The third annual World Social Forum will open today in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and will feature the largest delegation of U.S. participants since its first edition in 2001. This year, U.S. participation is expected to number close to 1000, more than double that of last year, and will be the second-largest country delegation after the host, Brazil.

Conceived as a popular response to the World Economic Forum, the closed-door summit of business executives and world political leaders which meets annually in Davos, Switzerland, the WSF attracted nearly 15,000 participants to its first gathering in January 2001 and over 60,000 to its second in February 2002, both of which also took place in Porto Alegre. This year, organizers expect the number of participants to swell to 100,000. (It's just be announced that the next WSF, in 2004, will be taking place in India!)

Many of the Americans attending come from community-level grassroots organizing efforts, including a 100- person grassroots Global Justice delegation, frontline community activists from the New Voices on Globalization project, and representatives from the U.S. peace movement.

Notable U.S. personalities featuring in Forum events include leading author and activist Noam Chomsky, and actor and longtime activist, Danny Glover.

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