This article titled “Florida road accident: 10 killed – video” was written by , for guardian.co.uk on Monday 30th January 2012 09.49 UTC

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This article titled “Twitter tattle and the trouble with twitchforks” was written by Kate Bevan, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 30th January 2012 16.42 UTC

Did you join in the #twitterblackout on Saturday? It was proposed in response to the publication last week of Twitter’s policy on removing content blocked by governments. The immediate reaction on Twitter was outrage at what was considered to be “censorship“, which led to a “strike”, with fellow users pledging to abstain from tweeting on Saturday. The speed at which the discontent spread was, as ever, quite impressive. However, as is increasingly the case with Twitter, a quick moment to pause and actually do one’s own reading around the issue revealed quite a different picture. In fact, Twitter’s posted policy is – as has been pointed out by a number of people – a shining example of how to respond both responsibly and transparently to takedown requests by a government.

Similarly, on Sunday night news rapidly spread on social networks that RBS boss Stephen Hester had waived his near-£1m bonus in the face of political pressure. However, again, a bit of reading around the subject reveals that the case is more complicated and nuanced than can possibly be covered in a 140-character tweet. The BBC’s Robert Peston explained the shades of grey on his blog in a post that would eat up more than a few tweets.

And that’s the problem: social networking militates against thinking for yourself. As the Twitterati jumps on the day’s bandwagon, we are increasingly seeing the unedifying spectacle of what’s been dubbed “twitchfork mobs” – and it can get ugly. Social media is a wonderful tool for networking and communication, but the flip side is that it encourages laziness of thinking. The need to verify information also seems to have been forgotten. It’s not just Twitter: Facebook has recently been awash with pictures that get posted and reposted, regardless of their provenance or veracity.

The most recent example popping up in my feed is a picture of a Waitrose store window, where the apparent combination of the angle at which the photographer stood and the word “count”, plus a bar on the glass, has created what must be a giant PR *facepalm* for the supermarket. It certainly made me laugh the first time I saw it. Since then, I’ve seen it dozens of times and I still have no idea if it’s genuine or Photoshopped – and, crucially, nor does anyone else. The rise of infographics is part of this: at their most dislikeable, they rely on the unquestioning response of many social media users. At best, they’re hard to verify as the actual data on which the graphic is based is usually not available; at worst, they deliberately mislead.

One image particularly caught my eye today: featuring what looks like a stock image of a couple at a computer, it bears a speech bubble saying: “I’m so happy we live in a world without slavery and imperialism.” Around the couple are vague captions decrying: “Orange juice – picked in Chile by women working 60 hours a week, below minimum wage”, and similar handwringing factoids devoid of any context. Minimum wage? By whose standards? The US’s? The UK’s? Where else do the oranges for orange juice come from, and in what conditions are they picked and processed? Yet despite this lack of information, it’s circulating widely via social media.

Social media increasingly enables us to choose to expose ourselves only to opinions that fit with our worldview: we follow people we chime with, read blogs that reinforce our opinions, “like” pages and causes that we support. Google’s personalised search filters out contrary voices by serving up “the most relevant results possible“. We are therefore increasingly retreating into spaces that limit our exposure to alternative voices and opinions. My attention span would rival that of a particularly inattentive gnat: it’s easy to see a tweet and nod in agreement; it’s much more challenging to go and seek out a variety of opinions around an issue.

As a result, I now reserve judgment on any trending topic until I’ve done a bit of reading for myself. It means I’m sometimes at odds with my peers and friends. That’s fine: healthy debate is the cornerstone of democracy. So next time you see a twitchfork mob approaching and baying for virtual blood, just pause a moment before picking up your twitchfork too: it’s impossible to convey nuance in a tweet or a Facebook post. The full story might be rather different.

• This article has been updated at 21.37 on 30.01.12 to correct a typo in the standfirst and trail. Thanks to commenters for pointing this out

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This article titled “Occupy protests in Oakland and New York: a weekend of police clashes” was written by Susie Cagle and Ryan Devereaux, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 30th January 2012 23.01 UTC

Oakland

Saturday’s Occupy Oakland, planned as a day of building, became a day of battling, when police responded with force to protesters’ attempts to take over a vacant city-owned building, an act organisers admitted was “completely illegal.”

“Move-In Day” had been billed as a celebration of the occupation and conversion of a vacant building into a political and community centre. On Saturday afternoon, occupiers thought they would be settling in, not shielding themselves.

But a series of tense and tenser skirmishes around the streets of Oakland concluded in a crackdown that left more than 400 people in jail, including reporters with police-issued press passes.

The day began with a long and confused march around police blockades. Occupiers arrived at their building shortly after 2pm: the sprawling 100-year-old Kaiser Convention Center, out of use since 2006.

Though the targeted building was kept secret in the lead-up to the action, many, including press and the police, had guessed correctly for weeks prior. Some protesters pulled down chain-link fences many yards in front of police, who responded by firing tear gas into the crowd.

A few blocks away and a half-hour later, the battle escalated, as protesters with shields made of plastic garbage cans, wood, and corrugated metal advanced and retreated in a strange and savage 15-minute dance along Oak Street until police pushed them onto a westbound street using crowd control weapons familiar to Occupy Oakland: teargas, stun grenades, and less-lethal shotgun projectiles.

Many witnesses confirmed plastic and glass bottles, food, rocks and at least two chairs were thrown at police. Police say improvised explosive devices and flares were also thrown at them, but have not yet provided evidence.

Occupy reconvened at 5pm to take another vacant building. They moved on the foreclosed Traveler’s Aid Society, a building they had attempted to take on 2 November before a crackdown ensued. This time, no one got inside. Two security guards and “one woman in a suit, talking frantically on the phone” kept Occupy at bay, according to activist Nikolas Koehler. The last time Occupy tried to take Traveler’s Aid, 100 people were swept up in the mass arrests.

The march continued north, to an empty lot and small park where Occupy Oakland had attempted to set up camp back in November. Police quickly swarmed and contained the majority of the approximately 800 protesters in the park area, only declaring an “unlawful assembly” after the crowd was trapped.

According to their crowd control policies, Oakland Police must provide an exit from an unlawful assembly, and a warning with sufficient time for dispersal before chemical agents are used and arrests are made. The kettle quickly boiled over.

“People started yelling: ‘Get the shields, make a wedge, break the kettle,’” Koehler said. “The one big shield approached the cops, and teargas and flash bangs were deployed while cops used batons to attack the people with the shield.”

Fleeing teargas but still trapped, people pulled down chainlink fences and scurried out through underground parking garages in order to make an escape back to the streets. I waited as long as I could in the stinging air before crossing the previously fenced-in property; police held their lines, preventing people from leaving any other way. From kettle to boil was only seven minutes.

The march moved on towards the third vacant building, but was continually headed off by police until being kettled again by a YMCA. I ran to the top of the stairs at the entry to see the teeming crowd below, pushed on both sides by advancing police lines. A few feet behind me, witnesses say employees opened the doors for them. “People were begging to be let in,” said witness Max Allstadt. “I didn’t hear or see anyone break in, and when I turned around, the doors were open.”

People streamed into the YMCA, seeking refuge – 100 of them were arrested there, and more than 200 others were contained and arrested outside. As police gave chase, one grabbed me hard and shoved me several feet across an entry way, into a crowd of people. When I asked to where I could safely leave, he said nothing.

I and five other members of local and national press were swept up in this. I heard no dispersal order – only an announcement to “submit to the arrest.”

It was a less harrowing experience than my last arrest reporting on Occupy Oakland, which landed me in jail for 15 hours. This time, I was only detained for about 40 minutes in official credentials. My arresting officer turned off my audio recorder three minutes in.

Every few minutes, as an officer continued to fill out my arrest report – “failure to disperse from the scene of a riot” – I insisted again on speaking with a sergeant. When officers took my photo with my name and information on a placard, I asked that they also include the press passes hanging around my neck. One looked nervous.

As a sergeant cut my plastic handcuffs, he told me my release was “discretionary” and a “favour”, because my police-issued press pass had expired at the end of 2011. “Technically you’re not press tonight,” he said, though my other credentials are valid through 2012. Officers escorted me to the edge of the perimeter, a block away from the arrests. Other reporters were not so lucky. Gavin Aronsen of Mother Jones magazine spent a few hours detained, and Yael Chanoff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper spent the night, and faces arraignment on charges.

A spokesperson confirmed to me again later that Oakland police department has a policy of allowing reporters to be present during arrests, and a special operational plan for the day included these instructions to officers.

While hundreds were arrested, a few dozen occupiers destroyed property on the ground floor of city hall. The city says they broke in, but witnesses say that’s not so. “The doors were unlocked and propped open,” Gratz said. “Somebody said: ‘City hall is open to the public, let’s go in!’”

Police arrived 20 minutes later, after occupiers had already vacated the building.

More than 24 hours after their arrests, many charged with failure to disperse from an unlawful assembly were still waiting in jail, yet to be booked. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan called the police response “very measured” but conceded a “small percentage of mistakes” may have been made.

Occupy Oakland vowed to fight on for another day and another building. “We’re not stopping until we have a home,” said one organiser at the 29 January general assembly.

“We obviously are never going to defeat the 101st airborne division on the streets,” said anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber, addressing that general assembly. “Where we win is when we are able to convince the 101st airborne division not to shoot us.”

For Occupy Oakland, and the reporters attempting to cover it, not being shot would at least make a good start. We thought the fire on the streets of Oakland had died down since the fall, but it’s just been raging quietly – and it will only be getting fiercer. It remains to be seen if protesters and police might revisit the tactics they employ in street battle. As each wins or loses a street, a block, a building, all are losing the war of public relations. Susie Cagle

New York

Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters took part in a raucous march through New York City on Sunday night in response to the Oakland arrests. The march was part of a coordinated, nationwide action that involved similar demonstrations in at least 20 other cities.

A dozen protesters were arrested in New York; most were charged with disorderly conduct. Three men were reportedly charged with assault and another with a criminal weapons charge. The NYPD said one officer sustained a finger injury.

New York City’s Occupy contingent began its march in lower Manhattan’s Washington square park shortly after 7pm. With drums beating, protesters exited the park while repeating an Occupy Oakland chant: “Rise up, shut it down, Oakland is the people’s town.”

Approximately 300 protesters zig-zagged through the city for over three hours, at times moving into traffic and sprinting down the street.

Bottles were thrown. At the intersection of 2nd Ave and 13th St a glass bottle was hurled in the direction of the police. It exploded on the concrete without hurting anyone. National Lawyers Guild observer Daniel Shockley said a flying bottle nearly struck him in the head on 14th St, between Park Ave and 2nd Ave. Meanwhile another bottle was reportedly tossed on 9th St, between Avenues B and C. Gothamist reporter Christopher Robbins tweeted: “Protester next to me throws bottle ducks down into crowd. NYPD swoop in, arrest wrong guy, thrower gets away.”

The mood of the march was confrontational and explicitly directed at issues of police brutality and abuse. Protesters chanted “from Oakland to NYC, stop police brutality,” “racist, sexist, anti-gay, NYPD go away,” and “fuck the police.” Some protesters swore directly at individual police officers.

Protester Bryan Hudson, 18, said he was fed up with the New York City police department. Hudson is from East New York in Brooklyn, one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in the five boroughs, where rates of controversial police stop-and-frisks are among the highest in the city.

“They’re always stopping and frisking minorities for no reason at all,” Hudson – an African American – said.

A significant number of participants marched with their faces covered by bandanas or balaclavas, encouraging others to join them in the street. Some dragged and threw various debris into roadways in an apparent attempt to slow down their police pursuers. One young woman with a bandanna over her face flung a trash bag into the road, narrowly missing a police officer’s face as he chased a separate protester.

Prominent live stream journalist Tim Pool was assaulted by one masked protester who attempted to physically stop him from filming. A scuffle ensued, with some onlookers attempting to remove the young man’s mask. Police intervened as Pool yelled for his assailant to be arrested. It was unclear if police managed to make an arrest.

The reason behind many arrests Sunday night were unclear. Occasionally the police would allow protesters to move through the streets uninterrupted. At other times demonstrators would be arrested while walking on the sidewalk, as police had ordered them to do.

The march concluded at Tompkins Square Park at approximately 10.30pm. A number of protesters stretched out on the ground, while others played music and talked. Dozens of officers monitored the situation as a police helicopter circled overhead.
Ryan Devereaux

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This article titled “Americans barred from leaving Egypt seek refuge at US embassy in Cairo” was written by Ben Quinn and agencies, for The Guardian on Monday 30th January 2012 23.21 UTC

Three Americans barred by Egyptian authorities from leaving the country have sought refuge at the United States embassy in Cairo. Tensions between the two states have escalated following unprecedented raids by security forces on a number of human rights and pro-democracy organisations working in Egypt.

Organisations targeted during the December raids included the US-government funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) – founded by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright – and the International Republican Institute (IRI), whose chairman is Republican senator John McCain.

Both organisations are affiliated with the two major US political parties and the crackdown has been viewed as highly provocative in Washington, which underwrites military aid to Egypt to the sum of $1.3bn (£827m) annually.

Egyptian authorities are preventing at least six Americans and four Europeans from leaving the country, citing an investigation opened last month when heavily armed security forces raided the offices of 10 international organisations. Egyptian officials have defended the raids as part of legitimate inquiry into the groups’ work and funding.

Those banned from leaving Egypt include Sam LaHood, son of the US transport secretary, Ray LaHood, but officials would not say whether he is at the embassy. The younger LaHood heads the Egypt office of the IRI and said last week that three other employees of the organisation were on the no-fly list – two American and one European.

The NDI said last week that three Americans and three Serb employees are on the list. However, it is understood that none of them are among those who have taken refuge at the US embassy.

A US state department spokeswoman, Kate Starr, told reporters in Washington on Sunday: “A handful of US citizens have opted to stay in the embassy compound in Cairo while waiting for permission to depart Egypt.”

Another official said three Americans were at the embassy, adding that the move was not because the US feared their imminent arrest.

US officials have warned that restrictions on civil society groups could hinder aid to Egypt, which would be a major blow to the country as it struggles with economic woes and continued turmoil since the popular uprising that led to Hosni Mubarak being ousted last year. Egypt’s military has been locked in a confrontation for months with protesters who demand it immediately hand over power to civilians.

The December raids brought sharp US criticism, and last week President Barack Obama spoke by telephone with Egyptian military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi about the issue.

Recent US legislation could block annual aid to Egypt unless it takes certain steps. These include abiding by its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, holding free and fair elections and “implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion and due process of law”.

The US is due to give $1.3bn in military assistance and $250m in economic aid to Egypt in 2012. Washington has given Egypt an average of $2bn in economic and military aid a year since 1979, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The Egyptian news agency Mena said in December that the 17 “civil society organisations” had been targeted during the raids as part of an investigation into foreign funding of such groups. The Egyptian generals who took power following Mubarak’s fall nearly a year ago have accused “foreign hands” of being behind protests against their rule and frequently depict the protesters as receiving foreign funds in a plot to destabilise the country.

Other groups that were raided, according to activists, included the German NGO Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung, which supports political dialogue, the Washington-based Freedom House, and the Egyptian Public Budget Observatory.

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This article titled “IAEA approves stress tests on Japan reactors” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Guardian on Tuesday 31st January 2012 08.15 UTC

Japan’s attempts to restart nuclear reactors that were shut down in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident were boosted after UN inspectors gave their backing to stress tests designed to confirm the reactors’ safety.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] said the reactor assessments were “generally consistent” with the body’s own safety standards, despite concern among some experts that the tests are flawed.

The IAEA’s upbeat appraisal was expected, and does not guarantee that Japan’s nuclear authorities will be able to put reactors back into service amid growing opposition from host communities in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

The team arrived in Japan nine days ago at the invitation of the Japanese government to review stress tests being conducted by the country’s industrial and nuclear safety agency (Nisa).

The tests, in which computer simulations are used to gauge the reactors’ ability to withstand severe events such as earthquakes and tsunami, were ordered after a triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in March unleashed large amounts of radiation into the environment.

The accident, the worst involving nuclear power since Chernobyl 25 years ago, forced the evacuation of more than 80,000 residents living within a 12-mile (20km) radius of the plant.

Almost a year on from the disaster, none of the residents has been allowed to return home; some have been warned their old neighbourhoods may remain uninhabitable for years.

James Lyons, the leader of the 10-member IAEA team, said: “We concluded that Nisa’s instructions to power plants and its review process for the comprehensive safety assessments are generally consistent with IAEA safety standards.”

Nisa officials said their first evaluation showed that two idle reactors at a plant in Oi, western Japan, were able to withstanding a disaster similar to the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that wrecked Fukushima Daiichi.

But two experts who sit on a panel advising Nisa on the safety appraisal said the stress tests were too limited in scope and did not prove that nuclear reactors were safe, adding that the IAEA visit was simply a public relations exercise.

“It is obvious that a visit by an international organisation advocating nuclear power is part of a political agenda that is built into a story already finished in advance,” Professor Hiromitsu Ino of Tokyo University and Masashi Goto, a former nuclear plant design engineer, said in a statement.

Quake damage and scheduled safety checks prompted by the Fukushima accident mean that all but three of Japan’s 54 reactors are out of service.

Without approval for restarts, Japan will be without a single operating nuclear reactor by the end of April. The trade and industry minister, Yukio Edano, has said, however, the country can survive the summer free of power cuts even without nuclear power.

The prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, believes Japan needs to retain a number of reactors while it develops alternative energy sources. The Fukushima crisis forced the country to abandon plans to generate more than 50% of its power from nuclear by 2030.

Towns that host nuclear power plants have criticised the government for introducing the tests before the official investigation into the Fukushima accident is complete. Local approval is not legally required to restart a reactor, but few believe the government will bring plants back online without public support.

In another measure designed to bolster public confidence in nuclear power, the cabinet on Tuesday approved legislation that will end the nuclear safety agency’s organisational ties to the trade and industry ministry.

The ministry has been criticised for failing to recognise the dangers posed by nuclear power and for its close ties to utilities.

The bill would also limit a reactor’s operational lifespan to 40 years, with a controversial one-time extension of 20 years for those that pass additional safety tests. One of the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi went into service 41 years ago.

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This article titled “Barack Obama faces pressure over TVShack extradition case” was written by Lizzy Davies and agencies, for The Guardian on Tuesday 31st January 2012 10.17 UTC

Barack Obama has come under pressure to explain American attempts to extradite a British student accused of breaking US copyright law, after a web campaign to raise awareness of the case propelled it to the top of a presidential question-and-answer session.

A query about Richard O’Dwyer, a 23-year-old Sheffield Hallam undergraduate who faces jail if sent for trial and convicted in the US, was the most asked of more than 133,000 questions submitted to a live online Google+ “hangout” with the president broadcast on Monday.

O’Dwyer, the creator of the now-defunct TVShack website, which allowed users to watch film and television programmes without charge, is alleged by US authorities to have earned nearly £150,000 from his online activities. A court ruled earlier this month that he could be sent for trial in the US – a prospect his lawyers say would make him a guinea pig for controversial US copyright law.

Obama sought to distance himself from the case when asked by the web personality and vehement critic of anti-piracy legislation Michael Mozart to explain why the extradition was being attempted.

“Why are you personally supporting the extradition of British citizen Richard O’Dwyer for solely linking to copyright-infringing works using an extradition treaty designed to combat terrorism and to bring terrorists to judgement in the USA?” Mozart asked.

The president replied: “I’m not personally doing anything; I want to make sure everybody understands. One of the ways our system works is that the president doesn’t get involved with prosecution decisions or extradition decisions and this has been a decision by the justice department.”

Obama spoke in greater depth on the contentious issue of internet piracy and copyright law, saying his administration was trying to “make sure that intellectual property is protected; we want to make sure that the creative works of people in this country aren’t expropriated but we want to do it in a way that’s consistent with internet freedom”.

In a tweet, O’Dwyer’s mother, Julia, said Obama had given “a typical politician response, don’t know what going on in his name but good to get the question in appreciated”.

In comments made before the session took place, she thanked Mozart for having galvanised support for the question, posed by more than 6,000 people. “Let’s see if the president chooses to answer – if he doesn’t, well, that will be another story itself,” she wrote in a post on her blog about the fight against her son’s extradition.

Despite his lawyers’ attempts to argue that TVShack had not stored copyright material but had, like other legitimate websites, pointed users towards places they could find it, O’Dwyer was told by Westminster magistrates court last month he was eligible to face trial in the US. He was arrested at his home in Yorkshire by British and American police in November 2010, but does not face criminal charges in the UK.

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This article titled “RBS, the nationalised bank that regards itself as operating in the private sector” was written by Nils Pratley, for The Guardian on Monday 30th January 2012 02.00 UTC

A weekend’s reflection will have told Stephen Hester that the row over his £963,000 bonus was not going to go away. Ed Miliband planned to raise the subject in the House, support among Conservative backbenchers ranged from lukewarm to non-existent and even government ministers, while arguing that their own hands were tied, were adding to the pressure to give up the award.

Some of the damage cannot be undone. Hester could have avoided the political uproar by saying at the outset that he did not wish to be considered for a bonus. He did not, so he will not be able to avoid the impression that he would have taken the money if he possibly could. It’s almost the worst of all worlds for him – little personal credit and no bonus.

It was not all his fault. In Hester’s shoes, you might resent the lack of cover from ministers. The government briefed that a sum of less than £1m would be acceptable but, when the RBS pay committee met that condition, ministers did not go on the offensive to defend the bargain they apparently support – that the best way to maximise the value of the public’s shareholding in RBS is to employ a crew of private sector managers with private sector pay arrangements.

The actions of Hester’s chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, did not help either. He announced he would not be accepting his own bonus under a three-year incentive scheme. On inspection, however, this award turned out to have been next to worthless – the sort of bonus that is easy to surrender.

Hester’s true feelings about the episode are hard to guess. It now looks that, when he took the job in 2009, he severely underestimated the scrutiny that would accompany every annual bonus award.

If the original hopes for RBS had been fulfilled – a quick return to the private sector with the state’s shares sold at a profit – it would have been easier to persuade public that value for money, of a sort, had been secured by making multimillion pound payments to the boss. But the shares fell in value by half last year and privatisation simply isn’t going to happen soon. It’s this factor that may explain the extra intensity in this year’s row.

RBS these days looks more than ever like a nationalised institution that will be on the state’s books for years. In today’s circumstances, it is very hard for RBS to argue that Barclays, and not the civil service or the Bank of England, is the right yardstick for pay. For most outsiders, Hester should count himself lucky that he enjoys a basic salary of £1.2m. Those inside RBS, however, still regard themselves as operating in a private sector.

So don’t be surprised if Hester concludes that his job has become impossible. There will be a second chapter of this affair when RBS awards bonuses to executives below board level – including a potential £4m for John Hourican, head of the investment bank, under a long-term scheme. It is easy to imagine that Hester might regard those payments as a point of principle – the principle being that the RBS board should remain free to set its pay arrangements as it sees fit.

In the meantime, there will be huge pressure on Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, and Stephen Gulliver, his counterpart at HSBC, to surrender their bonuses. The bosses of Lloyds and now RBS have now taken that step. The state owns no shares in Barclays or HSBC – but there is the same sense that bankers who try to collect big bonuses are fighting history and an overdue rewriting of the rules.

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This article titled “Ecuador police recruits abused – video” was written by , for guardian.co.uk on Friday 27th January 2012 16.51 UTC

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This article titled “Costa Concordia divers find 17th body” was written by Conal Urquhart and agencies, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 28th January 2012 13.20 UTC

Divers have found a 17th body on the wrecked cruise ship Costa Concordia, the Italian authorities have said.

A spokesman for the Italian civil defence organisation said the body of a woman was found on the submerged sixth deck. Fourteen of the 17 bodies have been identified, and a further 15 people are still missing.

Around 4,200 people were on board the Costa Concordia when it ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio on 13 January.

Salvage workers have also postponed attempts to extract fuel from the wreck, which is lying on its side. Efforts to pump around half a million gallons from the liner were shelved when high seas partially dislodged a barge hitched to the hull to serve as a staging platform for removing fuel.

The Dutch salvage firm Smit had intended to start pumping fuel out on Saturday to prevent it from leaking and polluting the coastline.

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This article titled “Occupy protesters arrested after clashes with Oakland police” was written by Ewen MacAskill, for guardian.co.uk on Sunday 29th January 2012 19.11 UTC

More than 200 people were arrested in Oakland, California, after the worst clash for months between Occupy Wall Street protesters and riot police.

Police fired tear gas and non-lethal flash grenades and waded into the 1,000-strong crowd with batons to try to quell the demonstrators. At least three police officers and a demonstrator were injured. The clash brings the Occupy movement back into the public eye after their camps were cleared by police from city centres late last year. Protesters have been turning up to disrupt Republican primary campaign events but these have been relatively low-key.

The Oakland police were accused of over-reaction when they razed an Occupy camp last year. The renewed violence came after Occupy protesters on Saturday attempted to take over a disused convention centre to create a headquarters for the movement in Oakland and draw attention to the plight of the homeless.

The city authorities issued a statement saying about 200 people had been arrested. The council said protesters broke into city hall and burned an American flag.

The mayor, Jean Quan, blamed the protesters: “Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland. The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground.”

The police, in a statement, said: “Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares. Oakland police department deployed smoke and tear gas.”

It said: “The city of Oakland welcomes peaceful assembly and freedom of speech but acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated.”

The Occupy movement has managed to hang on to camps in Washington, a few blocks from the White House. The National park service said the camps, in the middle of two city squares, are to be removed from Monday.

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