Hear Jeremy Dear, General Secreatry of the National Union of Journalists, and Gonzalo Gomez, editor of the Venezuelan Revolutionary website Aporrea.org, speaking at the ESF.

This year’s European Social Forum is taking place from 15-17 October in London. The same as last year, In Defence of Marxism will be there putting the socialist case. This we will do by having several stalls with Marxist publications and books. However, we are also participating in the debates themselves.

What is the essence of the ILO (International Labour Organisation)? Some in the labour movement have the illusion that it can be a genuine force for defending workers' rights. Luca Lombardi analyses a recent ILO document, A Fair Globalization: Creating opportunities for all, and shows that in reality the ILO makes a lot of statements about ethics, morality, "fair development", etc., but in reality it is an instrument in the hands of the bosses.

On November 12-16 the second European Social Forum was held in Paris.The attendance did not reach the numbers of the first ESF in Florence, nonetheless around 35-40,000 people registered during the three days of meetings and workshops and around 100,000 took part in the demonstration on Saturday 15th against the war and the occupation of Iraq and against the cuts in the welfare state and to living standards all over Europe.

Last September 14, world trade talks broke down in Cancun, Mexico. Everybody blamed everyone else. Before the conference, British delegate Patricia Hewitt had predicted, "if we fail, it will be a disaster for world economy." And this is true, for the collapse could stun the already fragile prospects of economy recovery.

Instead of further integrating the world's economies, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Cancun actually succeeded in creating more polarisation and deeper divisions between its members. The viability of the WTO, which since Seattle (December 1999) has gone from failure to failure, is more than ever in doubt. Luis Enrique Barrios, from the Mexican Marxist paper Militante analyses the breakdown of talks and future prospects.