Headlines: Friday, October 28, 2011
Vigil Held for Injured Iraq War Veteran
More than 1,000 people gathered in Oakland last night for a vigil honoring Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran who fractured his skull earlier this week after being struck during an Occupy Oakland protest. Olsen’s condition has since been upgraded to fair. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan issued a formal apology to Occupy Oakland over the incident, as the movement continued facing police crackdowns in other cities: officers raided encampments in Nashville and San Diego overnight, and the total number of arrests connected to Occupy protests in Tucson has now topped 350.
Occupy Wall Street Marches on the Banks
Occupy Wall Street organizers in New York planned a march on major financial institutions today, continuing a campaign that has drawn renewed attention this week to a new study confirming the United States has the most unequal wealth distribution of any industrialized nation — a statistic organizers have repeatedly cited as central to the movement’s core grievance.
The Occupy Movement Goes Global
The Occupy movement’s reach continued extending well beyond the United States this week. In London, St. Paul’s Cathedral moved to evict Occupy protesters camped outside the London Stock Exchange. In South Africa, thousands of young activists marched demanding jobs. In France, protesters rallied outside the offices of Moody’s, the credit rating agency, as anger over the agency’s role in the European debt crisis continued mounting. And in Chile, the student movement that has roiled the country for months predicted the continued erosion of President Sebastián Piñera’s political standing.
Libya: NATO Winds Down as Gaddafi Family Threatens Legal Action
NATO announced plans to formally end its military operations in Libya, following the death of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi earlier this month. Gaddafi’s family has said it intends to file a war crimes complaint against NATO over the campaign, adding a contentious legal coda to the alliance’s months-long intervention in the country’s civil war.
Japan: New Estimate Doubles Fukushima Radioactive Release
A new scientific study has found that the amount of radioactive material released during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster earlier this year was roughly twice as large as initial government estimates — a finding likely to reignite concerns about the accident’s full environmental and health impact.