Prior to the protests against the World Bank ABCDE Development Economics conference the Norwegian corporate media are predicting and inciting violence from both the protesters and the police's side. In effect they are obviously trying to justify a violent police crackdown on the protestors. They are especially focusing their attention on Reclaim the Streets and the squatters/autonomen Blitz.

What I found funny, being a norwegian living in the UK, was the parts on "foreign" activists. According to Dagbladet (a liberal tabloid) the Oslo police have intelligence pointing to that "ultraviolent protesters from England, WOMBLES (a lefty-radical group from London known for its violent squatting tactics) are coming to Oslo for the protests".

Whether the WOMBLES are coming or not (and I hope they do) is not the issue, but where the hell do they get that info from. Ultraviolent, hmm I smell MI5.

Anyway, things are looking serious. Earlier this week the municipality cancelled the lease of dormitories, the police have been arresting well-known activists, they will suspend the Schengen agreement (so that they can turn away activists from Europe), have drafted in several hundered police-officers, have allowed the use of mace and teargas, have been praticing "charge the protestors with dogs, horsies etc.". Basically, what we see is a scenario that was in Gothenburg last year, and Mayday in London two years ago. There will be trouble if the media and police feed the frenzy.