By Evelyn Juan Associated Press A protester in Toronto’s financial district for the ‘Occupy Bay Street’ demonstration on Saturday. TORONTO–Protesters took to the streets of Canada’s financial capital Saturday, kicking off “Occupy Bay Street,” as demonstrators around the world converged on cities from London to Sydney, copying the Occupy Wall Street protests that have convulsed [...]
By Stacy Meichtry A protest against financial institutions that drew tens of thousands of supporters on Saturday took a violent turn as packs of hooded youths waged a city-wide street fight with police. Hundreds of young people launched cobblestones, firecrackers and flares at columns of police who responded with water cannons and tear gas. Police [...]
By Celine Fernandez The Occupy protest movement spread–albeit in a small way–to Malaysia on Saturday. About 50 people gathered at the famous Merdeka Square in downtown Kuala Lumpur in solidarity with the world-wide populist movement that started in New York in recent weeks to protest corporate greed and income inequality. Called Occupy Dataran, the event [...]
For a group that boasted defiance, and even designed a profile picture on Facebook with the words, “we will not remain silent,” the organizers of the planned Occupy Raffles Place event in Singapore were very quiet.
Despite planning a demonstration in Singapore’s financial district at 2 p.m. Saturday, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement and global protests happening across Asia, the organizers themselves failed to turn up. The small crowd at the central square outside Raffles Place MRT station included mostly journalists and photographers, looking listless and bored.
Occupy Seoul got off to a damp, low-key start Saturday, with around 100 protestors gathered outside the headquarters of the Financial Supervisory Service on Yeoido island as rain lashed down and lightning flickered nearby.
Those who braved the conditions were mostly looking to get some attention for a smorgasbord of local issues loosely tied to the message of the Occupy Wall Street protesters that those pulling the levers of capitalism need to be reined in.
The biggest single group at the Seoul event was a busload of women who had traveled from the southern city of Busan armed with placards to protest the failure of Busan Savings Bank earlier this year amid allegations that regulators took payments to overlook the bank’s problems.
A smattering of placards with phrases like “99% strong” linked the protesters to the distant group in New York’s Zuccotti Park. But there was no mistaking particular Japanese concerns. The biggest signs railed against nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Several people, one wearing a giant panda costume, protested Japan’s monetary assistance to China.
Kengo Matsunaga surveyed the small crowd that had turned out for a march starting in central Tokyo’s Hibiya Park, a former military training ground where Japan’s disenchanted have aired their diverse complaints over the past century.
“This is just the beginning,” said the 43-year-old former office automation industry worker and one of the handful of organizers for the event.
The Socialists have taken over Martin Place -– along with the Occupy Sydney movement.
In what has so far been a peaceful, albeit loud, protest, roughly a thousand Sydneysiders have descended on Martin Place, home to Australia’s central bank and two of its largest financial firms, Saturday afternoon. There’s also about two dozen police officers, with hand-made signs filling the area.
Aside from the typical corporate-handout bashing that has become a staple of these events, the most notable squabble so far appears to be between the attendees — those from Australia’s Socialist movement and those not.
SYDNEY — Usually faced with the task of managing Australia’s inflation rate, the country’s central bank will be staring at a different kind of pressure from its windows on Saturday afternoon — potentially thousands of protesters from theOccupy Wall Street movement.
Taking a cue from the recent protests in New York, Chicago, Boston and several other major cities around the U.S. and even the world, seasoned protesters, university students and labor organizations in Sydney have organized their own Occupy Sydney rally for Saturday. The event is taking place at Martin Place, home to the Australian central bank and two of the country’s largest financial firms.
Barely a week goes by without at least one major public demonstration in downtown Seoul, often bringing traffic to a standstill as long lines of police ring-fence protest groups that are generally noisy but mostly orderly. So it’s not that much of a surprise that activists here are embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement, with a sister protest planned in Seoul for Saturday afternoon.
Read the full post on Korea Real Time.
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