 |
| Other protests have been held in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago |
Related Stories
Billionaire investor George Soros says he can sympathise with the ongoing protests on Wall Street, which have spread to other US cities.
He said he
understood the anger at the use of taxpayers' cash to prop up stricken banks,
allowing them to earn huge profits.
A large
rally is planned for Wednesday in New York City, with backing from union
groups.
More than
700 protesters were arrested on Saturday on Brooklyn Bridge.
The
demonstrations - based at Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street and the Federal
Reserve - are now entering their third week.
Answering
questions during a news conference at UN headquarters, Mr Soros said: "The
decision not to inject capital into the banks, but to effectively relieve them
of their bad assets and then allow them to earn their way out of a hole leaves
the banks bumper profits and then allows them to pay bumper bonuses."
Mr Soros
was announcing a gift of $40m (£26m) to a development project in Africa.
'Corporate
zombies'
Protests
continued on Monday in New York, with many under the Occupy Wall Street banner
dressing up as corporate zombies, eating fake money.
 |
| Protesters dressed as zombies took to the streets of Manhattan on Monday |
One of the
protesters, John Hildebrand, 24, an unemployed teacher from the US state of
Oklahoma, told the Associated Press news agency: "My issue is corporate
influence in politics. I would like to eliminate corporate financing from
politics."
A large
rally is planned for Wednesday.
Last
Thursday, the United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union,
which has 38,000 members, pledged support for the protests.
The
transport union said it would put its financial and personnel muscle behind
Wednesday's rally.
In Los
Angeles on Monday, an anti-Wall Street demonstration was held outside the court
where Michael Jackson's doctor is being tried for manslaughter.
Protests
were held in recent days in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago in front of their
respective cities' Federal Reserve buildings. A march was also held in
Columbus, Ohio.
A rally is
planned, too, for later this month in the Canadian city of Toronto.
On
Saturday, 700 protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, where traffic
was halted for several hours.
The
protesters won support from actor Alec Baldwin, who posted videos on his
Twitter page that had already been widely circulated.
One
appeared to show police using pepper spray on a group of women, another a young
man being tackled to the ground by an officer.
"This
is unsettling," Baldwin wrote. "I think the NYPD has a PR
problem."
But the
NYPD said the marchers had been warned many times not to stray on to the road,
and released video footage on Sunday showing protesters chanting "take the
bridge".
Related Articles:
 |
Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein testifies before the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Investigations Subcommittee hearing on ''Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: The Role of Investment Banks'' on Capitol Hill in Washington April 27, 2010. (Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed) |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.