London saw the largest national trades unionist demonstration of the last 20 years, according to various estimates, from 200 to 400,000 people took part. British trades unions organised it in protest against the austerity programme announced in 2010 by the UK’s coalition government. It wasn’t without violent incidents, as marchers threw bottles of ammonia and paint at the police cordons. A group of men dressed in black broke away from the main body of demonstrators and began to throw paint on shop and bank windows on Oxford Street and New Bond Street. “There were at least two serious cases of property damage, but police think that they aren’t associated with the marchers”, a statement from Scotland Yard said.
Members of so-called “direct-action groups” damaged the popular Topshop store on Oxford Street, a busy shopping street, and a branch of HSBC Bank located nearby. British TV channel Sky News reported that another group of activists threw petrol bombs into the Ritz Hotel on Piccadilly (in the City of Westminster, a central borough of Greater London), smashing windows on the ground floor. There are reports that protestors opposing capitalist “globalisation” entered and damaged property at branches of Santander Bank and Lloyds, shops carrying famous brands, and McDonald’s fast food restaurants. According to police, the attacks involved about 500 people; they moved quickly and sought to create as many problems for the police, in an attempt to overburden law enforcement agencies. Four policemen were injured, 13 protesters were arrested. In addition, demonstrators were hurt, as well; local media sources reported that 14 protesters received minor injuries.
In October 2010, the British government unveiled plans for cuts in state spending over the next five years of more than 80 billion UK Pounds to fight the disastrously growing internal debt of the country. The most tangible social consequence of this program may be the reduction of about 500,000 jobs in the public sector of the economy. Then, the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) announced plans to mount the most ambitious nationwide protest in 20 years in London. The march began at 11.00 UTC (14.00 MSK 07.00 EDT 04.00 PDT) along Victoria Embankment, where the participants proceeded to the centre of London’s Hyde Park, the focal point of the rally.
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On Friday, Canadian MPs expressed their condemnation of the Conservative minority government headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This step automatically opens the way for a general election, scheduled for 2 May. The No Confidence vote proposed by the opposition Liberal Party {the leader of the Liberal Party is Michael Ignatieff, a Russian Orthodox Christian: editor}, was supported by 156 MPs, and 145 voted against it {that means that only 2 non-Conservative MPs voted to uphold the present government, bad news for the “conservative” slimers: editor}. In particular, the draft budget proposed by the Conservatives on Wednesday caused a commotion. The Conservative minority Government was in power in Canada for five years. According to analysts, Harper’s party may lead in the May elections for the third consecutive time, Interfax reported.
26 March 2011
Voice of Russia World Service
http://rus.ruvr.ru/2011/03/26/48001389.html
http://rus.ruvr.ru/2011/03/26/48027404.html
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Read this:
Let’s keep this one to the point. The Speaker of the State Senate in Wisconsin had a law still pending in the courts illegally published on an official website. This proves that the GOP is a pack of criminals in the most literal sense of the word. This is gross and contumacious contempt of the law. Dropout Scott Walker and Weekend Warrior Scott Fitzgerald both belong in prison orange. The Republicans are desperate as they know that the demographic clock is ticking… their base is uneducated ignorant Protestant whites and single-issue white anti-abortion Catholics… two groups that form an increasingly smaller share of the electorate. I always knew that the GOP/Tea Party would resort to illegal and underhanded methods to retain power. It’s a sad day for America… taken with the demonstrations in the UK, Greece, and France, and the fall of the Harper government, it may mean a “crisis” for Neoliberalism… ordinary people now realise that only the rich benefited from Neoliberal “reforms”… they only got the “sloppy seconds”… and the rich want to take that meagre mite away.
If not attended to directly (by an immediate abolition of the tax cuts and perks for the rich), a blow-up in the USA (or any other Western country) would make 1917 seem a child’s exercise… too many people have lost their jobs (and run through their unemployment benefits). The Western media ignores them and acts as though they don’t exist… that doesn’t mean that they’re not there… they do retain the right to vote… the GOP should remember that.
BMD
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