http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0129/ferguson.shtml
Hannes Westberg, 19, has spent the past few weeks in a hospital bed in Gothenburg, Sweden, the victim of panicked cops who fired live ammunition into a crowd of anti-globalization protesters during the June European Union summit. The son of a renowned Swedish physician and anti-nuclear activist, Westberg was one of three youths hit; he lost his spleen and a kidney.
That same month, police in Papua New Guinea shot 17 university students—killing three—who were peacefully dispersing a demonstration against the World Bank and IMF. These shootings have significantly upped the ante in the escalating war between police and protesters at global summits. "It's definitely a wake-up call," says Eric Laursen of the New York City Direct Action Network, which has been staging weekly vigils outside the Swedish and Papua New Guinea consulates. "People have to realize that these are international protests, and that there were Americans in Gothenburg who could have been shot, too."
While many activists feel galvanized by the repressive policing, others question whether the level of street combat at recent events has gone too far. They fear the violence from small factions of militants—greatly amplified by the media—plays to police efforts to demonize the movement, while obscuring its pro-democracy aims.
In Genoa this week, authorities have responded with near hysteria to the 100,000 demonstrators expected to descend on the ancient Italian port city during the meeting of the G8—the seven richest nations plus Russia. A missile defense system has been installed to guard against airborne attacks (there've been rumors of an assassination plot on President Bush by Osama bin Laden), and more than 18,000 police and paramilitary troops have been mobilized in one of the biggest security buildups in the country's postwar history. The airport, train stations, and access roads will be shut down and the center city blockaded with armored trucks. That hasn't daunted the militant anarchists of Italy's Tute Bianche (White Overalls) movement, whose members are plotting a mixture of seaborne assaults and medieval-style attacks using battering rams and catapults to launch dead fish and paint bombs at police.
Full Story: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0129/ferguson.shtml
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 http://www.yaysoft.com
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