Anarchists smashed windows of banks and other symbols of capitalism.

According to the Associated Press, Eric Grandjean, a police spokesman, said Black Bloc protesters also threw fire bombs at police from the march.

Police used stun grenades, tear gas and water canons to try and disperse crowds. 14 arrests where made.

The protests take space days before the anniversary of the Seattle WTO protests. See the Last Hours feature N30: ten years on.

Here’s what you can expect on the opening weekend.

Friday

The Friday night will be an acoustic affair with Cosmo, Tracey Curtis and Robb Johnson to perform.

Saturday

Saturday the 21st will be an open day with workshops and a cafe. In the evening those attending will be entertained by some stand-up comedy and live music.

Workshops will include self defense, bike maintenance and much more.

Safer Space

The Black Cat has a safer space policy including a no-drugs policy.

The Black Cat can be found at Kelso Place, Upper Bristol Rd, Bath, Avon BA1, UK (map)

The G20 are a group of twenty finance ministers and central bank governors from 19 of the worlds most wealthy economies and the European Union. These economies cover 80% of world trade and the countries themselves contain two thirds of the worlds population.

Various groups and individuals have called for mass protest in response to the gathering.

“We are opposing the G20 because they are an unrepresentative, undemocratic organization that serves the few at the expense of the many. The G20 may have come to a quiet corner of Fife, but that does not mean they will escape public opposition,” said Katherine Kemp, a fourth year international relations student at St. Andrews.

The assembly point is “Church Square,” located near the intersections of Church St. and South St., next to Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews (Map)

G20 meetings this year have been hit by large scale protest. First in London, UK where thousands of people flooded the streets, smashing banks and battling police. The day tragically ended with the death of a passer by after being shoved to the ground by police. Then in September anarchists and anti-authoritarians took to the streets in Pittsburgh, USA where corporate shop windows where smashed.(read a report back from CrimethInc here)

For more information on why we should appose the G20 check ‘A guide to the G20 Protests‘ published by Last Hours before the March 2009 protests.

For more information visit http://naetaeg20.wordpress.com/

However, in all these past years in prison, Mumia hasn’t just fought for his own freedom, but has also tirelessly struggled for all those sentenced to death everywhere in the world, continuing to write and broadcast from death row.

In April 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Mumia will not be given a new trial, once more demonstrating what many people in the U.S. already know as the “Mumia exception”: Any existing law or procedure is reinterpreted or simply ignored whenever they represent an obstacle to the design of the judiciary and their political masters to punish Mumia for refusing to give in.

There is now only one additional Supreme Court decision pending, which is scheduled for autumn 2009; whether the death 1982 sentence is simply reconfirmed or not, in which case the prosecution will be entitled to get a new jury which will then decide on whether Mumia is re-sentenced to death or “only” gets life in prison without the possibility of parole.The prosecution in Philadelphia (aka the District Attorney’s Office) is aiming at Mumia’s execution at any price. According to his lawyer, Robert R. Bryan, Mumia’s life has never been in greater danger than right now.

So far, worldwide protests were twice — in 1995 and 1999 — able to prevent an execution that had already been ordered. It’s no different today: Only broad international protest and solidarity can make it impossible for the authorities to carry out the planned murder of Mumia at the hands of the state.

Solidarity is a Weapon!

* Write to Mumia at his prison address!
Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370, USA

It’s important that Mumia gets as much mail from different countries as possible. By writing, we can clearly show the authorities we haven’t forgotten Mumia Abu-Jamal, even after 27 years of solitary confinement on death row — and that we are very well informed about the plans of the courts and will continue to watch and respond to them.

We will also need powerful collective protests. Together with the numerous Mumia support groups and coalitions, the German Rote Hilfe (Red Aid) is calling for a nationwide demonstration in Berlin for the life and freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as for the abolition of the death penalty, on the last Saturday before a possible future execution date.

Compared to the situation in 1995 and 1999 when the first two execution dates against Mumia had to be canceled due to a successful interplay of legal appeals on the part of the defense and massive protests by a worldwide solidarity movement, right now mass protests in front of U.S. embassies and other U.S. institutions all around the world will be even more decisive, since this time around we won’t be able to stop the execution by means of legal appeals which are now exhausted.

“Mumia 3 + 12″

In case the U.S. judiciary and the political forces behind it should really try to put their death threats against Mumia into
practice, the FREE MUMIA movement is also calling for a decentralised day of action: At 12am (or, if necessary, at a later hour) on the 3rd day after the reinstatement of Mumia’s death sentence, institutions of the U.S. government as well as U.S. corporations should then be targets of protests and acts of civil disobedience.

This decision could come any time after October 5. Should it confirm Mumia’s death sentence, there will possibly be only very little time left until the governor of Pennsylvania signs an execution order and schedules a new execution date. If we only start to think about forms of resistance against this state-sponsored judicial murder then, it could already be too late.

Without you, it can’t be done: Organise the emergency protests – Get loud, become active!

www.freemumia.org

You can listen to podcasts by Mumia at www.prisonradio.org

Meanwhile anti-capitalists trashed banks and fought back against the police using petrol bombs and sling shots. It is though that one man may have died due to cardiac arrest after being exposed to large amounts of crowd control gasses.

At least 100 arrests have been made.

The meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are well known for attracting counter protest in part due to their role in enforcing global free market capitalism.

Fresh from the frontlines and hot off the press, the seventh issue of
the rebellious and anarchic zine known as ‘325′ is out now. For
5 years this publishing project has existed and thanks are due to all
those who have contributed a letter, article, report, stone,
barricade, molotov and flame of insight.

You can download a copy of issue 7 from http://325.nostate.net/library/7-325-net.pdf

As well as this the 325 website has undergone some changes. Allot of the old content is still there plus news, resources, interviews and loads more. http://325.nostate.net/

The camp was home to thousands of displaced people from around the globe including Iraq and Afghanistan. 278 people have been detained.

Video footage obtained by the BBC shows migrants being corralled by police. It also captures what appear to be an assault on a protester by a group of police. The police have a record of brutality towards migrants in the camp including daily assaults and arrests.

Individuals involved in the Calais Migrant Solidarity where on site as the evictions began. One commented via a social networking site “Afghans were in tears this morning as they were taken from their homes and their friends into another chapter of inhumanity”.

A call has been made on Indymedia for solidarity protests in the UK – http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/09/438328.html.

Calais was the site for a No Borders camp earlier this year where hundreds of protesters gathered for a week long camp to demonstrate against deportations. Last Hours published a report back viewable here.

The DSEi dinner is one of the key ingredients to the world’s largest arms fair, where dealers can hob-nob with each other in one of the fancy restaurants around Hyde Park. Since 2003 each DSEi has seen vocal protests outside the dinner, where it’s usually the best chance to get anywhere near the delegates attending.

Disarm DSEi protesters massed outside of the Hilton hotel

Though small, this year was no exception, with about forty people massing outside the London Hilton, after the dinner was moved at the last minute from the Dorchester Hotel, where it was held in 2005 and 2007.

From 6pm people started to stand with banners outside the main entrance of the the hotel with two huge banners, ‘No bombs, no borders’ and ‘Destroy the arms trade’, spanning the width. Whilst pots and pans were banged about some made jokes through a loudspeaker, and others asked suit wearing guests if they were coming for the arms dinner. Everyone denied it.

These people may or may not be DSEi guests

The surprising feature was how few police they were to begin with, and how close the protest was to the hotel itself, having in previous years been relegated to the park several hundred metres away.

The beautiful security at this year's DSEi dinner party

Soon after 6.30pm though the police started to bring in some metal barriers, and started to construct a ‘protest zone’. Not surprisingly people protesting were hostile to the idea, and wanted to remain in a visible, and slightly obstructive position. Half an hour later the police started to form a cordon around people to try and move them to the pen using section 14 of the Public Order Act to impose conditions on the protest.

An eye-witness described how, “The police constables, and the hotel security for that, didn’t really like the new policing style of letting us near the hotel, so they just reverted to the old way of doing things!”
As people tried to slip out of the cordon, or the barriers, they started to be arrested. As of writing it’s unclear how many were finally arrested, but people who witnessed them say that between seven and 10 people were arrested.

The demonstration remained noisy throughout the arrests, but soon started to wind down after the arrests had been made.

The arrests are allegedly related to a direct action which took place at the Greek Embassy on August 25th as an act of symbolic solidarity with Thodoros Iliopoulos (see athens indymedia or Last Hours article). They could be facing 3-15 years in prison. They are currently in custody awaiting trial.

International solidarity can really make an impact in such cases. There will be a picket at the Serbian embassy in London this Friday, 11th September, 12-2pm, 28 Belgrave Square, London, SW1X 8QB (near Hyde Park Corner & Knightsbridge tube stations). Please come along. Please also send faxes, emails and letters – addresses, sample letters and a very simple form to fill in and send are at http://asi.zsp.net.pl/free-the-anarchists/

The protest was organised by a network of people working under the banner of Disarm DSEi. Disarm DSEi had produced a map of arms traders and investors in the London area. Some of these became targets for today’s protest.

People gathered at an RBS building and moved off around the the city stopping to protest outside of Barclay’s Bank, Legal & General, Schroders and Lloyds TSB who all have links to the arms trade.

Towards the end of the march the protest drew close to a BT building. Demonstrators rushed forward, pushing through the locked revolving doors and into the building where they spread out shouting ‘Shame on you’ and holding a banner stating ‘Bomb makers and bankers, murdering wankers’ to the applause of catering staff working in the building. BT holds £59 million worth of shares in the international arms trade.

The protest then moved onto AXA where windows where smashed and paint bombs thrown. AXA has £6,207 million invested in the international arms trade. People also left messages written in chalk and taped onto the front of the building.

http://www.lasthours.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/DSEiBTinvaded.mov
Protesters storm the BT building

No arrests where made.

See time line of events