and France failed?" critics asked.

Looking for alternatives

What a difference from Davos! 

No fashionable three piece suits, no fancy parties or waiters serving cocktails to the world's richest and most powerful after a day of discussions in state of the art conference rooms.  

Here in Porto Alegre it's strictly sandals and tennis shoes at the world's largest gathering of social movements and NGO's, the World Social Forum. The heat is excrutiating and there is no airconditioning at the seminars taking place in old warehouses and - fittingly - in a recycled therno-electric plant.

It has been exactly ten years since the first World Soical Forum was convened here in Porto Alegre as an alternative  to the World Economic Forum in Davos.