Occupy London Takes Over Empty Bank; Occupy Dallas Evicted

Per their website:

Occupy London has taken over a huge abandoned office block in the borough of Hackney belonging to the investment bank UBS, in a move it describes as a "public repossession."

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The multimillion pound complex, which has been empty for several years, is the group’s third space and its first building, adding to its two camps at St Paul’s Courtyard – near the London Stock Exchange in the heart of the City – and at Finsbury Square . . . .

The group say the space will be reopened on Saturday morning as the "Bank of Ideas." . . . An events programme is being lined up, including talks from Palestinian activists, comedy from Josie Long and a session led by trader Alessio Rastani, who sent shockwaves through the media following a provocative interview on the Eurozone crisis. . . .

Sarah Layler of Occupy London added: "The Bank of Ideas will host a full events programme where people will be able to trade in creativity rather than cash. We will also make space available for those that have lost their nurseries, community centres and youth clubs to savage Government spending cuts."

More at the link; see also The Guardian.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding that Dallas Occupiers had allegedly reached an agreement with City officials that their camp could remain behind City Hall until mid-December, a force including a SWAT team and mounted police evicted them at 11:45PM Wed. night on 15 minutes' notice, apparently on orders by the City Manager. (Photo by Justin Terveen, from The Dallas Observer.)

The eviction was allegedly based on escalating problems in the camp; but I visited the camp twice and found it clean and orderly, and no actual crime has been cited other than an assault that took place during a scuffle between two camp members at another location, the perpetrator of which vanished some time ago. More here.