20 protesters arrested for blocking Houston Port

U.S. police arrested 20 anti-Wall Street protesters Monday afternoon at a port in Houston, during a protest which was part of coordinated demonstrations targeting the nation's ports, a local newspaper reported. Ten protesters were charged with blocking a public roadway, and eight others were arrested for using criminal instruments to block a public roadway, the Houston Chronicle reported. The protest started at 1 p.m. (1900 GMT) after more than 100 Occupy Houston protesters gathered outside the Houston port in the nation's fourth largest city. At about 1:45 p.m. (1945 GMT), about 20 protesters lay on a two-lane street leading to the port entrance in a bid to impede shipping, according to the report. Occupy protests began targeting West Coast shipping ports on Monday, with groups from Alaska to San Diego striving to block shipping. The demonstrations, a continuation of anti-Wall Street protests that sprung up in New York in September, focus on ports, in hopes of cutting into profits of corporations. Terminals in Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon, Longview and Washington, were forced to halt operations. Organizers of the protest said in a statement that the movement "is an expression of solidarity with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and West Coast truck drivers." It is "a statement against the multinational conglomerates and their relentless campaign to outsource American jobs and undermine our economy in the pursuit of ever-widening profit margins," the statement said. Other groups across the country were also reportedly planning protests in solidarity with the West Coast groups.