Manila finally calming down – the rest of the world, not so much.
May 1st starting off with a bang in 2001 – starting with news from Manila.
Two police officers and a protester died today when thousands of supporters of deposed president Joseph Estrada marched through central Manila and tried to break down the gates of the presidential palace. After troops with tanks took control of the area this morning, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo emerged from the besieged palace and accused unidentified political opponents of trying to oust her. “The demonstrations … were funded by people with a political agenda. It is clear that their goal is to bring down the legitimate government,” she said on national television.
Earlier, Estrada’s son Jinggoy said by telephone that his father was appealing to his supporters to remain calm. Arroyo said two police officers were dead and shops and homes had been looted. Reuters photographer Bobby Ranoco said one protester’s face “had been blown apart” by a gunshot. Several people were wounded during the hot, sultry night after hours of skirmishes around the building, which is defended by high walls on three sides, and a river on the other. Two Manila hospitals reported 16 total injuries, eight by bullets, mainly to the legs, and at least two police hit by rocks.
Witnesses said police and soldiers had persistently fired warning shots and sent tear gas rounds into the crowd of around 20,000 people.
And previewing the Bush administration’s energy strategy, Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday downplayed conservation as a solution to the nation’s power problems, outlining a policy that relies instead on increasing supplies of nuclear power, oil, and natural gas. Cheney, who is heading the White House energy task force that is expected to report to President Bush this month, also said the administration would continue to push for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In a speech to the Associated Press in Toronto, the vice president praised some technological approaches to energy typically embraced by environmentalists, including fuel-efficient cars and low-power computer screens. But in mapping out the Bush plan, Cheney backed away from earlier signs that the administration would emphasize conservation in its effort to fix the energy crunch. And he did little to calm environmental activists who fear that the new energy plan will lopsidedly advocate a search for new sources of energy rather than ways to preserve current supplies. “Some groups are suggesting that government step in to force Americans to consume less energy, as if we could simply conserve or ration our way out of the : situation we’re in,” Cheney said. But, he continued: “To speak exclusively of conservation is to duck the tough issues.
Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”.
Finally – MAY Day protest rallies swept cities around the world, with hundreds detained in demonstrations ranging from skirmishes with anti-capitalists against global trade to traditional demands for workers’ rights. German, water police fired cannon on teargas leftists in Berlin and Frankfurt, police arrested 40 people in Switzerland’s financial capital of Zurich and thousands of demonstrators paralyzed London’s main shopping area on Oxford Street in a day-long confrontation. Protesters against economic globalisation multinational corporations wield too much power over people’s lives, even to the point of coercing democratically-elected governments. Australia: Police fought running battles with thousands of anti-globalization protesters in cities across the country, with Sydney and Brisbane worst hit. Thirty Sydney police officers were injured, two seriously, and 33 people arrested as riot police tried to disperse a crowd blocking the stock exchange entrance.
Protesters said at least 30 of their number were injured. In Brisbane, 45 people were arrested as 600 demonstrators tried to storm stock exchange. In Perth, mounted police charged 300 demonstrators after scuffles at the stock exchange and six people were charged. In Melbourne, 2,000 activists targeted big corporations, including McDonalds and Nike, threatening to storm a McDonalds restaurant and spraying it with graffiti. Germany: Anarchists erected blazing barricades and pelted police with stones and bottles in Berlin but a demonstration by about 1,000 neo-Nazis went off peacefully.
Leftist protesters were angered by a court decision to ban their demonstration while a march by the far-right NPD was allowed go ahead.
And that’s just a sample of what went on, this May 1st in 2002 as presented by the BBC World Service World Briefing program.
