Echoes of the Class War (Oct 16) - Occupy Earth!

[Note: from now on my news review will have a weekly instead of just irregular format. To compensate, I will probably write more single-topic entries - but don't count on it too much anyhow. My idea is to write this compilation every friday, saturday or sunday - we'll see how it works].

As you can imagine the theme of the day is the World Revolution Day protests. I'll surely write more in the upcoming days in a more reflexive manner but these are the many many news of protests that have been spurting yesterday and the days before:

America:

Times Square - NYC

People arrested when trying to close their accounts at Citybank (NYC) ··> Naked Capitalism (with videos), PO (video). Also at Santa Cruz' Bank of America ··> Corrente (with video).

Police storms also protest in Denver ··> video at PO.

Protests spread to Canada: Toronto, Vancouver.

Large numbers in Times Square, New York (video at PO), at least 70 arrested (video at PO). Earlier in the week, police renounced to evict Zuccotti Park as resistance gathered stronger (WSNS),

Elsewhere in the USA: Reno, Delaware Co., Bellingham, San Francisco, Tallahassee, New York City (at night), Miami (Kaos[es] says they have camped at the Government Center)

Mexico: protests in Mexico City (some 5000 people),  Guadalajara, Tijuana, Querétaro, Puebla, Monterrey and even the much troubled Ciudad Juárez ··> Kaos[es].

Chile:

Some 30,000 people demonstrated in the capital ··> Kaos[es].

Earlier in the week, police charged against student protesters again ··> video at PO.

Elsewhere in Latin America: Buenos Aires ··> Kaos[es], Quito, ··> Kaos[es].

Europe:

Protests all across the continent ··> general videos via PO: Rome, Berlin, London, Brussels, London, Madrid, Rome.

Brussels

Massive protests in Rome turned violent (video at PO, video at BBC), dozens injured. The situation in Italy has been heating up along the week, with more and more protests against social cuts and discredited PM Berlusconi (video at PO) and was already quite violent, with students at Milan earlier in the week assaulting the office of Goldman Sachs (video at PO).

Madrid - Puerta del Sol

 

Uni occupation at Barcelona

Massive protests also in the State of Spain (Kaos[es], includes video of Madrid):

• Puerta del Sol (Madrid) occupied again by 500,000 people
• 250,000 marched through Barcelona, where they camp again as well, and have occupied faculties and hospitals ··> Kaos[es].
• 50,000 protested in Seville
• 35,000 in Valencia
• 20,000 in Vigo
• 20,000 in Málaga
• 15,000 in Mieres (Asturias)
• 15,000 in Santander
• 11,000 in Bilbao
• 10,000 in Granada
• 10,000 in Palma de Majorca
• c. 4000 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Valladolid, Almería, Huelva, Zaragoza, Salamanca
• 'thousands' in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Murcia, Logroño
• less important numbers in Cádiz, Jaén

In Barcelona as well, a building was squatted to give housing to evicted families ··> Kaos[es].

A home is not any luxury but a right

Update: in Pamplona a large demo also took to the streets ··> Ateak Ireki[es] (includes video of the many with very nice percussion show).

Update: photo gallery of the Bilbao protest ··> Fickr (via Branka[eu]).

They say shit, we say amen (80s punk song) before the Pirate-Basque banner

Thousands took Lisbon as well (Kaos[es]). The Army announces that they will not repress any popular revolt (Kaos[es]).

Police attacks students in Dublin, who had occupied the Finance Ministry (video at PO), Irish Central Bank besieged by demonstrators (Kaos[es]).

Thousands of protesters in London (left) before St. Paul Cathedral ··> video at PO, The Guardian.

London

In Greece also (Kaos[es]) but the whole week has been one of struggles, with a general strike earlier, etc. Municipal workers (severely affected by budget cuts) are on strike since  yesterday 15th to the 20th in protest, the last two days are also general (national) strike ··> Contra Info, Occupy London, WSWS.

Elsewhere in Europe (partly from Kaos[es]): Iceland, Brussels, Warsaw, Cologne, Munich, Amsterdam, Zürich, Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris...

Asia, Africa, Oceania:

Morocco: Police charged against thousands of demonstrators in Rabat (Kaos[es]).

Palestine: demos reported in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and Kiryat Shmona (Kaos[es]).

Philippines: Protests in Manila against inequality ··> video at PO.

Indonesia (just a mention: Kaos[es]).

Singapore: demos forbidden by the fascist regime (Kaos[es]).

China: Hong-Kong: 200 people (Kaos[es]).

Taiwan: Taipei: 100 people (Kaos[es]).

Seoul: 50 people (Kaos[es]).

Tokyo: several thousands (Kaos[es], includes video). 

Australia: 300 people demonstrate in Sydney (Kaos[es]).

New Zealand: some 500 people gathered in Wellington and Auckland, plus some others at Dunedin and New Plymouth (Kaos[es]).

See also: Al Jazeera 15-Oct blog,  The Guardian live blog, Gara[es], editorial opinion at WSWS.

________________ . ________________

In other developments:

Basque Country:

Tens of thousands demonstrated for independence at Bilbao on Wednesday ··> Branka[eu],

132 people denounced tortures in the Southern Basque Country in 2010, half of them in Navarre ··> Gara[es]: news article, report (PDF).

Police attack against Herriko Taberna (People's Tavern) in the Old Quarter of Bilbao. Dead activists' photos decomissed, a worker threatened, and two workers set to appear before the Spanish Inquisition (Audiencia Nacional, political tribunal of fascist heritage) next Wednesday ··> Branka[es].

'Zombies' take Caja Navarra (CAN, regional savings bank) ··> Ateak Ireki[es].

Catalonia:

Antifascists attack Nazi club at Poble Nou (Barcelona). Two arrested ··> Sare Antifaxista[es].

Farce trial against communists ··> SA[es].

France: Lille: thousands of antifascists respond to Nazi rally ··> La Haine (photos and video).

NATO:

Protest in Brussels against NATO's war crimes in Libya ··> video at PO.

Bomb attacks (not exploded) in Germany against railroads in protest of Afghan War. A group named 'Hekla, Reception Committee' claimed the placing of several home-made petrol bombs in several railroads in the Central European country ··> SA[es].

Ireland: nurses march in Dublin against emergency services overcrowding ··> video at PO.

Germany: the Nazi past of BMW owner clan comes to light. Other infamous pro-Nazi companies and personalities were Hugo Boss, Bertelsmann, Standard Oil (now Exxon and Chevron), Henry Ford, IBM, Rockefeller Foundation, Joe Kennedy, Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Deutsche Bank, IG-Farben (now Bayer, Basf and Hoest), Krupp, Siemens, Varta, Bosch, Daimler Benz, Volkswagen, all major Swiss banks, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Westinghouse, General Electric, ITT... ··> SA[es], El País[es].

Greece: opinion: Michael Hudson denies that the Greek people ever gave consent the debt or the cuts ··> The Real News video at Naked Capitalism.

Ukraine, Russia: Nazi terrorist killed by his own grenade. Aleksey Korshunov, a well known Russian Nazi murderer, died in yesterday at Zaporozhe (Ukraine) when an explosive device he carried exploded. He is accused of the murders of Stanislav Markelov, Ivan Khutorskoy and judge Eduard Chuvashov ··> Sare Antifaxista[es].

Syria:  

Death toll hits 3000 since protests began ··> BBC. 

Army murders mourners at Damasucs ··> Al Jazeera.

Exiles in Jordan protest against Assad

Yemen: Army attacks demonstrators at Sanaa, murdering at least 16. NATO and UN accused of double standards ··> Al Jazeera (incl. video).

USA, Iran: opinion: Operation Fast and Furious or how to marry Al Qaeda and Teheran ··> Pepe Escobar at Al Jazeera.

USA: BP accused of terrorizing activist citizens:

Steven Aguinaga (left), who filed a lawsuit against BP and Washington's handling of the oil disaster, saw himself charged with drunk driving without any test performed. After paying the fines, he saw that his iPhone had been replaced by a brand new one. 

Cherry Frotlin, who marched on foot to Washington D.C. to bring the plea of Gulf Residents to Obama, saw her car damaged and her husband, who works for the oil corporation, transferred to another rig.

In the recent past, pipeline inspectors used to suffer death threats and even broken arms, that's how things work in the Gulf of Mexico, USA.

··> Al Jazeera.

Haiti: earthquake victims forcibly evicted from camps after Christian NGO Oxfam left the country (not profitable?) ··>  AlterNet.

Honduras: Canal 10 journalists form union and are fired ··> LINYM[es].

Nepal: struggle within the Maoist Party ··> MyRepublica, Revolution in South Asia.

Japan nuclear crisis:

Japan's Nuclear Agency calculated 'China Syndrome' two weeks after the accident... and kept it secret ··> Fukushima Diary.

Infrared photos of Fukushima Dai Ichi reactors ··> Ex-SKF.

Reactor 1

Leak of actual contamination official report in Fukushima at Fukushima Diary:

Soil from Hayasaka,Namie machi 7/2/2011> 564,215Bq/Kg
Mushroom from Teshichiro Namie machi 9/23/2011> 404,814Bq/kg (5,000Bq per mushroom)
Soil in a rice field from Tsushima Namie machi 8/22/2011> 254,110Bq/kg

Fukushima rice, radioactive or not, cleared for consumption by the government ··> Ex-SKF.

Japanese consumer: We rely now on Moroccan octopus and Chilean salmon ··> The Globe and Mail.

Strontium-90, posing huge health danger and with a half-life of 29 years, widespread in parts of Japan, including Tokyo ··> CNN, The Australian, EneNews.

Citizen who broke the news on Strontium-90 in Tokyo suffers death threats and closes down his blog. He said:

The whole purpose of my studying the radiation and radiation contamination and sharing information has been to protect my family, especially our young daughter. There is no point in doing so if my family's safety is threatened because of it. Please understand.

··> Ex-SKF.

Japan tolerates radiation levels in tap water 20 times greater than around Chernobyl ··> The Mainichi Daily News, EneNews.

Tokyo amusement park and other locations with greater radioactivity than Fukushima ··> PhilStar, AFP, EneNews. But in at least one case it was caused by radium residues (of medical origin) dumped under a house near a kindergarten ··> The Guardian.

Song of the day: Meltdown! by Kiyoshiro Imawano (via Ex-SKF):

This Japanese musician (unknown to me until yesterday) saw some of his songs unpublished by Toshiba in 1988 because of the anti-nuclear and anti-war content. He died of cancer in 2009.