'Occupy' protest spreads to 82 nations

Protests against corporate greed, executive excess and public austerity began to gel into the start of a worldwide movement yesterday as tens of thousands marched in scores of cities.

The "Occupy Wall Street" protest, which started in Canada and spread to the United States, and the long-running Spanish "Indignant" and Greek anti-cuts demonstrations coalesced on a day that saw marches or occupations in 82 countries.

Some protests were small, as in Tokyo, where only 200 turned up; some were large, as in Spain, where about 60 separate demonstrations were staged; and some were muted, as in London, where nearly 2000 intending to march on the Stock Exchange obeyed police who turned them back.

About 175 protesters were arrested in Chicago when they refused to take down their tents and leave a city park when it closed.

The arrests were mostly peaceful, police said.

Only demonstration, in Rome, was violent. Here, among an estimated 100,000 protesters, a few broke away and hurled bottles, smashed shop windows, torched cars and attacked news crews.

There were reports that the Defence Ministry had been partly trashed. Most of the disorder was near the Colosseum, and police charged the protesters and fired water cannon.

Some demonstrators fled, but others turned against the troublemakers, trying, with limited success, to stop them.

Italy, with a national debt ratio second only to Greece's in the 17-nation eurozone, is rapidly becoming a focus of concern in Europe's debt crisis. But even in Germany - part of the solution to the crisis rather than the problem - about 4000 people marched through Berlin with banners that urged the end of capitalism.

Some scuffled with police as they tried to get near the country's parliamentary buildings. In Frankfurt, continental Europe's financial capital, about 5000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank.

In Spain, six marches were converged on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza just before dusk. This is the country where, in May, groups which became known as the Indignant Movement established the first around-the-clock protest camps that lasted for weeks in cities and towns.

Portuguese angry at their Government's handling of the economic crisis were due to protest in central Lisbon.

Portugal is one of three European nations - the others being Greece and Ireland - that have already needed an international bailout.

In Stockholm, 500 people gathered to hear speakers denounce capitalism at a peaceful rally. They held up red flags and banners that read: "We are the 99 per cent" and "We refuse to pay for capitalism's crisis". The reference was to the world's richest 1 per cent, who control billions in assets, while billions around the world live in poverty or are struggling economically.

Bilbo Goransson, a trade union activist, declared: "There are those who say the system is broke. It's not. That's how it was built. It is there to make rich people richer."

The "Occupy London" protesters planned to take the plaza in front of the Stock Exchange but were turned back at Temple Bar by mounted police. The crowds returned to St Paul's churchyard where WikiLeaks' Julian Assange spoke briefly.

With only one arrest it was a peaceful event, drawing a wide profile of protesters. American Mark Manney, 36, said: "I'm here on a business trip but I wanted to lend my support. I think that banks are responsible and we have to change as a society."

Singer Billy Bragg was also in the crowd. "Today is about accountability," he said. "People want to see a change in the way things are done."

He believed yesterday's protest represented a shift in the way the public saw demonstrations. "I think the attitude coming out of protests here and on Wall St has been incredibly positive," he said. "It's a desire to build, rather than smash things up."

In Canada, hundreds gathered in Toronto's financial district to decry what they said was Government-abetted corporate greed which has served elites at the expense of the majority. Further protests were planned yesterday for other Canadian cities, while in the US, marches were scheduled in cities large and small.

In the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, there was a different tone: hundreds walked through the streets carrying pictures of Che Guevara, old communist flags and placards that read: "Death to capitalism, freedom to the people".

Turnout was light in Asia, where the global economy is booming.

In Sydney, about 300 people gathered, cheering a speaker who shouted, "We're sick of corporate greed! Big banks, big corporate power standing over us and taking away our rights!"

Only 200 people protested in Tokyo and in the Philippines about 100 marched on Manila's US embassy.

A group of 100 prominent authors, including Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman and Pulitzer prize-winning novelists Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, signed an online petition declaring their support for "Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world".

And yesterday's New York Times' leading article had some stinging words for British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. "Austerity is a political ideology masquerading as an economic policy ... America has no need to repeat Mr Cameron's failed experiment."

New dividing lines - if not battle lines - are being drawn up.

- INDEPENDENT