Citizen Dialogue

Hi and welcome to the Globsol blog. We will begin our reporting on October 10th. For more information about Globsol. Please visit www.globsol.info.

Well, the debate are over and all of us hoping they would talk about issues like climate change and poverty reduction have to wait a bit longer. They started off, as expected, by talking about the current economical problems and the bailout plan that the US congress. This is Obamas field and it really showed that he took the lead in the first round.

When they after half an hour started to talk about international issues they talked about the war in Iraq. But the problem are that they can´t talk about the bigger picture, the roots of the war and the problems with the global security. Instead they are locked in to talk about small issues to win the votes. And there McCain have an advantage.

But I´m sure that Obama could be the leader in this issue to if they started to talk about the fundamentals of the war and September 11th 2001. Why did it happened and why the United States are on the completely wrong track in solving the roots of terrorism.

Sure, it´s more security in Iraq today then one year ago, that´s what more troops does. And if we send a million new troops there will be ever better security, but the fundamental problem and root to terrorism, are not getting better by this.

The United States must get into Plan B and make sure that the poorest of the poor will get a better life and restore their reputation in the world outside North America. They need to build a new Marshal Plan for development and cooperation, especially with Africa and the Arab states. They need to stop their oil war and begin an era of real actions towards a better world, this will take away the public support for terrorism all over the world and make sure that terror organizations will be weak and east to overrule.

But, the debate did´t show any signs of this. Hopefully Barack Obama will win and hopefully he can take a small step towards a better future for all of us.

Tonights presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama shoul be about foreign policy. But I think most of it will be about the economy anyway. But I will follow the debate and write a story about their view on international issues like poverty reduction and climate change…if they talk about it.

I fear that this day would come, that South African president Thabo Mbeki had to resign under the pressure from Jacob Zuma and his people leaving South Africa with political uncertainty ahead of elections expected next year.

Mbeki said on Saturday he will step down “as soon as all constitutional requirements have been fulfilled” after calls by the African National Congress national executive committee for him to go.

It is believed the ANC is not ready to call an election earlier than those set down for April 2009, and that the party will appoint an interim president to lead the country for the remainder of the second term.

I will follow this and hope that the people of South Africa work together to solve this issue as fast as possible.

I´m at the seminar about how unions and others groups of workers can organize to tackle climate change. I think this is an very vital issue and if the unions of the world see their benefit in acting, then we can see some good progress.

I´ve been to seven social forums in the world over the years. And this forum have a record high number of police force. Everywhere you go you can see them.

If all the police are gathered for the parade on Saturday, maybe they will be more then the participants.

This was the first sight I saw when I left the house this morning.

Around 4 000 people faced the cold weather at the inauguration in People´s Park, with music and speeches from 12 different countries in the world. The well known social activist Vandana Shiva from India spoke and we heard a very personal speech from Palestinian activist Mustafa Barghouti about the situation in Palestine and the weak support from the social movements.

Political singer/songwriter Mikael Wiehe.

I´m going on a seven hour bus ride from Stockholm to Malmö and the forum. We are 40 people going for the forum and we are trying to motivate ourselves towards the opening tonight.

From today until Sunday I will liveblog from the European Social Forum in Malmö, Sweden. I will publish text, video, audio and images from the different activities.

Follow the liveblog at http://socialforum.joneysworld.com.