Equipped with tents, bullhorns and a gas-powered generator used to help them recharge their laptops, the protesters occupied the public thoroughfare under the building as about a dozen police stood by. Demonstrations were also held in Seoul and Taipei.
"Wall Street has a campaign to start asking questions about capitalism but this is not enough," said art student Derrick Benig, 22, who slept in a tent overnight in Hong Kong. "I want to tear down capitalism."
'Worrying Signal'
In Rome on Oct. 15, firecrackers were thrown at the Ministry of Defense and windows of Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini and Poste Italiane SpA shattered, Sky TG24 reported. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called "the unbelievable violence" in Rome "a worrying signal for civil coexistence."
"Violent extremists have to be identified and punished," Berlusconi said in a statement.
More than 800 people have been arrested in New York since the protests began Sept. 17, mostly for disorderly conduct, as demonstrators solidified their hold on Zuccotti Park, which has become the de facto epicenter of Occupy Wall Street.
A wider confrontation was avoided after the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties Inc., postponed a cleanup that would have removed and banned protesters' sleeping bags, tents and other gear that provided overnight accommodations.
Protesters and local politicians had gathered 300,000 signatures, flooded the city's 311 information line and drew more than 3,000 people to the park to oppose the cleanup, according to Patrick Bruner, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman.
"The world will rise up as one and say, 'We have had enough,'" Bruner said in an e-mail. A news release from the organization said there were demonstrations in 1,500 cities worldwide, including 100 in the U.S.