Two of Britain’s biggest oil companies British Petroleum (BP) and Royal Dutch Shell have been raided by European regulators over allegations of manipulating the oil price since 2002.

According to the reports, officers from the European Commission’s competition authority searched the London headquarters of the two companies for possible evidence of price manipulation.

BP and Shell are suspected of oil price rigging since 2002. Over more than ten years, the price of a litre of petrol has risen dramatically by more than 80 percent to about £1.35 a litre.

“Even small distortions of assessed prices may have a huge impact on the prices of crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels purchases and sales, potentially harming final consumers.” the European Commission said.

The Guardian:

Lord Oakeshott, former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said the alleged rigging of oil prices was "as serious as rigging Libor" – which led to banks being fined hundreds of millions of pounds.

He demanded to know why the UK authorities had not taken action earlier and said he would ask questions of the British regulator in Parliament. "Why have we had to wait for Brussels to find out if British oil giants are ripping off British consumers?" he said. "The price of energy ripples right through our economy and really matters to every business and families."

RAC technical director David Bizley said the allegations were "worrying news for motorists" who are already suffering due to the high cost of keeping a vehicle.

"Motorists will be very interested to see what comes of these raids. Whatever happens the RAC will continue to campaign for greater transparency in the UK fuel market and for a further reduction in fuel duty to stimulate economic growth."

Four months ago the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) ruled out an investigation into petrol price fixing after finding "very limited evidence" that pump prices rise quickly when the wholesale price goes up but fall more slowly when it drops.

The European Commission described today’s raid as “a preliminary step to investigate suspected anti-competitive practices”. Offices owned by price-reporting agency Platts, and Norwegian oil Company Statoil were also raided as part of the commission’s investigation.

When the Occupy Wall Street encampment was evicted from the park on Nov. 15, 2011, police officers and sanitation workers dismantled and removed belongings and furnishings that had been kept in the park, tossing them onto sidewalks, into metal containers and into a dump truck.

The city of New York will pay more than $350,000 to settle a lawsuit filed last year claiming that police destroyed the private property of those evicted from a park during an Occupy Wall Street raid.

Occupy Wall Street organizers brought the suit against the city last year, claiming that in a raid that took place in Zucotti Park on Nov. 15, 2011, police destroyed thousands of books the movement had accumulated in its so-called "People's Library."

The "books were damaged so as to render them unusable, and additional books are unaccounted for," court papers read. Furnishings and other equipment were also damaged, the suit claimed.

"Our clients are pleased," Normal Siegel, who represented Occupy Wall Street, said following the decision, according to The Village Voice.

"This was not just about money, it was about constitutional rights and the destruction of books."

The settlement calls for the city to pay Occupy $47,000 for the loss of the books and about $186,000 in legal fees it incurred. New York City will also pay $75,000 to Global Revolutions TV, a broadcaster, along with $49,850 in legal costs, for the destruction of its computers and live-streaming equipment. An additional $8,500 will be paid to Times Up New York, an organization that provided bicycle-powered generators to the Occupiers.

As part of the settlement, Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zucotti Park, will pay the city about $16,000 for its responsibility in the property destruction.

Here's a copy of the settlement:

Occupy Wall St. v. City of New York Settlement by nicholasjpinto

The 10 hours and 35 minutes of video footage shot by the NYPD during the raid of Zuccotti Park that was released by Anonymous on Monday gives a more expansive view of what happened on the morning of November 15, 2011, albeit in a more sanitized form. Much of the footage, which also includes clips from the Duarte Square action and the re-opening of the park the following evening, is heavily edited, especially scenes that include arrests. Still, some of it is informative and contradicts the statements or positions made by city officials defending the raid, most notably, that Occupy's Library was dismantled and destroyed by Brookfield employees, and that reports of press harassment and arrests were part of a "myth."

Via:

The first four minutes of this footage shows protester Ted Hall giving a monologue as police in riot gear watch, but the remaining time shows police notifying Occupy's medical tent that they must leave. An officer tells the doctor on duty that he must leave, but that EMS will take care of his patients. The doctor declines, and refuses to leave his two patients. A long standoff ensues, as several officers believe that one of the protesters stole a scalpel. A nurse ensures them that they haven't. That nurse, "Nurse Jane," wrote about the experience here. She describes the medical tent as "the most amazing clinic I've ever worked in!"

Eventually, the tent is ripped by police knives, and everyone is forced out. Nurse Jane is seen speaking with another officer, explaining to him her concerns (11:40 mark), and notes that it doesn't help that there is a man filming her. "That would be me," the TARU officer from behind the camera replies.

The Gothamist has downloaded the footage into seven videos (including the one above) and breaks down each into note worthy events, you can view them all here.

Non-violent students at UC Davis protesting tuition hikes in November 2011 were sprayed with pepper-spray by campus police.

The University of California has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by demonstrators who were pepper-sprayed during an Occupy protest at UC Davis last fall, according to a preliminary settlement filed Wednesday.

Under the proposed settlement, each of the 21 protesters named in the complaint will receive $30,000 and an additional $250,000 for their attorneys to split.

A Letter from Quebec:They Villified Us,Then We Won.

Elderly veterans facing foreclosure: Robert Moses is 92, an African American and a World War II Navy veteran.

Don Baird is a couple of weeks shy of his 90th birthday, is scheduled for heart surgery next week, and is also a World War II veteran.

Aside from being former servicemen, both men also share one other thing: they are about to lose the homes they owned, each for more than four decades, to foreclosure.

Continue reading »

Live video for mobile from Ustream

10:45am Update:

William Hague, the foreign secretary, has made it clear that Britain will not give Assange safe passage to South America. He told a press conference:

"We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom, nor is there any legal basis for us to do so. The United Kingdom does not recognize the principle of diplomatic asylum."

Vaughan Smith, a friend of Assange who put him up for more than a year at his Norfolk residence. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World at One this afternoon, Smith said:

I'm extremely pleased; I'm absolutely delighted. I'm very pleased indeed.

I think he would like to go to Ecuador; I think that's where he should go. And hopefully we'll be a little bit more tolerant about this. I think we need to consider the fact that the Ecuadoreans are the other people who have really considered the matters they've considered. They've concluded there is a threat to his life. I think we should honor that.

He said that "ideally" Assange should face Swedish questioning, but that the Ecuadoreans had offered the Swedes the opportunity to interview him in the embassy and they had refused.

I think there's a lot of pride involved here... They have interviewed an alleged murderer in Serbia but they choose not to come to London to interview Julian Assange. I think that's very disappointing.

6:05am Update:

"Britain will carry out its "binding obligation" to extradite Assange to Sweden in spite of Ecuador's decision, a spokesperson for the FCO has said.

We are disappointed by the statement from Ecuador’s Foreign Minister that Ecuador has offered political asylum to Julian Assange.

Under our law, with Mr Assange having exhausted all options of appeal, the British authorities are under a binding obligation to extradite him to Sweden. We shall carry out that obligation. The Ecuadorian Government's decision this afternoon does not change that.

We remain committed to a negotiated solution that allows us to carry out our obligations under the Extradition Act."

5:42am Update:

Ecuador has granted political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange:

"We can state that there is a risk that he will be persecuted politically...

We trust the UK will offer the necessary guarantees so that both governments can act adequately and properly respect international rights and the right of asylum.

We also trust the excellent relationship the two countries have will continue."

The questions remain: Will the UK storm the embassy to arrest Assange as threatened? How will Ecuador get Assange out of the country?

4:40am Update:

Asylum for Assange decision is expected at 1pm UK time today.

Assange supporters wearing "Anonymous" masks holding up "I'm Julian Assange."

4:10am Update:

Three protesters have been arrested following a brawl with London police.

President of the Ecuadorian National Assembly Fernando Cordero has called a special meeting on the UK’s potential raid of the Ecuadorian Embassy. Although Parliament is in recess for 15 days, he called 124 legislators to attend the meeting. This session will not address the issue of Assange’s bid for asylum, Cordero said.

“I think that this point in time, other nations need to stand up and defend Ecuador's right to make this decision. They haven't even made the decision, they're being threatened. Imagine threatening to storm an embassy to this because they're protecting the rights of a journalist. We have to respect Ecuador's sovereignty, something that the UK might like to take on board. This is a serious decision. ” – Christine Assange, Julian Assange's mother, Brisbane, Australia.

Continue reading »

Via Kasama:

Early morning, July 10, SWAT police forced their way into the Seattle apartment of organizers from the Occupy movement. The sleeping residents scrambled to put on clothes as they were confronted with automatic weapons.

The neighbor Natalio Perez heard the attack from downstairs: “Suddenly we heard the bang of their grenade, and the crashing as police entered the apartment. The crashing and stomping continued for a long time as they tore the place apart.”

After the raid, the residents pored over the papers handed them by a detective. One explained: “This warrant says that they were specifically looking for ‘anarchist materials’ — which lays out the political police state nature of this right there. In addition they were looking for specific pieces of clothing supposedly connected with a May First incident.

When the police finally left, they did not arrest anyone.

This action targets well known activists from Occupy Seattle and the Red Spark Collective (part of the national Kasama network). This apartment has been a hub for organizing the Everything 4 Everyone festival in August – to bring together West Coast forces for a cultural and political event building on the year of Occupy.

The raid is a heavy-handed threat delivered by armed police aimed at intimidating specific people – but also st suppressing the work to continue the Occupy movement in Seattle, and create E4E as a space for radical gathering.

The E4E site will update this with more as we receive it, including hopefully statement from those involved. http://www.everythingforeveryone.org/

Sheriff's deputies tried twice this week to evict Occupy Minnesota supporters from a foreclosed home they were defending.

On Wednesday, aggressive efforts of Occupy Minnesota foiled a 4:00 PM sheriff's raid on the foreclosed home of the Cruz family. The deputies retreated.

On Friday they returned again at 4:00 AM, armed with battering rams, jack hammers and massive bolt cutters. There were about a dozen occupy volunteers sleeping at the house. All but two were ordered outside - the two couldn't find their shoes. The five people secured to the building were forcibly removed and arrested, currently held until Tuesday morning.

Again the sheriff's crew was driven back by the occupy volunteers who came up the alley and entered the back of the house. The deputies retreated with their prisoners leaving the home in shambles.

A rally in front of City hall at noon on May 25, featured the broken door and speeches by supporters including three members of the Minneapolis City Council. The door was then delivered to Sheriff Stanek's Office in City Hall. The sheriff declined to meet with the demonstrators. The broken door was left at the front door of his office. A major source of frustration was that the bank was working with the Cruz family to clear up the situation and renew the mortgage. The sheriff's actions cut across this progress and was seen as unnecessary and punitive by those close to the situation.

Chicago police on Saturday night were targeting livestreamers, journalists, photographers and broadcast journalists, according to reports from many Twitter feeds.

As I piece together some of those events, Luke Rudkowski just loaded this video into the system, and it gives a clear look at the moment the Chicago police stopped the car he was sharing with Tim Pool. Unfortunately, the police shut down Luke's livestream so he wasn't able to capture the entire episode. As noted in the Twitter feeds, the apartment where the livestreamers were staying was raided by police.

“Place where @TimCast & @LukeWeAreChange staying raided. Young woman there, terrified, called @NLGChicago #noNATO”

At this time, at least Tim Pool and Luke Rudkowski are out of handcuffs and detention, and you have to love their dedication, they've got their livestreams back up and running and they're safe.

What follows is Pool's livestream as it recorded the armed police detaining the pair. Note there are short intervals with just darkness and no sound. But first, a few important tweets from @Timcast that will update you on how he's doing:

Tim Pool ‏@Timcast

We were told by another streamer that police on scanner are awaiting us to announce out location. #NATO #noNATO #journaraid

Tim Pool ‏@Timcast

We are told the police scanners are tracking us... #NATO #noNATO

Tim Pool ‏@Timcast

Trying to find a safe place to sleep #NATO #noNATO

Tim Pool ‏@Timcast

Calming down, still paranoid after being cuffed at gunpoint. #nato #nonato Live at http://timcast.tv

Video streaming by Ustream

Next up, videos covering some of the more outrageous actions by the Chicago police last night against the NATO protesters.

[Occupy Chicago demonstrates outside 190 N. State Street on May 17, 2012.]

National Lawyers Guild Condemns Preemptive Police Raids & Unlawful Searches on the Streets.

Via:

“The Chicago Police Department has basically disappeared as many as eight activists,” said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild, adding “There’s absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing.”

Hermes declined to release the names of those detained. He said the NLG had been speaking with police leaders throughout the day Thursday, and that they denied anyone was being held.

Witnesses who alleged they were detained at the scene before being released said police broke down doors in an apartment building near 32nd and Morgan Streets at 11 p.m., and searched the units while refusing to show the occupants a search warrant, said Sarah Gelsomino, an attorney with the lawyers guild.

Continue reading »

Occupy SF activists were back in the spotlight Sunday, taking over an unoccupied building owned by the Archdiocese of San Francisco with plans to establish a "permanent occupation" that would serve as shelter and a center for services for homeless people.

The activists entered the building at 888 Turk St. Sunday evening, after a peaceful rally and march from Union Square earlier in the day.

About 100 activists and supporters took up residence in the two-story commercial structure, believed to be a former music building of nearby Sacred Heart Cathedral High School.

By Monday evening, police in riot gear conducted a raid and evicted and arrested approximately 80 Occupy activists who had taken over the building the night before and had stockpiled food and supplies with the apparent intention of staying long-term.

As the arrests got underway, two buses were there to take occupiers away. "Police with assault rifle on roof" noted @JoshuaHolland of Alternet as he live tweeted his observations from on the ground. He also noted that there was at least once occupier injured among the arrestees, a young man with a broken wrist whose pleas for medical assistance as he anguished in plastic cuffs.

This next video is a jail support march from Civic Center Plaza to the SF jail: the escapees, survivors and onlookers of the SFPD raid as well as some of the very recently released occupiers and supporters of the "San Francisco Commune" action at 888 Turk Street. The jail support team then holds an impromptu jail solidarity dance party. Where were you?

The Tuesday raid was the second on Occupy Miami in the past six weeks. On January 31, Miami-Dade cops evicted protesters from Government Center. This time it was City of Miami police officers that arrived in SWAT vans and emerged with their assault rifles drawn.

"They were pointing guns at children!" says Ramy Mahmoud, one of three Occupy Miami members taken in for questioning and then released without charges.

Mahmoud and other Occupy Miami members were preparing to travel downtown to protest the birthday of Chase Bank CEO Jaime Dimon when at least half a dozen police vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the building on NW Seventh Street.

A cop in a dress shirt and bullet-proof vest jumped out of an unmarked car, aimed his gun at them, and shouted, "Everyone on the ground," according to Occupy Miami members.

"I thought it was either a joke or he was robbing us," says an occupier who gave his name only as Cobra. "Then an ice-cream truck full of SWAT officers pulled up."

"They said that they had gotten a tip that we had "long guns" and were going to use them at our protest," Occupy member Thomas Parisi told Miami New Times. "But we are a peaceful movement and told them that we had no intention of doing anything like that."