Police Violence

At 1:30 this morning police in full riot gear attacked the participants of Occupy Boston, which had peacefully gathered on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Without any regard for the protester's constitutional rights, the Boston Police Department made no distinction between protesters, medics, or legal observers, arresting legal observer Ursula Levelt, who serves on the steering committee for the National Lawyers Guild, as well as four medics attempting to care for the injured.

Yesterday, October 5th, another large demonstration of the occupy wall st movement developed into even more police aggression. As some trade unions (such as the local faction of the Transport Union of America) urged their members to participate the march swelled to around 20,000 people, according to organizers. Many other organizations took part in the protest, proving initial predictions that they would swell rapidly.

Most reports agree that even though initially peaceful, some tension started around 9:00 PM, after police barricaded Liberty Square, closing off Broadway and Liberty. Witnesses have confirmed that about 200 people tried to push, or were pushed, through these barricades and police responded with pepper spray, as well as penning them in with orange netting. These events can be seen in the video below. Also, OccupyWallSt twitter confirmed that 18 people were arrested.

At least 40 injured and Rome left billowing in smoke after anti-austerity protesters clash with riot police in front of Parliament for over two hours tonight.

After weeks of dithering on the precipice of his own downfall, Silvio Berlusconi tonight survived a crucial vote of confidence, by one of the narrowest possible margins, allowing his government it to push through its proposed package of deeply unpopular austerity measures.

The cutbacks and tax hikes had been demanded by the European Central Bank in exchange for its buy-up of Italian bonds on secondary markets, after markets turned their sights on Italy last month, pushing the government’s borrowing costs close to the level where Greece had previously required an EU bailout.

But as Parliament prepared to vote on the austerity measures, violent clashes broke out between protesters and riot police. Downtown Rome was left billowing in smoke and littered with debris as at least 40 protesters were injured by random rounds of police baton charges.

While Madrid is traditionally empty in August, the city is now literally packed with Catholic pilgrims of all ages, who have come from all around the world to attend the World Youth Days, presided by the Pope Benedict XVI. Authorities estimate that around 1.4 million people have flooded the city. From the very beginning the event has created resistance in the general public, as the investment of approximately 70-100 million euros is seen as exaggerated, in a time when politicians are demanding austerity measures for a country facing severe economic recession. They criticize, for example, that the centre of Madrid will be closed to traffic for more than four days, causing a lot of problems for normal citizens who have to work. Furthermore, the pilgrims have been given benefits that any unemployed Spaniard would desperately need: they have been given places to stay for free, food for free and while public transport in Madrid went up by 50% this month, being a pilgrim gives you a whopping 80% discount for all travels. This has caused major irritation in an already angry population, who are demanding answers as to why a constitutionally secular country should give this kind of support to any religion, while at the same time neglecting it’s own citizens.

Over 800 arrested during running street battles, as student protesters defy official protest ban to demonstrate for equal access to education.

For two months now, young Chileans have been taking to the streets to protest against neoliberal reforms in education spearheaded by the country’s right-wing government. Yesterday, the protracted youth uprising culminated in the public defiance by thousands of high school and university students of an official protest ban. Riot police responded with tear gas, water canons, baton charges and mass arrests.

Over the past days the Spanish National Police force has coordinated to evict many of the squares that continued to be occupied by the 15M movement. The squares in Palma de Mallorca, Manacor, Santa Cruz de Tenerfe, Badajoz, Castellon, Gandia and las Palmas have been emptied forcefully and cleaned up. The last one to fall was the camp in Valencia, which was evicted early in the morning, at around 5.30 am local time and without warning. Most of the camps were small and the people staying there were coordinating the information booth left in most squares, as well as other permanent activities. This made most evictions easy and pacific.

With Greece sinking in chaos, the country's MP's have voted in favor of the five-year austerity plans prescribed by the UE along with the IMF and other foreign banks. The vote, thought by some to be very hard to predict, turned out as a clear statement in favor of the harsh measures opposed by the population (a summary of the conditions can be found below). In the end PM Yorgos Papandreu achieved 155 votes in favor, 138 against and five abstentions, thus avoiding bankruptcy at a cost nobody seems to want to pay. The voting was made under such pressure that a member of the ruling party Panagiotis Kouroublis was expelled for voting negatively, reducing the party's majority to 154 seats.

Today at 13.30 hours the Spanish national police attacked protesters who had been occupying the steps of parliament since last night. This comes after the official page for the camp in Valencia called for a protest before the Corts Valencianes, the main legislative organ of the Comunitat Valenciana. Today the new members were to be sworn into their charges after being elected on the past 22nd of May, and many of them, mostly belonging to the right wing Partido Popular, did so even though they are currently facing serious corruption charges.