North America

“Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square,” said Scott Stringer, the Borough of Manhattan’s Democratic Party president, criticizing the way the New York police manhandled reporters and kept them at a distance as they evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters from their camp in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park in the early hours of yesterday.

Thousands of defiant OWS protesters streamed into Zuccotti Park late Tuesday, less than 24 hours after police forcibly removed them from their camp. Police arrested more than 200 people, including about 12 who had chained themselves to each other and to trees. As protesters returned, a judge upheld the city’s ban preventing them from bringing backpacks and tents into the park

Mayor Bloomberg ordered the eviction of Zuccotti Park around 2 AM this morning. The police pushed people with batons, destroyed tents, used pepper spray to disperse the protesters, and arrested as many as two hundred.
It is striking that after 5,000 years of civilization, including the development of languages, art, science, technology, democracy and cities like New York.

Pressenza spoke with Ehad Lotayef who was deported yesteday from an Israeli detention center to Canada. Lotayef was arrested with David Heap on the Canadian ship «Tahrir» on Friday
November 4th. The Israeli navy intercepted the ship about 35 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip in International waters. The Tahrir was part of a flottila to Gaza with the Irish Saoirse vessel.

On Monday morning 3h30 am, the Toronto firefighters were called on Occupy Toronto site the St James Park and took a look at the small fire. The firefighters spoke to the people responsible for it, and decided not to extinguish it because it was considered a sacred fire and is being tended to by aboriginals around the clock.

The students and members from different faculties currently protest at Havard investment policies and the polarizations perceived by the student in the economic courses.
According to students there is some lack in the policy proposals from the countries political leaders, democracy is ill.
On November 10, students gather and start the occupy movement in the Harvard Yard.

The Jewish New Year has just ended and taking that opportunity to reach out to anyone who would listen, but particularly the Jewish world community, Rabbi Brant Rosen of the USA asks: “Is the Jewish establishment really able to listen to the next generation of Jews? He brings people’s attention back to what took place almost one year ago in New Orleans.

“The promotion of wars are viewed, especially by most US politicians, as the Holy Cow, more sacred than God Himself! Obama has been so much under pressure from Republicans, where their ultimate goal is to oust him from the Whitehouse, that he has compromised his principles beyond comprehension. The Republicans want to continue to protect the rich as to become even richer,

Smallholder farmers, who produce up to 80 per cent of all food in some areas, mainly in Africa, “face the risk of exploitation under contract farming arrangements with processing or marketing companies,” according to UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who presented his annual report to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee

The winds of change are blowing across the globe. What triggers such change, and when it will strike, is something that no one can predict.

Last Jan. 18, a courageous young woman in Egypt took a dangerous step. Asmaa Mahfouz was 25 years old, part of the April 6 Youth Movement, with thousands of young people engaging online in debate on the future of their country.