[h=1]Occupy Wall Street Protesters Clean Up Park[/h]
By Hannah Thomas-Peter, Sky News reporter | Sky News – 12 hours ago
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Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement have spent a night cleaning up a New York park to avoid having to leave their stations.
The demonstrators have been camped in lower Manhattan for nearly a month but New York mayor Michael Bloomberg demanded that the park be cleared temporarily so that city officials could clean it on Friday.
To avoid this, protestors came together and took the cleaning into their own hands.
According to volunteer organisers, around 600 people sleep in Zuccotti Park each night, even in the chilly autumn rain.
They are determined to stay and register their anger at myriad issues - the 2008 banking bailout, and most of all the stubbornly high 9.1% unemployment rate.
Their rallying cry is "We are the 99%", a reference to the wealth gap between the small number of rich people and the vast majority of ordinary Americans.
Christopher Reid joined the protest because he lost his job and cannot find another one.
The New Yorker feels let down by the government.
He told Sky News Online: "If I go broke, they don't bail me out. If I'm in foreclosure, you know I lost my home, they don't say 'Hey Chris! We don't want you to lose your home, we want to keep you going, so we're going to bail you out', so my house is gone."
Occupy Wall Street does not have clearly defined goals or formal leadership but it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
The group has gained some union support, holds regular marches against millionaires and the banking industry, and has inspired protests across the US in cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Washington DC and Chicago.
A day of global action, including protests in London, has been planned for Saturday.
New York volunteer organiser Daniel Zetah is encouraged by this.
He told Sky News Online: "Right know I feel I need to remind people that democracy needs informed and engaged people and right now most Americans are neither.
"I believe this is creating that dialogue in America that's been so sorely missing for so long, that dialogue of 'what is wrong with this system?'.
"Then, after you figure that out, then you can figure out solutions."
Although the protests have been mainly peaceful, there have been hundreds of arrests across the US.
Some 700 people were arrested in one afternoon in New York after a large march across Brooklyn Bridge.
Tension is high in the city in anticipation of a police effort to move the protesters off the park so that the company that manages it can clean the space.
Although both the protesters and the police have agreed that the crowds can move in sections rather than be forced to leave all at once, there is a worry that tempers could flare.
If there is conflict, it will be instantly broadcast around the world, not just from the television crews based there but on the live stream and Twitter feed the protest's media volunteers have set up.
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