Activists set for May Day

Finance protesters target stock exchanges, reports GREG ANSLEY.

CANBERRA - Australia's stockmarkets will be blockaded by anti-globalisation protesters on May 1 as part of an international campaign also targeting financial centres in Europe and the United States.

The blockade is being organised by the M1 Alliance, the successor to the S11 group, which besieged the World Economic Forum in Melbourne last year, and is the latest in a steadily expanding series of global demonstrations.

Coordinated through the internet, earlier mass protests - each code-named for the date of the action - have sparked violent confrontations at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, and during other summits in South Korea, the Czech Republic, Washington DC and Seattle in the US, and Cologne, Germany.

Next month the Summit of the Americas in Montreal - a meeting of political and corporate leaders from North, Central and South America - will be targeted by similar protest action rallied together as the Anti-Capitalist Convergence.

The action is a prelude to May 1 protests already planned for Australia, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, London, Manchester, and other European capitals.

Embracing a loose coalition of hard-left political groups, socialists, environmental and social action movements, the bid to shut down international financial centres is part of a campaign to revitalise traditional May Day activism.

In Australia the May 1 protest is also seen as an opportunity to harness the anger expressed during the Melbourne summit and to tap a new source of youthful activist leaders.

The M1 Alliance wants to build a new united anti-globalisation front of progressive groups including trade unions, greens, feminist and gay groups, and disabled, unemployed, student, internationalist and indigenous activists.

"Now is the time to build an ongoing movement to begin to turn the tide against corporate tyranny," M1's call to action says.

Groups already affiliated to M1 in Australia range from the International Socialist Organisation, Nuclear Free Australia and community groups to a bicycle courier group formed to keep Melbourne running when the central business district is shut down on May 1.

A broad political coalition of the left called the Socialist Alliance has also been formed to harness anti-globalisation sentiment at the federal election later this year.

M1 now has active branches in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Hobart, Darwin and Newcastle.

M1 plans to blockade stock exchange buildings in some state capitals and Perth from 7 am on May 1, and to extend action to other targets in the central business districts.

Other targets include BHP, Telstra, Rio Tinto, Nike, Shell - now even more disliked because of its bid for Woodside Petroleum - Nestle, McDonalds, Phillip Morris and US-owned toy chain Toys R Us.

The criteria for inclusion extends beyond globalisation and into operations involving uranium mining, Third World labour and environmental issues.