Clashes
Clashes erupt in Cairo after arrest of protesters
Ten members of the panel drafting Egypt’s new constitution suspended work Tuesday after authorities arrested several protesters, including prominent activists. Further protests took pace in downtown Cairo in support of those arrested.
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- Egypt police, protesters clash in Cairo (jewishterrorism.com)
- Egypt prosecutor orders arrest of two leading activists (dailystar.com.lb)
- Egypt police clash with protesters in Cairo (aljazeera.com)
- Back to days of Mubarak? Egypt’s police clash with activists as protest law takes effect (thedailyblogreport.wordpress.com)
- Photo: Police clash with protesters at Talaat Harb square in downtown Cairo – @AJELive (live.aljazeera.com)
- Egypt’s government bans protests without police approval (reuters.com)
- 10 on Egypt constitution panel halt work over arrests (dailystar.com.lb)
- Egypt police fire water cannon to disperse rally, in first use of new anti-protest law (foxnews.com)
- Egyptian police fire water cannon to disperse protesters who were defying law restricting demonstrations – @Reuters (reuters.com)
Strange bedfellows: Italy’s budget crisis unites jobless youth and big business
Strange bedfellows: Italy’s budget crisis unites jobless youth and big business
Public unrest in Italy, fueled by the new budget rolled out by the shaky ruling coalition, has united unemployed youth and the captains of industry in opposition, James Walston, an Italian politics expert from the American University of Rome, told RT.
Violent clashes broke out between police and demonstrators in Rome on Saturday as up to 70,000 took to the streets to protest Italy’s new budget.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Enrico Letta – who leads the unstable Left-Right coalition – presented the 2014 budget, which immediately came under fire from both sides of the coalition.
The left criticized the budget for freezing state sector pay and pensions, while the right and big-business said it failed to stimulate growth with insufficient cuts to Italy’s oppressive corporate taxes.
Walston says that attempts to balance Italy’s books are rooted firmly in a eurozone system which many argue is being steered by Berlin.
RT: It was a turbulent night in Rome. Can we expect to see even more unrest?
James Walston: We are seeing more this morning. This morning the protesters have camped outside one of the gates of Rome – ironically, where the Italians came to conquer Rome from the Popes in 1870. And today, of course, it’s a major traffic hub and on a Sunday it doesn’t matter too much, but the traffic around the center of the city is blocked, because they are protesting and camping there, and say they want to mobilize the city. So this is going on, and will probably go on in different ways for a long time now.
RT: So is the government going to review this unpopular budget that actually triggered such public discontent?
JW: Well, the budget was published on the 15th, – a few days ago – and it will be passed (as) this was the proposal from the government. It has to be passed by the end of the year; it’s going to be modified anyway. And the government has not yet said how it’s going to modify the budget. But so many people – from the employers to the trade unions to different political parties – and now very strong protests from young people of various sorts who said ‘We do not like the government, we don’t like the budget. We want a recovery budget, we want a growth budget.’ This is what they’re complaining about. They’re complaining about the same thing as the employers. It’s an unusual situation, but that’s what we have.
