NEW YORK (AP) — A protest against embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh outside a luxury hotel in New York got heated Sunday when demonstrators saw him leave the building, with one charging toward him and another throwing a shoe.
"Everybody is living in fear of this guy at home, but here, he's getting good treatment!" said Yemeni immigrant Nasser Almroot, a Brooklyn grocer.
The dozen angry protesters were kept behind police barricades across the street from the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which was teeming with security guards, both inside and on the sidewalk where Saleh passed.
The 69-year-old leader is visiting the United States for medical treatment.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh waves to people protesting his presence in the United States as he exits his hotel in New York, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012. Saleh arrived in the United States on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, for treatment of burns he suffered during an assassination attempt in June. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based human rights organization says it has documented the deaths of hundreds of anti-government protesters in confrontations with Saleh's security forces, and while they are not opposed to Saleh receiving care in the United States, the organization wants assurances that concerned governments will insist on prosecution for those responsible for last year's attacks. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
He exited the hotel on Central Park South on Sunday afternoon and waved and smiled sardonically toward the yelling protesters — even blowing them a kiss. Suddenly, one of them tried to charge across the street but was restrained by police, who wrestled him to the ground.
"He can't help it, the killer is here," Almroot said.
As the man bolted out, a shoe flew in Saleh's direction. Showing the sole of a shoe is an insult in Arab culture, because it is on the lowest part of the body, the foot. To hit someone with a shoe is seen as even worse.
Saleh got into his car and his motorcade left for an unknown destination.
Since he arrived in New York about a week ago, the Yemeni president has kept a low profile.
His presence, however, has been controversial.
On Sunday, the protesters hoisted placards bearing photos of Yemenis badly bloodied and brutally killed during his government's yearlong crackdown on anti-Saleh demonstrations.
Saleh signed a deal in November to transfer power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
An election is scheduled for Feb. 21 to select his successor in a nation mired in poverty and divided among powerful tribes and political factions.
While Saleh has been an anti-terrorism ally of Washington, the United States has not officially welcomed a leader accused of killing hundreds of people during an uprising against his 33-year rule.
Saleh traveled to the United States with permission for a private visit.
In June, he was badly injured in an attack on his presidential palace — an assassination attempt after which he spent months in Saudi Arabia being treated for massive burns from the explosion that ripped through his palace mosque as he prayed.
A world-renowned burn center is in Manhattan, at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Hospital officials have not confirmed whether Saleh was a patient there.
In this Oct. 26, 2011 photo, Mousa Ahmad stands in front of an empty Brooklyn, N.Y., storefront where he used to run a coffee shop. Ahmad says he had to close the coffee shop because police surveillance was scaring away customers. (AP Photo/Chris Hawley)
But when asked if he would consider legal action against the police, Ahmad just shrugs.
It's a common sentiment among those who are considering their legal options in the wake of an Associated Press investigation into a massive New York Police Department surveillance program targeting Muslims. Many of the targets feel they have little recourse — and because privacy laws have weakened dramatically since 9/11, they may be right, legal experts say.
"It's really not clear that people can do anything if they've been subjected to unlawful surveillance anymore," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The AP investigation revealed that the NYPD built databases of everyday life in Muslim neighborhoods, cataloguing where people bought their groceries, ate dinner and prayed. Plainclothes officers known as "rakers" were dispatched into ethnic communities, where they eavesdropped on conversations and wrote daily reports on what they heard, often without any allegation of criminal wrongdoing.
The NYPD did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, but it has insisted that it respects the rights of people it watches. Commissioner Ray Kelly says each request for surveillance is thoroughly examined by the department's lawyers.
"The value we place on privacy rights and other constitutional protections is part of what motivates the work of counterterrorism," Kelly told a city council committee. "It would be counterproductive in the extreme if we violated those freedoms in the course of our work to defend New York."
But critics of the surveillance say the NYPD is taking advantage of a general weakening of state and federal restraints, many of them forged during the 1960s and following the Watergate scandal:
—The USA PATRIOT Act, passed after the 9/11 attacks, reduced legal limits on wiretaps imposed by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The same law also amended the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 to allow banks to release records to intelligence agencies investigating terrorism.
—A 2007 law changed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, originally a reaction to former President Richard Nixon's spying on political groups, to allow wiretaps of international phone calls.
—In 2002 the Supreme Court decision ruled that students cannot sue universities under the 1974 Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act. That could make it harder for Muslim student groups to seek redress over infiltration by NYPD undercover officers.
The U.S. Department of Justice still has some tools it can use to discipline local police forces.
It can withhold federal money from any police agency that discriminates on the basis of race, color, sex or national origin. Another law allows the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to sue state and local police forces for any "pattern or practice" that deprives people of their Constitutional rights. In September it cited the statutes in a scathing report about corruption and abuse within the Puerto Rico Police Department.
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. has asked the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD surveillance program.
But in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, the Justice Department has typically focused only on issues of excessive force, illegal traffic stops and other clear violations of police procedure. Since 9/11, the department has not used its civil rights authority against a police department in a national security case.
Lawsuits filed by surveillance targets themselves are notoriously hard to win, said Paul Chevigny, a law professor at New York University and expert on police abuse cases.
"The fact that you feel spooked and chilled by it doesn't constitute an injury," Chevigny said. Even in cases where surveillance notes leak out, the chances of winning a lawsuit are "marginal" unless the leaking was done with the clear intent of harming someone, he said.
Over the last 40 years, there has been only one class-action lawsuit that has forced serious changes to an NYPD surveillance program, lawyers say, and those changes have been eroded since the 9/11 attacks.
In 1971, 16 leftists led by lawyer Barbara Handschu sued the police department for spying on them. In 1985 they settled the case in exchange for a set of rules, known as the Handschu Guidelines, that set up a three-member panel to oversee NYPD surveillance operations.
The rules also said detectives could only start an investigation when they had "specific information" about a future crime.
"An individual's or organization's political, religious, sexual or economic preference may not be the sole basis upon which the (police intelligence division) develops a file or index card on that individual or organization," the rules said.
In 2003 a judge agreed to relax the rules. Under the new rules, known as the Modified Handschu Guidelines, NYPD intelligence chief David Cohen can act alone to authorize investigations for a year at a time. He can also authorize undercover operations for four months at a time.
Most importantly, the rule requiring police to have "specific information" was loosened. It now says only that facts should "reasonably indicate" a future crime.
Activists say they have not ruled out going to court over the latest NYPD program. But at a "strategy meeting" held in Manhattan on Wednesday, the discussion centered on preparing for a Nov. 18 protest march and on organizing "know your rights" seminars at mosques and community centers.
Organizers believe they need to build a mass movement against the surveillance program first, so that people like Ahmad will feel more confident about coming forward and filing lawsuits, said Cyrus McGoldrick, civil rights manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who ran Wednesday's meeting.
"That way if there's a court date, it's not just 10 people sitting there, it's 1,000 people outside the courthouse, every day," he said. "People need to feel there is a movement protecting them before they take on the police. Apathy is not our problem — fear is our problem."
As the 9/11 attacks recede into the past, state and federal rules may eventually swing toward privacy rights again, said Judith Berkan, a member of the advisory board of the National Police Accountability Project, a group of civil rights lawyers.
But until then, surveillance targets would likely face a difficult court battle, she said.
"I think if the government treats you different because you're from a particular part of the world, even if the surveillance is in a public place, it might violate the constitution," Berkan said. "But it's not a favorable judicial climate for me to make those kinds of arguments today."
Mary Keitany of Kenya is favored to win the women’s race Sunday at the New York City Marathon. She might even set a course record, but one thing she will almost certainly not do is set a world record.
Mike Segar/Reuters
Mary Keitany finished third among women in the New York City Marathon last year and is favored to win Sunday's race. Her best time is 2:19:19.
The bridges and hills of New York are not accommodating to unprecedented performance. The fastest that any woman has run here, 2 hours 22 minutes 31 seconds, is more than seven minutes slower than the fastest time ever run, 2:15:25 by Paula Radcliffe of England at the 2003 London Marathon.
Technically, Radcliffe’s time is now considered a “world best” instead of a “world record.” In August, track and field’s world governing body made a controversial ruling, striking Radcliffe’s two fastest times from record consideration because they came in races in which she was paced by men.
Now, the official women’s record is 2:17:42, run by Radcliffe in a women’s-only race at the 2005 London Marathon. That is still nearly five minutes — or about a mile in distance — faster than any woman has run in New York, and 38 seconds faster than any other woman has covered 26.2 miles on any course.
Lately, the men’s world record has been batted around like a volleyball. It has officially been broken three times in the past four years. Patrick Makau of Kenya set the current record of 2:03:38 at the Berlin Marathon in September. That time had been beaten in Boston in April, but the course is not certified for records; and it was nearly eclipsed last Sunday in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, the women’s record has gone unchallenged for years. The reasons are varied. First, Radcliffe is an outlier who radically changed the way women trained and raced, piling on the mileage and speed in workouts and setting a blistering pace from the starting gun, as elite male runners now do.
“Paula was ahead of her time,” said Deena Kastor of the United States, the 2004 Olympic bronze medalist in the marathon. “She could go out at a grueling pace and keep it. I think it brought a realization to the men as well that you don’t have to be so timid going into a marathon.”
Regarding training, Kastor said: “I think people go into a marathon so concerned about riding the line between getting as fit as possible without overdoing it, and that was never Paula’s concern. She goes out there and grinds on a daily and weekly basis. It’s very admirable. Sometimes, it leads to injuries with her, but the end result is that she’s got this untouchable world record and a well-deserved one. I think 2:15 will be in the books for a while.”
While the numbers of elite women are growing, the depth still does not match men’s marathoning. In particular, few women are fast enough to serve as pacemakers for a world-record pace. Only a few women have even run a half-marathon at Radcliffe’s record marathon pace, said Dan Lilot, the agent for the American marathoner Kara Goucher.
And given the new rules in the sport, men can no longer be used to pace women to record times.
“I don’t know how you find a woman pacesetter to go through the half in 68 flat,” said Mark Wetmore, an American agent who represents a number of female Ethiopian runners. “If a woman can do that, she’ll want to race. Maybe you’ll need to have two women in 2:20 shape and one decides to take care of the other and help her out so she can run 2:17. There are very few of these women.”
Women tend to run the marathon later in their careers, when they face decisions about motherhood, which inevitably disrupts training and can lead to protracted comebacks. Werknesh Kidane of Ethiopia won the world cross-country championship in 2003 and finished second in the 10,000 meters at the 2003 world track and field championships in a stirring 30:07.15; many projected her to be a sub-2:20 marathoner. But she then had two children and essentially took a three-year break from competition from 2006 to 2009.
Married to Gebre Gebremariam, the defending New York City Marathon champion, Kidane has finally taken up the marathon this year at age 29. She finished seventh in Boston in April in 2:26:15 and will run New York on Sunday, but she remains well short of earlier projections.
“When you take off 6, 8, 10 months, it’s hard to come back,” said Wetmore, Kidane’s agent. “Werknesh is just getting back to her premotherhood self.”
A number of the top female distance runners are still competing on the track and are expected to move up to the marathon after the 2012 London Olympics. They include Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia, the 2008 Olympic champion at 5,000 and 10,000 meters; Meseret Defar of Ethiopia, the 2004 Olympic champion at 5,000 meters and 2008 bronze medalist; and Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya, the 2011 world champion at 5,000 and 10,000 meters.
They can be encouraged by the marathon debut in Chicago last month of Ejigayehu Dibaba, Tirunesh’s sister, who won a silver medal at 10,000 meters at the 2004 Olympics. She finished second in Chicago in 2:22:09, the third-fastest debut marathon for a woman.
But the question for track runners moving up the marathon is always one of timing: “Did they wait too long?” in the words of Mary Wittenberg, director of the New York City Marathon.
Although Radcliffe’s best times have not been challenged, this year has produced some encouragingly fast results. For the first time since 2008, a woman has run a marathon under 2:20. Actually three of them have. Keitany ran 2:19:19 to win in London in April. Florence Kiplagat of Kenya ran 2:19:44 to win Berlin in September. And Liliya Shobukhova of Russia ran 2:18:20 to win in Chicago last month, making her the second-fastest female marathoner.
“I feel like marathons have been more tactical in the last 5 or 10 years,” Goucher said. “In the past year, some women have shown more interest in running fast.”
Women from Kenya and Ethiopia are moving up to the half-marathon and the marathon at an earlier age, according to runners, coaches and agents.
Keitany did not have a long track career, running a half-marathon at age 24 in 2006. Six months later, she paced the London Marathon.
“I was not afraid” of the distance, Keitany, 29, said.
She represents another development among female African runners, who have begun in larger numbers to break free of traditional subservient roles in society to become full-time professional athletes.
“Finally, after many years, you are seeing women have the possibility to approach athletics like a job, not just as mothers who run,” Gabriele Nicola, an Italian who is Keitany’s coach, said.
This growing professionalization can be found in their wearing GPS watches, which give the precise distance run during workouts; using electrolyte drinks instead of water; and having a diverse support staff.
Keitany has a support group of 10 people, including physical therapists, masseuses and male runners hired to pace her during workouts. Her sister-in-law watches her 3-year-old son, Jared, so Keitany can train and sleep between twice-daily runs.
“She is already in the Olympics as a sleeper,” Nicola said with a laugh.
A whispery figure who is about 5 feet tall and 88 pounds, Keitany finished third in New York last year in her marathon debut in 2:29:01 but shaved nearly 10 minutes off that time in winning London in April. In February, she shattered the world half-marathon record in 1:05:50, breaking the previous mark by 35 seconds.
Eventually in the marathon, Keitany said, “Maybe I can run under 2:18.”
But everyone seems to agree that Radcliffe’s 2:15:25, the fastest time ever run, will remain safe for years. As fast as Shobukhova was in Chicago, she would have to run nearly three minutes faster to reach that mark.
“I don’t realize how you train for 2:15,” Shobukhova told reporters after the race.
Some of the latest developments in the Occupy protests taking place in cities across the world:
CALIFORNIA
Police clashed with protesters in Oakland after thousands of demonstrators shut down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports, escalating a movement whose tactics had largely been limited to marches, rallies and tent encampments since it began in September.
An Occupy Oakland protester waves a flag next to a bonfire in Oakland, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
The confrontation began after protesters started a large bonfire in the middle of a downtown street. Dozens of police in riot gear moved in on hundreds of protesters as the flames leapt more than 15 feet in the air from several large metal and plastic trash bins that had been pushed together.
The clash and subsequent standoff came only hours after thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters shut down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports late Wednesday.
Meanwhile, an Occupy Los Angeles march and rally is winding down. The more than hour-long march through downtown Los Angeles ended with a rally Wednesday night in front of LA Police Department headquarters. About 80 people who remained taped flyers onto a wall outside the building with names of people they say were victims of police brutality.
WASHINGTON
Several hundred Occupy Seattle demonstrators protested in the rain Wednesday night outside a hotel where JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was invited to speak.
Police used pepper spray to clear a side entrance so Sheraton Seattle Hotel patrons could enter or leave, The Seattle Times reported.
Six protesters were arrested Wednesday afternoon for criminal trespass and obstructing at a Chase Bank branch in a Seattle neighborhood.
Police also used pepper spray on that earlier crowd when at least 10 officers were physically assaulted while putting the arrested protesters in a paddy wagon, police spokesman Jeff Kappel said. At least two officers suffered minor injuries, he said.
ENGLAND
A lawyer for protesters camped outside London's St. Paul's Cathedral said Wednesday that authorities have offered to let the tent city stay until next year, as the leader of the world's Anglicans backed a so-called Robin Hood tax on financial transactions as one way to alleviate the global economic crisis.
The loosely organized demonstration against capitalist excess, inspired by New York's Occupy Wall Street movement, has wrong-footed both city and church officials since it began last month, defying pleas to leave and the threat of legal action.
Authorities have suspended legal bids to remove the tents. On Wednesday John Cooper, a lawyer for the protesters, said that local government had offered the protesters a deal "to stay on site until the new year," then leave on an agreed date.
IOWA
Iowa City approved a request from anti-Wall Street protesters for larger tents.
The protesters said they received a donated 10-person tent designed to withstand arctic weather. The City Council decided to allow two such tents, subject to approval by the fire department.
Protesters have been in College Green Park since Oct. 7 as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
MARYLAND
City officials say they're cutting power to outlets in the downtown Baltimore park where Wall Street protesters have been living for the last month.
Mayoral spokesman Ian Brennan said Wednesday the city is taking this step to alleviate a public safety hazard at McKeldin Square near the Inner Harbor. He said a city official visited earlier this week and found fire and electricity hazards.
MASSACHUSETTS
Members of the Occupy Boston movement, students from area colleges and union workers marched through downtown Boston to protest the nation's burgeoning student debt crisis.
The protest started at Occupy Boston's Dewey Square tent city Wednesday and stopped outside Bank of America offices and the downtown Harvard Club before moving to the Statehouse.
Protesters said higher education has gotten too costly, in part because of onerous, high-interest loans. They say total student debt in the U.S. increases by $1 million every six minutes and will reach $1 trillion this year, potentially undermining the economy.
Some called for complete forgiveness of student debt; others said government should more heavily subsidize state colleges and universities.
MINNESOTA
Protesters who have occupied a government plaza in Minneapolis for nearly a month will face new restrictions.
Hennepin County officials said Wednesday they will begin winterizing the plaza. They said protesters will have to consolidate their possessions and can't leave them unattended anymore or they'll be taken. The number of portable toilets is being cut from seven to three, and starting Friday no more signs will be allowed.
NEW YORK
About 100 military veterans marched in uniform Wednesday from the Vietnam Veterans Plaza near Wall Street through Manhattan, joining the Occupy Wall Street protest.
They were fired up by what they called brutality against a Marine veteran in Oakland, Calif., whose skull was fractured.
Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas, who went toe to toe recently with officers policing activists in Times Square, said soldiers who risked their lives have the right to protest an economy that gives them a slimmer chance of finding jobs than most Americans.
OREGON
If an Iraq War veteran's injury during a California protest comes to stand as a symbol of the Occupy Wall Street movement, protesters in Portland also hope it draws attention to what they say is the city's problem with police violence.
Scott Olsen, whose skull was fractured when police moved in on an Oakland encampment, has become a symbol for protesters in Portland, where the police bureau has recently been accused of excessive force in dealings with the city's black and mentally ill populations.
WISCONSIN
A photographer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who was among three people arrested Wednesday at a rally connected to the Occupy Wall Street movement was not part of the protest and was only doing her job, the newspaper said.
The Journal Sentinel said Kristyna Wentz-Graff texted the newsroom to say she was being arrested. Two others were also arrested.
Milwaukee police say all three ignored officers' repeated commands to clear the street, and that the three were released from custody within two hours. The Milwaukee city attorney is expected to review the cases.
The paper issued a statement Wednesday saying Wentz-Graff did not ignore the commands of any of the officers and should not have been arrested.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Freakish weather disasters — from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast U.S. to the record floods in Thailand — are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost, says a draft summary of an international climate report obtained by The Associated Press.
The final draft of the report from a panel of the world's top climate scientists paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars. The report says costs will rise and perhaps some locations will become "increasingly marginal as places to live."
FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2011 file photo, Thai residents carry their belongings along floods as they move to higher ground at Bangkok's Don Muang district, Thailand. Freakish weather, from this weekends October snowstorm to the long-lasting drought in the US Southwest, is striking more often. And global warming should make future weather even weirder, a special international report says. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)
The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda. It says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.
This marks a change in climate science from focusing on subtle changes in daily average temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze freak events that grab headlines, cause economic damage and kill people. The most recent bizarre weather extreme, the pre-Halloween snowstorm, is typical of the damage climate scientists warn will occur — but it's not typical of the events they tie to global warming.
"The extremes are a really noticeable aspect of climate change," said Jerry Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "I think people realize that the extremes are where we are going to see a lot of the impacts of climate change."
The snow-bearing Nor'easter cannot be blamed on climate change and probably isn't the type of storm that will increase with global warming, four meteorologists and climate scientists said. They agree more study is needed. But experts on extreme storms have focused more closely on the increasing numbers of super-heavy rainstorms, not snow, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.
The opposite kind of disaster — the drought in Texas and the Southwest U.S. — is also the type of event scientists are saying will happen more often as the world warms, said Schmidt and Meehl, who reviewed part of the climate panel report. No studies have specifically tied global warming to the drought, but it is consistent with computer models that indicate current climate trends will worsen existing droughts, Meehl said.
Studies also have predicted more intense monsoons with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water and puts more energy into weather systems, changing the dynamics of storms and where and how they hit.
Thailand is now coping with massive flooding from monsoonal rains that illustrate how climate is also interconnected with other manmade issues such as population and urban development, river management and sinking lands, Schmidt said. In fact, the report says that "for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic in nature" rather than greenhouse gases.
There's an 80 percent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 wouldn't have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So while in the past the climate change panel, formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization, has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report, this time the scientists are putting them all together. The report, which needs approval by diplomats at the mid-November meeting, tries to measure the confidence scientists have in their assessment of climate extremes both future and past.
Chris Field, one of the leaders of the climate change panel, said he and other authors won't comment because the report still is subject to change. The summary chapter of the report didn't detail which regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them marginally habitable.
The report does say scientists are "virtually certain" — 99 percent — that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century.
Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters, who wasn't involved in the study, said in the United States from June to August this year, blistering heat set 2,703 daily high temperature records, compared with only 300 cold records during that period, making it the hottest summer in the U.S. since the Dust Bowl of 1936.
By the end of the century, the intense, single-day, heavy rainstorms that now typically happen only once every 20 years are likely to happen about twice a decade, the report says.
The report said hurricanes and other tropical cyclones — like 2005's Katrina — are likely to get stronger in wind speed, but won't increase in number and may actually decrease. Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who studies climate's effects on hurricanes, disagrees and believes more of these intense storms will occur.
And global warming isn't the sole villain in future climate disasters, the climate report says. An even bigger problem will be the number of people — especially the poor — who live in harm's way.
University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn't among the authors, said the report was written to be "so bland" that it may not matter to world leaders.
But Masters said the basics of the report seem to be proven true by what's happening every day. "In the U.S., this has been the weirdest weather year we've had for my 30 years, hands down. Certainly this October snowstorm fits in with it."
Protesters worldwide have joined the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in a cry of rage against bankers, financiers and politicians they accuse of ruining global economies and condemning millions to poverty and hardship through greed.
Dozens of cities across the world - from Tokyo to Alaska via London, Frankfurt and Washington - are holding demonstrations on Saturday, in a show of solidarity with the rallies that began last month in downtown New York.
In depth coverage of US financial crisis protests
"On October 15th people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares ... to initiate the global change we want," proclaimed the website United for #GlobalChange.
"We will peacefully demonstrate, talk and organize until we make it happen. It's time for us to unite; it's time for them to listen."
Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, saw the day's first demonstration, when at least 1,000 people, including children, gathered at City Square.
"We face similar problems with our democracy here in Victoria and Australia as people face in most other developed nations," the Occupy Melbourne website said. "Our democracy is unwell."
In Sydney, about 2,000 protesters including representatives of Aboriginal groups, communists and trade unionists, protested outside the central Reserve Bank of Australia, at Martin Place in the central business district time.
'Occupy Asia'
Demonstrations of various sizes took place in Asia, namely in Japan's Tokyo, the Philippines' Manila, Taiwan's Taipei, South Korea's Seoul and China's Hong Kong.
Several protests and rallies were held simultaneously in various locations at the Japanese capital.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to show dissatisfaction over the handling of the nuclear disaster triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Despite heavy rains in Seoul, the South Korean capital, members of more than 30 civic groups congregated outside the Financial Services Commission in Yeouido, the city's financial district.
Activists wearing Guy Fawkes masks staged performances to express their frustration with the growing income gap in Seoul, and chanted "We are the 99 per cent" - one of the seminal slogans of the Wall Street movement.
In Manila, about 100 members of Bayan, an alliance of various left-wing groups in the Philippines, marched to the US embassy, waving banners that read: "Down with US imperialism" and "Philippines not for sale", broadcaster APTN reported.
They took Saturday's occupy protest to voice support for the New York movement and to express their cricism of US troop presence in the country's south.
One man was seen carrying a placard that read: "Genuine people's democracy lives in the streets."
In Hong Kong, more than 200 people gathered at Exchange Square Podium in the city’s central shopping and business district.
Some pitched tents to stay overnight at the site while others later migrated to the HSBC building nearby.
Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, saw a smaller turnout of near 100 people than the expected 1,500, at the city's landmark skyscraper Taipei 101, home to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
#GlobalChange
The Occupy South Africa website announced "Operation Ubuntu", a Nguni word used to describe unity for a common purpose through an African worldview that people can only find fulfilment through interacting with other peoples.
Protests are scheduled in the country's major cities of Capetown, East London, Durban and Johannesburg for later on Saturday.
Greek protesters aligned with Spain's "Indignant" movement called an anti-austerity rally in Athens' Syntagma square, the focal point of many demonstrations during Greece's financial meltdown.
Cath Turner reports on Wall Street activists' defiance
In Germany, the financial centre of Frankfurt and the European Central Bank was expected to be a focus of marches called by the Real Democracy Now group.
"What is happening in Greece now is the nightmare waiting other countries in the future," Real Democracy said in a statement.
"Solidarity is people's weapon."
In Britain, about 4,000 people have signalled their intent to attend a peaceful demonstration that will start at noon today in the City of London -- a leading international financial centre -- under the banner "Occupy the Stock Exchange", according to organisers.
In the United States, the founding "Occupation Wall Street" movement has urged more people and cities to join them on Saturday.
There have also been calls for occupations similar to that in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park to take place in dozens of US cities.
In Houston, Texas, protesters plan to tap into anger at big oil companies.
Alert for violence
The protests are billed as peaceful. But in a sign of what may happen, a group of students stormed Goldman Sachs' offices in the Italian city of Milan on Friday.
The students managed to break into the hall of the Goldman Sachs building in the heart of Milan's financial district.
The protests were quickly dispersed but red graffiti was daubed on its walls expressing anger at Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and saying "Give us money".
Demonstrators also hurled eggs at the headquarters of UniCredit, Italy's biggest bank.
Italian police were on alert for thousands to march in Rome against austerity measures planned by Berlusconi's government.
NEW YORK (AP) — The official cleanup of a New York plaza where protesters have camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from demonstrators who feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them and said the victory emboldened their movement.
Protesters had already been scrambling to clean up the park on their own in hopes of staving off eviction when Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway announced that the owner of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning.
"My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying ... 'We're going to make your life more difficult,'" Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show.
There was still some skepticism even after the protesters, who call their demonstration Occupy Wall Street, were told they could stay on.
"I'll believe it when we're able to stay here," said Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. "One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials."
Nonetheless, they declared it a boon to their movement, which blames Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown. Since starting a month ago in New York, the movement has spread to cities across the U.S. and the world.
Demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests confront New York City police officers as they march on the street in the Wall St. area, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011 in New York. The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
"This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street," New York organizers said in a statement.
In Denver early Friday, police in riot gear herded hundreds of protesters away from the Colorado state Capitol, arresting about two dozen and dismantling their encampment. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment near a war memorial.
New York police arrested 14 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street, and others who tuned over trash baskets, knocked over a police scooter and hurled bottles.
A few blocks south of the park, about two dozen demonstrators screamed "Pigs!" and hurled obscenities at a dozen officers in riot gear, who showed no visible reaction. The officers left the area, trailed by protesters with cameras.
Protesters have had some previous run-ins with police, including mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed.
Several protests are planned this weekend in the U.S., Canada and Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa, and the official capitulation in New York could buoy those events.
"I think it's really a prophetic moment," said Annie Gonzalez, a student at Union Theological Seminary who wore a sign identifying her as an Occupy Wall Street chaplain. She likened the protesters to "the prophets of the Old Testament, crying out that there's no justice."
Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is on Brookfield's board of directors, said his staff was under strict orders not to pressure the company one way or the other. He noted that the company can still go ahead with the cleanup at some point.
"They called to say they want to see if they can work out an agreement with the protesters," he said on his radio show. "If they want to take a couple of days ... then they can do that."
The company's rules, which haven't been enforced, have all along prohibited tarps, sleeping bags and storing personal property on the ground. Though the park is privately owned, it is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
Brookfield, a publicly traded real estate firm, had planned to power-wash the New York plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back — but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there. The company called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.
The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken. But the deputy mayor's statement indicated that "for the time being" Brookfield was withdrawing its request for police assistance in cleaning the park.
A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been feared. Many protesters had said the only way they would leave was by force, and organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."
Supporters including union members streamed into the plaza in the early morning darkness in a show of solidarity in a show several hundred strong.
Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowd as the announcement of the cleaning postponement circulated, and a small group soon marched away with brooms, saying they were going to clean up Wall Street, a few blocks away.
Some protesters scrubbed the park's marble and pavement with brooms and soapy water and picked up trash as others unfurled tarps on the rain-dampened concrete and ate potluck breakfast off paper plates. One man practiced his yoga sun salutation despite the dark clouds.
Liane Nikitovich, 44, fitness instructor, said she was buoyed by the news but also concerned that it was a postponement — not a cancellation.
"It's really a victory for freedom of speech and for democracy," Nikitovich said. "This is one moment. It shows that our support is growing worldwide."
The demand that protesters clear out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a reference to the protests in a speech Friday at The Economic Club of New York.
"The protests happening just a few miles from here ought to be reminder to all of us that we have a great deal of work to do to live up to the expectations of the American people," she said.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — wrote a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatened "fundamental constitutional rights."
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