David Randall and Matt Thomas: The Indignant Rise up agaist Corporate Greed and Cuts

Protests against corporate greed, executive excess and public austerity began to gel into the beginnings of a worldwide movement yesterday, as tens of thousands marched in scores of cities. The "Occupy Wall Street" protest, which started in Canada and spread to the US, and the long- running Spanish "Indignant" and Greek anti-cuts demonstrations coalesced on a day that saw marches or occupations in 82 countries. Some protests were small, as in Tokyo, where only 2oo turned up. Some were large, as in Spain, where around 60 separate demonstrations were staged, and some were muted, as in London, where nearly 2,000 intending to march on the Stock Exchange obeyed police who turned them back. As dusk fell, some 500 of them were kettled in St Paul's churchyard. Containment tactics were also used by the police in New York last night, as thousands of demonstrators were penned behind barricades in Times Square. They had marched through Manhattan and protested outside the city's banks, withdrawing their money as they did. Only one of the protests, in Rome, was violent. Here, among an estimated 100,000 protesters, were a few who who broke away and hurled bottles, smashed shop windows, torched cars and attacked news crews. There were reports that the defense ministry had been partly trashed. Most of the disorders took place near the Colosseum, and police charged the protesters and fired water cannon. Some demonstrators fled, but others turned against the troublemakers, trying, with limited success, to stop them.