Activists scuffled with police in London and decried the wealthy in Hong Kong yesterday as an unprecedented outcry against corporate greed and government cutbacks spread worldwide.
Inspired by the US’ “Occupy Wall Street” and Spain’s “Indignants,” people took to the streets in a rolling action targeting 951 cities in 82 countries from Asia to Europe, Africa and the Americas.
It was the biggest show of power yet by a movement born on May 15 when a rally in Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square sparked a protest that spread internationally.
Photo: EPA
Anger over unemployment and opposition to the financial elite hung over the protests, which coincided with a Paris meeting of G20 financial powers pre-occupied by the eurozone debt crisis.
However, the demands and the sense of urgency among the activists varied depending on the city.
Scuffles broke out in London where about 300 people rallied in the financial district by Saint Paul’s Cathedral, raising banners saying: “Strike back!”; “No cuts!” and “Goldman Sachs is the work of the devil!”
Three lines of police, and one line at the rear on horseback, blocked them from heading to the London Stock Exchange and pushed back against lead marchers, some wearing masks.
“I am here today mainly as a sense of solidarity with the movements that are going on around the world,” said Ben Walker, a 33-year-old teacher from the eastern English city of Norwich. “We’re hoping for a kind of justice in the global financial system.”
He carried a sleeping bag and said he would spend the next night or two in the area.
In Madrid, 100 people in one of a series of five marches set off for an evening rally in the emblematic Cibeles square from where they were to proceed to Puerta del Sol for all-night rallies.
“The fight goes on!” they chanted at the start of a six-hour march from the southern suburb of Leganes to the center of Madrid.
Thousands more marched in Rome where 1,500 police were on patrol and famous monuments, including the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, were closed down and four metro stations were shut.
“Today is only the beginning. We hope to move forward with a global movement,” said one protester, Andrea Muraro, a 24-year-old engineering student from northern Padua.
A small group of about 50 protesters gathered outside of Africa’s biggest bourse, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, to voice concern over the country’s widening gap between rich and poor.
As the day began, about 500 people gathered in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district to vent their anger at the inequities and excesses of free-market capitalism, while 100 demonstrators in Tokyo also voiced fury at accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant.
About 600 demonstrators in Sydney set up camp outside Australia’s central bank, where the plight of refugees and Aboriginal Australians was added to the financial concerns.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique