A plentitude of people have been working to prepare for the events of the coming days. A section of the room is filled with protective clothing, prepared during the last ten days by ´Pret a Revolter´. Nearly all the gear is prepared for around fifty ´Tutte Bianche´, coming from all over Spain.

There are jackets with sewn-in empty plastic water bottles (which can be found in their thousands in the trash on the streets); more waterbottles are ironed into plastic binbags for neck-protecting capes; thick cardboard and polystyrene shields are leaning in rows against the walls; bubble plastic wrapping is glued together to be worn around arms and elbows, the bubbles filled with red paint - when torn by a baton charge the bubbles will burst, producing quite a visual effect...

Photographs of children and immigrant teenagers are glued onto huge foamrubber plates with handles on their back. They will be used as protective shields; at police attacks four people can form a protective cubus with them (similar to what you can remember from the Roman legions doing in these Hollywood blockbusters).

On Friday and Saturday there will be a counter conference, parallel to the virtual meeting; the counter conference will cover issues such as democracy, participation and repression; social and labour rights; ecological and enviromental rights and the agricultural-subsidies policy model; migration; globalization and militarism; economic globalization and development; and women and globalization. The counter conference will be ending in a big street party on Saturday, coinciding with the traditional ´Revetlla´ or ´Verbena´ which will see lots of people in the streets celebrating the beginning of the summer. For Sunday a mass demonstration and public trial of the capitalist institutions is planned, followed by a party, dinner and camping at the Stock Market. On Monday morning at 9.00 a guided tour of the Stock Market for a group of approx. 20.000 people will be provided.

Watch this space.