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After weeks of demonstrations in England against tuition hikes, students have launched a third wave of continuing mass protests. The demonstrations took place in Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and London, with students bravely defying the freezing winter weather. The mostly peaceful marches filled council buildings, stopped traffic, and in London, engaged in cat-and-mouse games with police near Parliament. The British government has planned to reverse the current cap of $4,700 dollars per year on University tuition. The plan would also allow schools to charge students as much as $14,200 per year, and is part of the government’s austerity measures to reduce its deficit. Currently more than 30 university buildings across Britain are being occupied by angry students. The movement is mostly independent of the National Union of Students, which has been derided for having a “spineless” reaction toward the activism. The impact of the global recession has hit Europe hard and will likely be the impetus behind a wave of austerity measures across the continent that have already spurred mass actions all year. In October, unemployment rates in European countries reached an all time high. Over the weekend lenders in Ireland received an emergency bailout from the European Union to the tune of more than $13 billion. But while stocks were buoyed, Irish tax payers balked at the condition that the government use $23 billion of its cash and pension reserves as collateral. And, even before the dust has settled from the Irish deal, fears of more bailouts sent investors in Portugal and Spain this week abandoning government bonds, which in turn of course increases the likelihood of those nations needing taxpayer help.

GUEST: Steven Hill, former director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation, author of Ten Steps to Repair American Democracy, and his latest, Europe’s Promise: Why The European Way Is The Best Hope In An Insecure Age