Liliana Dmitrovic

🇮🇹 Tens of thousands of workers, students, truckers and farmers marched in more than 40 Italian cities on Friday in a general strike against soaring living costs, rearmament and European support for wars in the Middle East, including the genocide in Gaza, according to Italian news agency Adnkronos. Police counted 30,000 in Milan, where marchers shut down the eastern ring road for three hours, while organizers claimed over 100,000, according to Italian broadcaster TGCom24. A speaker in Turin put the crowd there at more than 50,000. The grassroots union USB, which called the strike, claimed 2 million nationwide showed up to challenge Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's "war economy." Protesters blocked the port in Genoa with burning tires, TGCom24 reported, and marched into Naples port, demanding that ports not be used to move "weapons, ammunition, military equipment and troops." In Rome, police charged about 300 students who threw stones and Molotov cocktails. At least 10 officers were injured in Mestre and Vicenza, according to Adnkronos. Transport Minister Matteo Salvini had ordered rail, air, sea and transit workers to stay on the job, but the order was dismissed by USB as "illegitimate." 🎥 Milan

🇷🇸 "This is not a revolution. This is an exorcism," said Serbian actor and environmental organizer Bojana Novaković, describing the student-led movement that ousted Aleksandar Vučić after 14 years in power. Speaking with human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, Novaković explained how the students deliberately refused to have a leader. For years they gave interviews without last names, and no one spoke for the movement more than twice, so it "had no face." The Student List, which won about 52% of the vote in the parliamentary elections, is made up of people who have never held office: teachers, doctors, actors, playwrights and farmers, including a leader of the fight against Rio Tinto's lithium mine. Vučić ally Ana Brnabić, now acting president, still has the power to nominate the prime minister for parliament's approval, and Novaković said she could stall until a presidential election in December. The students' first task, Novaković said, is cleaning up the police, judiciary and government and prosecuting those behind decades of corruption - “organized crime,” according to Novaković. In Serbia, parties can't take money from donors, Novaković noted, but in the US, corruption is "completely legalized." Until that changes, she said, "I just don't see how you guys ever have free elections." 🎥 Steven Donziger (Instagram). Full conversation linked below. @SDonziger | @bojnovak