• In a march themed with fanciful allusions to Little Red Riding Hood, thousands of protesters swarmed Hong Kong’s streets on Sunday in the first large display of protest since the city’s elite tapped a Beijing ally to become the Chinese territory’s next leader.

• In the Dakotas, members of the proud Lakota Nation began a 48-hour hunger strike on Sunday in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline — and all tar sands pipelines — they say will destroy precious water resources and ancestral lands in the U.S and in Canada.

• Jordanian authorities arrested more than two dozen political activists during protests Saturday critical of King Abdullah II that called for a change of government.

• An estimated 800,000 homeowners in Ireland joined a tax boycott by refusing to pay a new flat-rate $133 property tax by Saturday’s deadline.

• On Saturday, nearly 100 people wore hoodies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin.

• Thousands of Palestinians protested on Friday against Israeli policies of land seizure and control of Jerusalem, leading to clashes with Israeli troops in which a 20-year-old was killed and scores of others were injured.

• Three protesters were arrested Thursday at the UC Board of Regents meeting, when a few dozen activists, some stripped down to swimsuits, called for more transparency in state funding talks and an end to tuition hikes.

• On Thursday, hundreds of Bahrainis staged a sit-in outside the offices of the United Nations in Manama demanding action over the “excessive” use by police of tear gas against protesters.

• Some 50 students at the all-boys Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit were suspended Thursday after walking out of classes in protest of absent teachers, inconsistent classroom instruction and other issues.

A tent held up on a pole over re-occupied Liberty Plaza at 10:30 p.m. on March 17.

Occupy Wall Street celebrated its six-month anniversary yesterday in Zuccotti Park with a fast-forward replay of last fall: re-occupation, carnival, violent eviction, defiance. A morning chalk-in for families and an early afternoon march around the Financial District (actually, two: one silent and one rowdy) began a day of reunion at the movement’s New York home. As re-renamed Liberty Plaza (or Square or Park) became full once again with hundreds of people, the hardy organizers who’ve spent the winter in meetings and arguments were drowned out by joiners, curious visitors, drummers and reporters. A 24-hour re-occupation was called, and new nonviolent defensive formations were rehearsed en masse. They danced, chanted and held a General Assembly. Numbers swelled to close to a thousand when marches from the nearby Left Forum conference joined later in the evening. The whole day was a welcome reminder that in occupation a magic dwells.

Read the rest of this article »

One hundred years after the birth of human rights icon Bayard Rustin, his complicated legacy pushes us to analyze our own complicated times. Vilified in the 1950s for his open homosexuality and again in the 1960s for “selling out” the radical black liberation movement, Rustin’s own history has been recently rescued by the books and movie correctly extolling his incredible gifts as a grassroots organizer, a charismatic orator and a visionary thinker. As preparations proceed for the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (of which Rustin was the chief architect), and the dreams and nightmares of a new generation are being forged against a backdrop of pepper spray and tear gas, it is time to take a deeper look at the relationship between the movements for peace and for justice — movements which are no more “integrated” now than they were 50 years ago.

Read the rest of this article »

I’ve often heard it stated flatly at Occupy Wall Street meetings, sometimes with a touch of exasperation, that “occupation is just a tactic.” This can be a hard idea to come to terms with in a movement called “Occupy.” But, to get technical about it, “nonviolent occupation” is #173 on Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, just before “establishing new social patterns.” As the + Brigades and the Singing Foreclosure Auction Blockades have been showing with aplomb, a whole litany of interesting tactics are available to the movement beyond the now-familiar one of occupying space.

On Wednesday, members of the group Occupy Faith unfurled their first “Parable of an Immoral Budget” in an action that combined a “pray-in” (Sharp’s #167) with “nonviolent obstruction” (Sharp’s #172).

Read the rest of this article »

Across the country, March 1 was as a day of action for defending public education. One of the major themes of the day was fighting the privatization of this public good.

For years, Chicago has served as an incubator for privatization schemes such as unelected school boards, mayoral control and charter schools. But Chicago also boasts some of the best-organized resistance to those policies. Watch this report to hear from some of the organizers leading that fight.

For more, hear my coverage of a recent anti-privatization protest in Brooklyn for Free Speech Radio News, as well as another FSRN report about ongoing actions in California against tuition hikes and budget cuts.

• About 20,000 Russians angry over an election campaign slanted in Putin’s favor and reports of widespread violations in Sunday’s voting rallied in Moscow on Monday. Riot police quickly moved in, dispersing the crowd and detaining hundreds of demonstrators.

• Lakotas on Pine Ridge Indian land in South Dakota were arrested as they blockaded tar sands pipeline trucks from entering their territory on Monday.

• Thousands of students and activists marched on the California State Capitol in Sacramento Monday to protest cuts in higher education in an action dubbed “Occupy the Capitol.”

• As U.S. President Barack Obama met with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington Monday, over 100 protesters converged at a park in front the White House, urging the United States not to support a potential Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• A dozen female environmental activists in Ecuador were detained inside the Chinese embassy Monday for protesting Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa’s decision to sign a deal with a Chinese firm to open a massive copper mine in the Amazon.

• On Saturday, over 100 Bulgarian environmentalist staged a protest rally against looming amendments to the Forestry Act.

• On Friday, thousands of Bahrainis launched what they said would be a week of daily sit-in protests in a Shiite village to commemorate an uprising crushed a year ago.

• On Friday, over twenty-five hundred students protested the possible deportation of 18-year-old student and valedictorian Daniela Pelaez at the North Miami Senior High School.

• Several hundred public school students rallied in support of teachers at the offices of Premier Christy Clark at the World Trade Center in Vancouver on Friday.

Students protesting in Valencia. Photo by Nicholas Hegel McClelland for TIME.

• Thousands of demonstrators turned out in European cities on Wednesday to protest against austerity measures. In Spain, students across the country staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protesters. Meanwhile, unions staged demonstrations in Paris, Athens, Lisbon and Brussels.

• Several thousand supporters of two-time President Jean-Bertrand Aristide filled the streets of Haiti’s capital Wednesday on the eighth anniversary of his ouster, accusing the country’s current leader of not doing enough to improve their lives.

• Students, educators and Occupy Wall Street activists held demonstrations Thursday across California to protest state budget cuts to education, partially shutting down at least one campus, the University of California, Santa Cruz.

• Some University of Florida students gave low grades Thursday to faculty member and state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, filling out evaluations criticizing his support of university budget cuts and taping them to the front of UF’s administration building.

• Dozens gathered outside the Timms Centre at the University of Alberta on Thursday where Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe was being awarded an honorary degree to protest the company’s efforts to privatize water.

• More than 100 Ohio State students held a protest on Thursday against growing college costs and what they say is increasing administrative pressure to run the university like a business.

• About 200 Arcelor Mittal workers from across Spain protested on Thursday against a decision by the company to close its steel factory in Madrid.

• Around 200 residents of Kenya’s coastal island of Lamu protested on Thursday against a planned huge port to be constructed near the UNESCO-listed isle, accusing the government of ignoring their concerns.

• About 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets Thursday in northern Azerbaijan to protest alleged corruption by a district official.

• Millions of people, including members of the nation’s eleven largest trade unions, took to the streets across India today in a nationwide strike that seeks a remedy to rampant inflation, an end to the privatization of public entities, and increased labor protections — including calls for a social security system and a minimum wage.

• Tens of thousands of Muscovites wearing white ribbons ventured out under a light snow Sunday and formed a human chain along the entire 10-mile Garden Ring Road encircling the city center, creating a festive spectacle like nothing anyone remembers seeing before in the Russian capital.

• Thirteen Tibetans, detained last week for protesting against China in front of the United Nations office in Nepal, started an indefinite hunger strike on Monday to press for their release.

• Actress-turned-eco-warrior Lucy Lawless has been arrested with six Greenpeace activists after the group spent four days protesting aboard an oil-drilling ship docked in New Zealand.

• Dozens of women and young children from Kashmiri refugee camps holding placards inscribed with pro-freedom slogans staged a sit-in and a rally on Sunday to invite attention international community on Kashmir.

• In Pakistan, hundreds of tribesmen Saturday kicked off protests and a two-day sit-in against the U.S. drone attacks outside the Parliament House in Islamabad.

• Critics of the 22-year-old authoritarian rule of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev staged protests in four cities Saturday and were met by overwhelming police forces but little violence.

• Five disabled protesters in Bolivia have begun a hunger strike in their campaign demanding that the government pay an annual subsidy to disabled people. About 1,000 disabled Bolivians and their supporters rallied outside the country’s parliament building on Thursday following a 100-day protest journey to the capital to call for the $700 payment.

• Thousands of Bahrainis gathered outside the United Nations headquarters in the capital, Manama, on Wednesday to demand the immediate release of the country’s top human rights activist. Late Tuesday, a Sunni youth group organized a rally of 20,000 people in central Manama protesting the dialogue between the regime and opposition parties.

• South Korean film, TV and music stars who enjoy massive popularity in China gathered in Seoul on Tuesday to protest China’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors.

• A Palestinian who fasted for 66 days to protest his detention without charge ended his hunger strike on Tuesday after the Israeli authorities agreed to release him in mid-April, if no major new evidence is brought against him.

• Five demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday for trespassing at a state office in Vancouver, Washington where they were protesting a cut in the paid hours for some in-home care service workers.

• Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered in Harlem Monday to protest what they call mass incarceration of minority men by a racist prison system.

• In Cambodia, more than 500 employees at a shoe factory in the capital’s Dangkor district went on strike on Wednesday morning after managers failed to respond to a list of workers’ demands.

• Hundreds of protesters blocked streets in eastern Venezuela on Wednesday to demand clean water after a recent oil spill polluted rivers and streams that supply local storage tanks.

• Thousands of supporters of Iran’s opposition Green Movement marched silently through the streets of Tehran on Tuesday to urge the Islamic regime to release political prisoners.

• Outside the White House, hundreds of people rallied on Tuesday to protest China’s treatment of Tibet, ethnic Uyghurs and members of the Falun Gong. Alim Seytoff of the Uyghur American Association urged President Obama to pressure Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on alleged human rights abuses.

• Six Greenpeace protesters were arrested after unfurling a sign in front of the Duke Energy building Wednesday morning, protesting the company’s recently-approved rate hikes.

• In what was billed as a Valentine’s Day message to the state’s lawmakers,  hundreds of activists gathered on Tuesday at Alabama’s Statehouse to protest the state’s  controversial immigration law.

• Flight attendants and ground workers at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport marched in picket lines Tuesday to protest American Airlines’ plans to outsource jobs and cut pay and benefits under a bankruptcy reorganization.

• Thirteen people were arrested inside the lobby of the AT&T building in Atlanta on Monday during a sit-in to stop the company from laying off 740 union workers across the southeastern United States.

• Some 200 Indonesians converged on a Jakarta square on Tuesday to denounce an Islamic vigilante group known for its armed attacks on minorities and moderates.