Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:11AM GMT
presstv
Thousands of anti-capitalism activists gathering for a forum in the southern Brazil city of Rio de Janeiro have called for a global day against capitalism.
As the meeting, dubbed World Social Forum, came to an end on Sunday, a statement from the attendees urged citizens across the world to “take to the streets on June 5” to press world leaders for social and environmental justice.
“The political and economic elites are the one percent, who control the world and we are the one percent seeking to change it. Where are the [other] 98 percent?” said Chico Whitaker, co-founder of the forum.
The five-day-long meeting attracted some 40,000 participants from around the world. It was being held by Rio+20, a major gathering on sustainable development, hosted by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, as a follow-up on the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
The forum also called on the people of the world to urge their leaders to create a social and ‘green economy.’
“If the system is not capable of redistributing and deal with inequality, we have to do it ourselves,” said Sam Halvorsen, one of the gathering’s attendees and member of the Occupy London anti-corporatism movement.
On Thursday, Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff attended the forum and asked the activists to come up with ideas on the way to tackle global problems.
“The task we are called upon on this forum …is to unleash a movement of renovation of ideas and of new processes,” she said.
PM/HN
Posted on January 30, 2012
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