• On Friday, a million workers belonging to Italy’s largest union went on strike across the nation to protest proposed austerity cuts by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.

• Despite some acts of violence, 25,000 peacefully protested the policies of the G20 in Toronto over the weekend amidst a heavy police presence.

• Tens of thousands of opposition supporters marched in Taiwan’s capital Saturday to protest the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, a trade agreement with China opponents said will undermine the island’s self-rule and harm its economy.

• On Saturday, people gathered and held hands to form a symbolic line in the sand for 15 minutes as part of the “Hands Across the Sand” demonstrations organized in the US and abroad to pressure elected officials against any expansion of offshore drilling and to promote “clean” energy. In the U.S. nearly 700 rallies took place in all 50 states.

• Egyptian dissident Mohamed El Baradei led over 4,000 in a protest in Alexandria on Friday demanding an end to police brutality.

• In Michigan, thousands rallied on the state Capitol in Lansing on Thursday to urge lawmakers not to cut funding for public education.

• On Friday, 40 demonstrators greeted Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean at a Melbourne hotel when he arrived at a meeting to approve a deal to export up to 20 million tons of polluting La Trobe Valley brown coal to Vietnam.

• An estimated 797,000 workers demonstrated and unions staged nearly 200 marches in several French cities Thursday to protest President Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.

• Around 50 cyclists in Brussels left their clothes behind Sunday during Cyclonudista, an annual naked protest meant to draw attention to the monopolization of public space by cars. The event was part of larger World Naked Bike Ride campaign.

• Postal workers picketed outside an Orlando post office on Monday to protest a proposed elimination of Saturday mail delivery to cut costs.

• In El Paso, Texas about 300 people marched in front of the Border Patrol offices on Tuesday to protest the June 7th killing of 14 year-old Sergio Adrían Hernández Güereca by a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

• 1,500 members of the Swedish Dockworkers Union on Wednesday launched  a week-long boycott of cargo to and from Israel to protest the raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine people last month.

• About 200 unionized Phoenix employees marched to a meeting of the City Council on Wednesday to demand that officials protect local jobs and refuse to outsource more municipal services.

• Anti-BP protesters from Greenpeace disrupted a speech by the company’s chief of staff at a major oil conference in London yesterday, urging the company to change its ways following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

• Members of an indefinite vigil held in front of the Massachusetts State House have reached their 17th day of protest against the anti-immigrant amendments added to the budget bill.

• More than 100 gay rights protesters marched in Toronto on Saturday to demand greater rights for all minority populations marginalized because of their gender, sexuality or socioeconomic status.

• Students and staff at 100 colleges and universities in Great Britain are protesting funding cuts that could keep 200,000 people out of universities next year.

• Students at the University of Puerto Rico voted to end their two-month strike against massive budget cuts on Monday after agreeing to a package with the administration that includes an extension of tuition waivers, the cancellation of a fee that would have drastically raised education costs, a commitment not to arbitrarily punish strike participants, and rejection of school privatization plans.

• Israeli soldiers injured several protesters on Sunday in an attack on a nonviolent demonstration against illegal settlements and the construction of the Israeli separation wall in the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem.

• 12,000 Minnesota nurses voted to hold an open-ended strike on Monday following retaliation from employers after a one-day strike on June 10.

• Hundreds of demonstrators, condemning Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, picketed at the Port of Oakland on Sunday and may have prevented an Israeli cargo ship from unloading for the day.

• Some 5,000 people protested in the capital of Kosovo on Friday against a government decision last month to ban Muslim head scarves in public schools.

• More than 80 activists of the opposition Popular Front Party in Baku, Azerbaikan were detained in a rally on Saturday for protesting government restrictions on freedom of assembly in preparation for upcoming elections.

• About 100 rallied in Media, Pennsylvania on Thursday to demand that policy makers increase business taxes to help close the state budget gap, rather than cutting education and social services.

• Dozens of Palestinian residents from the village of Al-Ma’asara protested the confiscation of their land caused by the construction of the Israeli separation wall on Friday.

• Dozens protested outside City Hall in New York City Thursday in a rally to save New York’s public libraries from budget cuts. The mayor’s proposed budget calls for almost $75 million in cuts to city libraries.

• More than 75 bicyclists paraded through Madison, WI on Saturday, most starting out naked but ending up clothed, in order to bring attention to the causes of energy independence and body acceptance.

• Egyptian security forces beat and arrested dozens of protesters on Sunday when they attempted to march through downtown Cairo in the latest demonstration against police brutality following the death of a young man earlier this month.

• Hundreds of Los Angeles students at Lawndale High School walked out of class Wednesday to protest a controversial decision to transfer the school’s top teachers to a neighboring school.

• Around 3,000 South Africans marched in Durban Wednesday to denounce FIFA and their government for spending 33 billion rands (4.3 billion USD) in preparation for the World Cup while millions live in poverty. Also, dozens of security workers walked off the job hours before the Brazil-North Korea soccer match Tuesday to over a pay dispute.

• West Virgina residents opposed to mountaintop removal mining rallied at the capitol in Charleston on Tuesday. The group, which calls itself  ‘Appalachia Rising’ is attempting to rally Appalachian residents opposed to mountaintop removal to join in a mass demonstration set for Sept. 27 in Washington.

• Protesters gathered outside the office of U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) on Wednesday to demand that Perriello vote against allocating an additional $33.5 billion to fund the war in Afghanistan.

• About a dozen activists rallied on Wednesday in Samara, in central Russia to protest a new law which they say will lead to the commercialization of education in their country.

• In Nepal, indigenous groups, with the backing of  several opposition parties have promised to launch a strong protest movement against the construction a controversial 269 metre dam if surveying and evacuations of villagers go forward. The Sapta Kosi Multipurpose Project dam will submerge at least 50 Nepalese villages.

• Fourteen people were arrested in Denver on Tuesday during an immigration rights protest for kneeling and blocking traffic in front of the Federal Court House.

• On Monday, dozens of Palestinians and international activists held a nonviolent protest in the town of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip against the Israeli-imposed buffer zone in Gaza following an Israeli incursion onto Palestinian-owned farm land earlier in the day.

• A strike over pay by the security stewards at World Cup stadiums spread to half the tournament’s 10 venues yesterday, forcing police to step in and assume their duties.

• Several hundred activists gathered in New York City’s Union Square on Monday at a rally to protect  homeless LGBT youth sponsored by the Ali Forney Center.

• Some 800 Burmese migrants have begun a hunger strike in a Malaysian immigration camp after the UN’s refugee agency stopped interviewing detainees about potential refugee status.

• On Tuesday, a dozen protesters gathered in front of NYPD headquarters to speak out against what they called the misuse of disorderly conduct charges against the homeless.

• In Sweden, around 30 Greenpeace activists broke into the Forsmark nuclear plant on Monday to demand that parliament vote against allowing new nuclear facilities to be built  in the country.

• On Monday, 250 rallied at a University of Illinois Board of Trustees meeting to protest tuition hikes and a concurrent salary raise of approximately $170,000 for University President Michael Hogan.

• More than 3,500 Romanians took to the streets outside the Parliament in Bucharest on Tuesday to protest proposed austerity measures Prime Minister Emil Bloc said must be made to meet the demands of a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

• Four people were arrested Tuesday at a Wake County, North Carolina school board meeting. The group of civil rights activists staged a nonviolent protest against measures they say will lead to re-segregation in county schools.

• 1,000 New York City high school students walked out of classes on Friday to protest the proposed elimination of free student metro cards.

• A series of labor strikes pushing for higher wages and better conditions spread through China last week. Some 1,700 workers at a Honda Lock factory staged a march, while 2,000 workers at a Taiwanese computer parts plant walked off their jobs.

• Doctors in Massachusetts protested the use of squirrel monkeys in a NASA-funded experiment to test the effects of radiation in space on June 10.

• Thousands gathered to protest a youth’s killing by police in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

• A rally was held in Sofia, Bulgaria on Thursday to protest Neo-Nazi attacks against a peaceful refugee’s rights demonstration days earlier.

• Tens of thousands of Germans gathered in Berlin on Saturday to protest Chancellor Angela Merkel’s austerity measures.

• A Saudi man walked on an electric wire to protest frequent power cuts in his community. The man said that he wanted to prove that the wires often did not carry electricity.

• Women and children in Nepal stage a demonstration to protest against human trafficking.

• In Copenhagen, tens of thousands of people demonstrated outside Parliament to protest the Danish government’s three-year austerity package.

• An Irish nurse sat atop a ladder for seven hours to protest her family’s eviction from their home for back-rent.

• Thousands of priests from around the world rally in Rome in support of the Pope.

• More than 5,000 Guatemalan peasants blocked a border crossing with Mexico in protest against constant power outages in parts of the western province of San Marcos.

• Eight Roman Catholic women staged a one-minute demonstration for women’s ordination yesterday in St Peter’s Square before police intervened.

• Workers gathered outside the annual general meeting of Taiwanese IT giant Foxconn in Taipei yesterday to protest a rash of employee suicides.

• Hundreds of civil servants rallied outside the finance ministry building in Madrid yesterday to protest government austerity measures. Tens of thousands more stayed home from work.

• Concerned citizens of Lexington, Kentucky rallied at a local branch on Sunday to protest PNC Bank’s financing of mountaintop removal coal mining. They released a banner inside attached to some helium balloons, which said “PNC + Your Money = Toxic Tap Water.”

• Greenpeace activists cut fishing nets to release endangered bluefin tuna caught off the coast of Malta on Monday.

• Approximately 650 workers from the Arco Steel company in Sadat City, Egypt continued their strike for the eighth consecutive day yesterday to protest the breach of a contract.

• Several Yemenis staged a sit-in in front of the Prime Minister office in Sanaa yesterday to protest the “indiscriminate” shelling of the southern town of Daleh.

Despite the rain, around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday to march in protest of Israel’s May 31st attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Only 5 days prior, many of these same activists gathered on this same city block in a significantly smaller demonstration in support of the embarking 6-ship convoy, which carried over 600 international activists and 10,000 tons of aid meant for the besieged residents of Gaza. This latest, much larger protest is one of many actions against the illegal attack across the globe, from Malaysia to Beirut to Sweden.

Showing up in force were hundreds of veteran Palestinian-rights activists representing numerous organizations, including Jews Say No, the Palestinian right-to-return coalition Al-Awda, and the orthodox Anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta. But, as the large turnout suggests, there was something different about these latest protests.

The crowd included many folks like Michael, who was watching the rally enthusiastically from outside the police barrier. “It’s nice to see this,” he said. “It’s nice to see people are finely waking up.”

Michael, who stopped by the demonstration after work, is not an experienced activist; he is one of a growing number of conscientious citizens pushed to speak up and take action by Israel’s increasingly brutal and illegitimate aggression. Echoing the words of many attendees, Michael said, “This, for me, was a boiling point.”

As protesters made their way down 42nd Street towards Times Square, where the gathering wrapped up, they expressed dismay and frustration over Israel’s attack on the flotilla, as well as over the ongoing siege of Gaza, which necessitated the flotilla’s mission. Sarah Wellington, with the Activist Response Team, said, “I’m here because we need to stand up and speak out against Israel shamelessly murdering people.” She handed out signs reading “Israel attacks again” and “Stop the Israeli blockade.”

Condemnation of the United States and its policy of unconditional support for Israel was equally prevalent. Dana Balicki, an organizer with the peace group Code Pink, called the U.S. response “abhorrent.” Signs and chants demanded an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, which amounted to at least $7 million each day during Fiscal Year 2009, and urged President Obama to hold Israel accountable for its intransigence.

Activist Debra Sweet said she felt that Americans have a particular responsibility to hold their government accountable since the U.S. provides Israel with such enormous funding. Code Pink’s Balicki stressed the need to put pressure on the Obama administration to stop letting Israel get away with continued indefensible violence against civilians. As more Americans wake up and speak out, Obama is bound to feel the pressure.

“There will be more protests,” Balicki promised. “Operation Cast Lead was a tipping point for a lot of Americans, this is another.”