Tourists evacuated as (Italian) students swarm Colosseum, Tower of Pisa

[Turborama]

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

November 26, 2010 - 10:55AM (Sydney Time)

Italian students swarmed into the Colosseum in Rome and the Leaning Tower of Pisa yesterday as part of nationwide protests against proposed budget cuts in the university system.

Tourists caught up in the protest in Pisa were evacuated from the medieval Tuscan tower after around 30 protesting students hung a banner from the penultimate tier that read "No to University Reform!"

The tower was then closed to the public with the students still inside, an AFP photographer said. More than 1000 students protested at the foot of the tower.

In Rome, dozens of students swarmed into the ancient Roman Colosseum -- jumping over turnstiles at the entrance. Some of the protesters climbed up the face of the Colosseum and hung a banner reading: "No Cuts, No Profit!"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/tourists-evacuated-as-students-swarm-colosseum-tower-of-pisa-20101126-189nt.html

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Student fury in the face of brutal educations cuts across Europe

Across Europe, students and school children have been taking to the streets this week in unprecedented numbers, angry at planned government cuts to education budgets. As austerity looms, Europe’s youth is getting political.

By FRANCE 24

In the face of brutal government cuts to education budgets due to the credit crisis, students and schoolchildren across Europe are wading into political activism on an unprecedented scale. Europe’s youth are determined that their voice will be heard.

Mass protests on the streets of major European cities have now become almost a daily occurrence, with students in Ireland, the UK and Italy all protesting in record numbers.

=snip=

Europe’s students stand together

In Rome, students outraged over proposed cuts of around nine billion euros skirmished with police outside the city’s Senate building. "We will block this reform," students chanted, waving smoke flares and banners.

Silvio Berlusconi’s foundering administration is planning to axe an eye-watering 130,000 jobs in the education sector by 2013.

Full article: http://www.france24.com/en/20101125-uk-ireland-italy-students-protest-european-debt-crisis-education

[Bozita]

1. Let's make higher education only for the wealthy

Then we won't have so many cabbies and waitresses with master degrees and PhDs

It's a global thing.

[billlll]

2. FREE colleges CALIFORNIA until RR became governor

So I have heard
Anyone verify?

The idea should be revived again

[Brother Buzz]

3. JC's were free, state college tuition was $12 a semester

UC may have been as much as $112 a quarter. Books were the big expensive.

[sabrina 1]

4. The Global Capitalists have raided the treasuries of every

nation, and now they are trying to make the working class pay their debts. I hope the people of the world join forces against these 'global terrorists' who have, for greed and power, destroyed so many, many nations.

It's so transparent really. The same formula for every country, including this one.

1) Bail out the corrupt Bankers who caused the problems

2) Use the bad economy as an excuse to eliminate Social Programs.

I hope every single government that goes along with this, that doesn't prosecute and retrieve the ill-gotten gains of those corrupt Global Bankers, is tossed out of office, as has happened in Iceland, and the the new governments, as in Iceland, reverses these draconian measures and starts the prosecutions as quickly as possible.

We better get ready for the same thing right here. Democrats are going to sell out on SS. And what are WE going to do about it?

[saigon68]

8. The Wedge issues always keep these Turds in power

Scum like Palin are their acolytes

Issues like Gays, God and Guns will always keep the criminals in power

And the corrupt Pedophile, crotch grabbing churches (see Below)

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Why do Europeans speak out when they get screwed by their government but we in the US

just shake our heads and mutter "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown"?

[onethatcares]

7. mainly because the leading stories on this mornings news are

about who the hell is buying what piece of shit junk from China to place under a pagan symbol while celebrating a religious holiday.

Our country is lost.

[HughBeaumont]

10. We're too completely tethered to our jobs to speak out.

An American's success and well being in life almost completely depends on how gainfully they're employed.

Tell you something else - the fact that they have universal health care has a lot to do with why they get to speak out about their shit work/school situations and we cannot. How many people here need their jobs (and stay in crappy ones instead of start a business or get a better one) to pay for school or get health care?

[Retrograde]

11. Do European countries subsidize students?

Do they provide them with tuition and enough to live on while they're in school? Most people I know had to work at least part-time while they were in college to cover things scholarships didn't, like food and rent.

[Turborama]

13. They have to pay fees and can get loans. This whole thing is about the fees tripling up to £9,000 PA

Details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11483638

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[Joanne98]

9. Leaning Tower of Pisa taken by students amid European backlash to education cuts

Source: CSM

Rome

Italian students stormed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome's Colosseum and blocked roads and railways Thursday in protest against university reform planned by Silvio Berlusconi's struggling government.

The measures, currently before parliament, include spending cuts and time limits on research.

Thousands of students marched in cities around Italy and occupied university buildings. One was injured during clashes with police in Florence, news agencies reported, but demonstrations were largely peaceful.

"We will block this reform," students chanted outside parliament buildings, waving smoke flares and banners.



Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2010/1126/Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa-taken-by-students-amid-European-backlash-to-education-cuts

[cbdo2007]

12. So....to protest some budget cuts, they go somewhere where poor people use to be

forced to fight animals and get killed by them in front of an audience?!?!

Ha ha ha, does this strike anyone else as odd?

That would be like us protesting the civil war battlefield in Gettysburg and to protest credit card fees.

[Occulus]

14. Chocolate baby carriage. n/t

[Turborama]

15. It created a news headline

If they went to protest outside government offices, the likelihood is that no-one would know about it unless there was a riot.

I thought it was a great idea to use famous tourist destinations.

[bitchkitty]

16. Doesn't strike me as odd.

They went to tourist places, where their banner would be seen by many, many people. Makes sense to me.

[Posteritatis]

17. Or, y'know, going to a massive, well-known, readily-accessible central location

If the Gettysburg battlefield was in Central Park, NY then the comparison would make sense (and that sort of thing would happen).