The first of the polycentric WSFs took place in Bamako, capital of Mali, from 19th to 23rd January. Estimates vary at between ten and twenty thousand attending.

Reports, in the French weekly Rouge, suggest there was a sharp contrast between the stars of the “international social movements” - the academics, NGO fulltimers, and politicians, both Malian and French - and the representatives of the often semi-clandestine trade unions, peasant organisations, youth and women’s movements, and ethnic minority rights groups. Read more...