Tag Archives: New York Times

Mar 22 2013

WikiLeaks: The Enemies of America | BBC Documentary

It was the biggest information leak in US diplomatic history — over 250,000 US diplomatic messages or “cables” between the US State Department and US embassies all over the world — turned into a global sensation by the website WikiLeaks.

The cables dominated newspaper headlines and front pages, but what does this vast trove of documents really tell us about American diplomacy, and what impact has the leaking of the cables had?

In the first in-depth television analysis of the secret documents, Richard Bilton lifts the lid on a superpower’s secret thoughts and aspirations, plans and strategies, struggles and fears.

In this two-part series, he speaks to people at the top of the US Government about their experiences of the leaking of the cables. He finds out first-hand what the impact of the leak has been for US diplomats. And he travels to the place where the leaking of the cables helped fuel revolution.

He unpicks what the cables really tell us about the world’s greatest superpower, the stories America did not want you to hear — the difference between what the US says in public and what it says in private

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Dec 12 2011

Occupy Movement in Full Effect today across the US – Police arrest OWS protesters at World Financial Center

Police arrested OWS protester at a peaceful flash mob at World Financial Center and harass journalist who filmed the protest.

(NYT)At least 17 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested on Monday at the World Financial Center, whose owner, Brookfield Properties, also owns Zuccotti Park, the public space where the protesters maintained an encampment for two months before being cleared by the police in mid-November.

“We thought we would come over and give Brookfield a direct message,” said Bill Dobbs, an Occupy Wall Street organizer.

About 200 protesters milled and chanted inside the center’s winter garden, a public atrium with soaring ceilings. They also stretched yellow adhesive tape marked with the word “Occupy” across the granite floor of the atrium. From a second-floor balcony, a banner was unfurled with the words “solidarity” and “west coast port shutdown,” in support of protests in cities like Oakland, Seattle and San Diego, where activists with the Occupy movement announced plans to blockade ports.

Onlookers peered from other parts of the balcony, or hurried across the main floor of the atrium, where protesters swirled in a circle.

Soon police officers arrived. A man wearing a suit, who would not say who he worked for announced: “If you do not leave, you will be arrested.”

A police commander said the man worked for Brookfield. A spokeswoman for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

A few minutes later, officers began herding protesters down a wide staircase in the atrium and pushed them toward a door. At one point, several officers pounced on a man on the ground. A moment later, officers chased another man through the atrium, cornering him near glass windows and arresting him.

Most of the protesters and several news reporters and photographers were pushed outside. But about 10 men and 7 women were placed in handcuffs inside the atrium, then removed and placed in police vehicles.

The protests began when a few hundred people assembled on Broadway, opposite Zuccotti Park, and marched to the Goldman Sachs headquarters nearby. Some of those on the march compared Goldman Sachs to a giant squid with tentacles that spread throughout the global financial system.

“We’re demonstrating the links between the excesses in finance and the excesses in industry,” said Aaron Bornstein, 31, a neuroscientist from Fort Greene, Brooklyn. “And the labor-busting power of industry.”

At least a dozen people were arrested.

After rallying outside the Goldman Sachs building on West Street while brandishing placards and papier-mâché replicas of squids, some of the protesters then headed to the World Financial Center.

(via COLIN MOYNIHAN – New York Times)

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