Wikileaks founder addresses protesters in London

PanARMENIAN.Net - About 2,000 protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement marched through New York’s financial district yesterday, Oct 15 ahead of a planned rally in Times Square as demonstrators in cities around the world decried economic inequality.

Protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement were held in cities in the United States and Canada yesterday. This followed demonstrations that began in New Zealand rippled east to European cities including Rome, where the demonstration turned violent.

In Washington, hundreds of protesters turned out, while a couple of thousand people gathered peacefully in Toronto’s St James park, a few blocks from the city’s financial district.

The marchers in New York were making their way to Times Square for a rally at 5pm, when the area typically is crowded with tourists and Broadway theatergoers.

The protesters say they are upset that the billions of dollars in bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.

In London, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange joined around 800 people at a heavily policed rally in the city’s financial heart.

The demonstrators, some of them masked, were pushed back by police as they tried to march from St Paul’s Cathedral to the London Stock Exchange.

Assange, flanked by bodyguards, got a warm reception from the demonstrators as he addressed them from the steps of the cathedral.

“One of the reasons why we support what is happening here in Occupy London is because the banking system in London is the recipient of corrupt money,” the Wikileaks founder told demonstrators, AFP reported.