World News Review Breaking news from around the world.

I’ve covered a lot of protests over the years, gotten hit with pepper spray, bruised, bumped and jostled, and even interviewed naked protesters (who were taking the occasion of China’s occupation of Tibet to demand that the Olympic Games return to their glorious in-the-buff past). And protests for world gatherings ranging from G-8 to IMF and World Bank meetings are pretty predictable: anti-globalization, anti-capitalist, environmentalist, and anarchist protesters whose actions range from dressing in silly outfits to hurling Molotov cocktails at riot police.

But this year, as leaders of the world’s top 20 economies prepare to meet this week in London, the dynamic has become, shall we say, more inclusive. Expect to see many new protesters out on the streets who may have brushed off the usual agitators as nutbars in the past, but are now hearing an anti-government, anti-banking message that resonates with those who have fallen on tough times. Take the message being put forth on the website of G-20 Meltdown:

“Lost your home? Lost your job? Lost your savings or your pension? This party is for you!


Capitalism has been heating up our world for years, melting the icecaps, burning up the rainforests, pushing the planet to tipping point. Now we’re going to put the heat on them. At the London Summit , the G20 ministers are trying to get away with the biggest April Fools trick of all time. Their tax-dodging, bonus-guzzling, pension-pinching, unregulated free market world’s in meltdown, and those fools think we’re going to bail them out. They’ve gotta be joking!
We can’t pay, we won’t pay and we are taking to the streets.”

As protesters publicly plan to storm the Bank of England on April 1 at noon, storefronts are being boarded up and security is going into high alert. This includes, reports the Daily Mail, the arrests of five people suspected of being part of a plot to bomb the G-20 summit.