At the same time that businessmen and bankers were crying on each others' shoulders at the World Economic Forum (WEF), over 100,000 activists have gathered together in the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil for the ninth World Social Forum (WSF). Under the often repeated slogan of "Another World is Possible", the WSF 2009 is expected to counter the world economic crisis with alternative development models. Read more...

The Brazilian presidential elections on 1 October saw the surprise failure of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to win outright. Lula, an ex-car worker, is the historic leader of the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores -Workers’ Party), the reformist party that has the support of the mass of the Brazilian working class. That he will win the second round on 29 October is now far from certain. Read more...

In October 2002, Lula was heralded as Brazil’s first “worker president", just 20 years after the founding of his Workers’ Party (PT). But after less than 20 months into his term, he is provoking strikes, imprisoning landless peasants and expelling members of his own parliamentary delegates. Keith Harvey asks what went wrong? Read more...

In the middle of December the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) Directorate voted by 55 to 27 to expel four members of the PT parliamentary group for daring to vote against the PT government's attacks on state employees' pensions. Read more...

Luis Inacio da Silva’s (Lula) last campaign rally before the first voting began on 6 October was held before an audience of the industrial workers of Sao Paolo, where, as a metal worker and union leader, he led a series of illegal strikes 25 years ago. Read more...

Criticism of the PT’s moves to the right has come from both inside and outside the party. The Socialist Democracy current (DS) and its journal Em Tempo represents “the tendency of the Fourth International supporters in the PT", part of the same international grouping as the French LCR. Read more...

Sem-terra, the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), burst onto the political scene in the 1980s. It was a response to a decade or more of rapid change in Brazilian agriculture. Read more...

Colourful banners, giant puppets, drummers, samba bands, dancers and songs on the streets of Brazil. No, not Carnival in Rio but the third World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre last month. Read more...