Angry Europeans stage their own "Occupy Wall Street"

Oct16, 2011 | sourced Xinhua

ROME (Xinhua) -- The Big Apple residents this Saturday saw a loud echo of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in where many of their ancestors came, as ever-tightening austerity measures to contain the debt crisis have made life harder across the Europe.

Rome witnessed a turbulent day as protests turned violent in many corners of the city. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse tens of thousands of protesters. Over 70 people were injured in the clashes.

The mood around the San Jiovanni square turned ugly when protesters torch cars and smashed windows. Large columns of smoke could be seen far away from the square.

At least a dozen or so police cars were seen passing through the area.

Witnesses said angry students have torn down railings and advertisement signs by the streets. They armed themselves with the iron bars obtained at the site to force their ways forward.

At the Colosseum, one of the greatest works of Roman architecture, the police went into clashes with protesting students, and the youngsters attacked the policemen with stones.

In London, thousands of people gathered outside St Paul's Cathedral in central London.

The protestors originally planned to assemble in front of St Paul's Cathedral and then march towards the City of London to "occupy" the Square Mile.

Yet the police immediately blockaded all the exits of lanes and streets nearby the Cathedral, leaving protestors stuck inside "walls of policemen."

"Our Streets!", "We have the right to strike!" a lot of protestors shouted, holding up banners with words like "No cuts," "Fight for every job,", "Bankers got bailout We got sold out," etc.

The "Occupy London" website said the movement is aimed at addressing social and economic injustice in Britain and beyond, as "part of a global movement for real democracy."

Tens of thousands of people flooded streets for demonstrations across Germany.

In capital Berlin, the demonstration started from the Alexanderplatz, a major shopping mall in the eastern city, and then targeted the Chancellor's Office and the Federal Parliament. Thousands of people sit in the square between the two buildings.

Police said some 5,000 people attended a gathering in front of the ECB (The European central bank) building in Frankfurt, a major city in Germany and euro zone's financial center.

Although the Netherlands has one of the lowest unemployment rates of Europe and fares economically well, around 1000 people occupied the financial heart of Amsterdam, which symbolizes for the angry Dutch people the social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money on government.

"I think what we all share is the idea that we have one crisis after the other because the model that we have now is based on greed," former Minister of Culture Ronald Plasterk, who is also participating in this demonstration, told Xinhua.

Protests also took place in nine Portuguese cities, with the largest one in Lisbon involving tens of thousands of people.

Else where in Europe, demonstrators swept cities in Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Belgium, Norway and Greece.

In Brussel, the European Union's capital, more than 6,000 protesters marched all the way from the north station to the Cinquantenaire Park, calling for change and better life.

"Starting from the global financial crisis in 2008, Europe has been living in crisis for three years, and policy makers still cannot come with suitable solutions, thus social crisis comes as no surprise," said Rym Ayadi, senior researcher at the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies.

Still, experts believe that Saturday's march would hardly have any instant, practical results, as many of the protesters had different demands despite their "common anger".

Occupy action turns to U.S., Canada

October16, 2011

NEW YORK – Demonstrations motivated by the Occupy Wall Street movement that started Saturday in New Zealand and then headed west to European cities were being followed by protests in North America, with marches held in cities in the U.S. and Canada.

In New York, about 2,000 protesters marched through the city’s financial district before a rally in Times Square planned to begin at 5 p.m. Eastern. “At the present time, Broadway matinee and evening shows will go on as scheduled,” the Broadway League said in a statement reported by Reuters.

“Wall Street CEOs are doing very well and sitting on tons of money and they’re not contributing their fair share and shared responsibility to the economy,” Ted Fang of the United Auto Workers was quoted as saying by local news station NY1.

In Washington, the March for Jobs and Justice, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and others, was planned as a show of support for President Barack Obama’s jobs proposal. According to a story in the Washington Post, Sharpton, referring to Congress, told the crowd: “If you won’t get the jobs bill done in the suite, we will get the jobs bill done in the street. It’s time for us to occupy Wall Street! Occupy DC! Occupy Alabama!”

Separately, others gathered in a show of support for district voting rights and the Occupy Wall Street movement, eventually joining Sharpton’s group at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial.

About two dozen protesters were reportedly arrested Saturday in Denver, and hundreds marched in Florida’s capital in participating in “Occupy Tallahassee.” At least 500 were expected to attend a rally in downtown Miami.

A few dozen protesters have been camped out for the past week in Charlotte, N.C., not far from the headquarters of the country’s largest bank, Bank of America Corp., according to the Associated Press.

Police in Pittsburgh planned to close several streets for a march ahead of a planned rally and camp in Mellon Green, a small park owned by BNY Mellon, scheduled for 4 p.m. Eastern, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

In Canada, several thousand people gathered in a Toronto park near the city’s financial district, to protest inequality and higher taxes for the rich. Hundreds also reportedly gathered in Montreal, with demonstrators setting up tents in Victoria Park.

By Kate Gibson, Marketwatch

Belgian students ask for coalition government

Wed, Mar30, 2011 10:56:01

Belgium(Xinhua) : Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration in Brussels, capital of Belgium, March 29, 2011. Belgium ties with Iraq as the country remains 289 days without government on Tuesday, setting up a world record. Students hit the streets here on Tuesday to ask for a coalition government between Dutch-speaking North and French-speaking South politicians.
Editor: Yang Lina (Xinhua/Wu Wei)

Protesters rally in central London,Britain against the government's spending cuts and against the military intervention in Libya

Mar27, 2011


Protesters rally at Hyde Park in central London, Britain, March 26, 2011. Tens of thousands of people rallied in central London Saturday in protest against the government's spending cuts and against the military intervention in Libya.





A fire burns in Oxford Circus, during a protest organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), called "The March for the Alternative," in central London March 26, 2011. Tens of thousands of Britons protested against the coalition government's austerity measures on Saturday in the biggest demonstration in the capital since the Iraq War in 2003

(Xinhua/Bimal Gautam)