Magnificent, Seven!

Enviros and other activists yesterday kicked off more than a week of protests against corporate globalization in Washington, D.C., with the goal of disrupting meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund this Sunday and Monday. Seven protestors were arrested yesterday, including Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth, and John Passacantando, executive director of Ozone Action, who chained themselves to a truck that they were using as a makeshift stage from which to denounce the World Bank's financing of oil, gas, and mining projects. Others were arrested as they tried to hang a banner from World Bank headquarters that read, in part, "World Bank Plunders the Planet." Thousands are expected to converge on Washington this week, hoping to build on momentum from last year's protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization.