DISSIDENT Republicans in Northern Ireland have bombed a bank, less than a month after they warned they would be doing just that.
The car bomb badly damaged the Ulster Bank in Culmore Road, Derry. Nobody was injured but the attack was widely condemned by the British and Irish establishment.
In September the underground group described bankers as criminals and told The Guardian: "We have a track record of attacking high-profile economic targets and financial institutions such as the City of London.
"The role of bankers and the institutions they serve in financing Britain's colonial and capitalist system has not gone unnoticed.
"Let's not forget that the bankers are the next-door neighbours of the politicians.
"Most people can see the picture: the bankers grease the politicians' palms, the politicians bail out the bankers with public funds, the bankers pay themselves fat bonuses and loan the money back to the public with interest.
"It's essentially a crime spree that benefits a social elite at the expense of many millions of victims."
BANKERS are on the target list for dissident Irish republicans in the Real IRA, according to a Guardian interview with the underground group.
The Real IRA described bankers as criminals and told the newspaper: "We have a track record of attacking high-profile economic targets and financial institutions such as the City of London.
"The role of bankers and the institutions they serve in financing Britain's colonial and capitalist system has not gone unnoticed.
"Let's not forget that the bankers are the next-door neighbours of the politicians.
"Most people can see the picture: the bankers grease the politicians' palms, the politicians bail out the bankers with public funds, the bankers pay themselves fat bonuses and loan the money back to the public with interest.
"It's essentially a crime spree that benefits a social elite at the expense of many millions of victims."
The Real IRA also told the Guardian that support for them was building and they had turned away hundreds of young disaffected nationalists because they didn't have the capacity to absorb so many members.
"From the point of view of republican communities, there is still a heavily armed British police force that casually uses plastic baton rounds, CS gas and Tasers, carry out house raids, stop and search operations and general harassment.
"There's still a 5,000-strong British army garrison, a new MI5 HQ in Belfast, and a British secretary of state. Republican communities are still subjected to sectarian parades and the right to protest is being met with intimidation and violence."
PROTESTERS are aiming to shut down a bank's HQ on Monday as the culmination of days of action.
They have set up a camp right next to the offices in Scotland and there have already been clashes with police.
The BBC reports that two women have been arrested after the climate change protesters attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland's Edinburgh headquarters on Sunday.
It says: "More than 100 protesters took part in the action, which also involved an oil-like substance being thrown at the building and windows being smashed.
"Campaigners bearing a banner reading 'Greedy pigs, bankrolling the climate crisis' tried to enter the bank's headquarters."
The Camp for Climate Action website explains it is a "grassroots movement taking direct action against the root causes of climate change".
It adds: "After mobilising and helping stop the proposed third runway at Heathrow and a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth, we're growing into a mass movement reclaiming our future from government and profit-hungry corporations.
"This year we're targeting the Royal Bank of Scotland.
"Last year RBS were bailed out with £50 billion of public money. This bank is one of the world's largest investor in oil, gas and coal. From tar sands extraction in Canada to coal infrastructure here in the UK, we're paying to trash our future.
"These projects are not just causing catastrophic climate change, but destroying the lives and livelihoods of people across the globe. Meanwhile, we're told there is no money left and we should be braced for decades of public sectors cuts.
"Ecological destruction is built into the mechanics of the financial system, with communities disenfranchised from their own futures. This is why people from across the UK will be converging to take back the power and Break the Bank!"
People resisting climate change closed down the Royal Bank of Scotland's Global HQ at Gogarburn near Edinburgh and took direct action at numerous sites throughout Edinburgh today 23rd August.
The Camp for Climate Action said: "We are celebrating a successful day targeting various climate criminals - holding direct actions, demonstrations and street theatre confronting the role of financial institutions like RBS in bankrolling climate change."
Harry Reynolds who took part in the actions said: “No one came to work today at the RBS Gogarburn headquarters. Since we had already effectively shut that down, we decided to concentrate our energies targeting RBS and its fossil fuel affiliates in the Edinburgh city centre. We’ve done a lot to disrupt RBS dirty energy operations today, but we are committed to keeping up the pressure until we manage to cut off the flow of capital from the banks to the fossil fuel industry.”
CANADIAN bankers are getting increasingly nervous, four weeks before the G20 summit.
CTV News reports from Toronto: "Several downtown banks and a police vehicle were vandalized with anti-G20 graffiti early Friday.
"At least five banks and ATMs were hit with red and black spray painted slogans such as 'Stop the G20'. A police vehicle was also damaged."
A video of the TV news broadcast explains that banks are advising customers to use online banking during the summit and to withdraw valuables from safes in advance as they fear they will be forced to shut by angry protests.
Adds 680 News: "Mayor David Miller is warning residents and tourists alike to do what they can to avoid downtown Toronto during G20 weekend."
The graffiti follows the firebombing of a bank in Ottawa, Canada's capital city, by anarchists.
World leaders descend on Toronto' s Metro Convention Centre on June 26th and 27th.
BANKS' cash machines are being targeted by anti-capitalist saboteurs in Greece.
Said a statement reproduced by the Angry News from Around the World blog: " In the early hours of Wednesday 5th of May we decided to inaugurate the 24hour general strike by putting out of use 71 ATMs in many areas of Thessaloniki (Euosmos, centre, Touba, Ambelokipoi, Pylaia, Kalamaria, Sukies).
"This action is just another small piece of the puzzle that is a part of the substantial oppossition to the calmness that exists in the functioning of society.
" An action against the obvious section of the otherwise invisible, procedure of money circulation. An action that is easy for everyone to do (a little bit of quick dry glue and a few cards is enough to sabotage a few of these machines).
"In a society such as this one, in which relationships are described in consumerist terms, we try every moment to oppose the normality that is defined in our lives by the State, replacing in this way the logic of abuse with the release of our destructive feelings.
"We chose to act on this day to show that for strikes to be an authentic threat to the state, a basic criteria is the interruption of production and with that, of consumtion, this way normality is blocked and the chance is given to everyone in the street to organize their resistance to those who stole their lives.
"Because of the assimilation of the strikes and their transformation into another democratic right, this threat has turned into nothing more than a simple - and this only apparently- happy break from everyday life."
GREEK resistance fighters have hit back at the global bankers plunging their people into poverty.
A bomb exploded outside a JPMorgan Chase office in Athens on Tuesday - thanks to the usual warning, nobody was hurt.
Reported the New York Post, in a report headed 'Blast proves Greeks miffed': "The blast comes just days after reports that JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and other banks may have played a role in creating the current sovereign debt crisis looming over a number of European countries by selling to those nations products which helped them spend beyond their means.
"A JPMorgan spokesman declined to comment on the bank's sovereign financing business. Goldman officials also declined to comment.
"While no one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, the explosion happened against a backdrop of increased frustration across Greece amid signs that the Greek government will be slashing costs in an effort to avoid a financial collapse.
"Indeed, the European Union yesterday said it would consider providing substantive aid to the struggling country only if it first took steps to help itself, including balancing its budget, slashing spending and imposing new taxes. The country has until March 16 to come up with a plan.
"The anticipated belt tightening by the government doesn't sit well with Greek citizens, many of whom have taken to the streets in recent days to protest.
"Greece's national deficit has ballooned to 120 percent of gross domestic product -- the highest among the countries in the European Union, according to data from Bloomberg. Perhaps even more troubling, Greece has $11 billion in debt that will need to be refinanced in April and May, said Larry Kantor, head of research at Barclays Capital.
"Earlier in the week, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou suggested in published reports that Greece may be just the tip of the iceberg. 'Today it is Greece, tomorrow it can be another country,' he warned.
"Indeed, many observers say bigger countries such as Spain could pose an even bigger threat to global financial stability than Greece."
The global war against capitalism is only just beginning...
An overwhelming majority of people are happy to be living in this industrial capitalist world. We know this because we are told it constantly.
How could we foresee a near future in which the hypnotic spell is broken, the scales fall from a billion eyes and those who say 'Enough!' are revealed, all of a sudden, to be a gale force wind of revolt, a tidal wave of insurgent delight sweeping all before it, a minority so vast it will change everything?
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