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The scene was more peaceful at Halifax’s Angus L. Macdonald Bridge, even when police moved in about four hours after the demonstration got underway.

Officers arrested 18 people positioned on the artery linking the city to nearby Dartmouth. Early in the day, police said less than a hundred protesters, many of them waving flags and signs, had gathered near the toll plaza on the Dartmouth side.

The Macdonald bridge was reopened to traffic by mid-day.

“I think this is a huge success,” protest organizer Patrick Yancey said just moments before he was arrested.

“I think it’s going to be great for the whole world to see all of the people who are willing to make this sacrifice in order to get some action on this climate crisis.”

Amsterdam

Photo by ROMY FERNANDEZ/AFP via Getty Images

Police began forcibly removing climate change activists who blocked a major street in downtown Amsterdam on Monday, arresting 50 after they defied orders to move their demonstration onto a nearby square.

Traffic around the city centre was disrupted as about 900 protesters gathered on Stadhouderskade, in front of the Netherlands’ national museum, to demand more action to tackle climate change.

Starting before dawn, the protesters in Amsterdam held pamphlets saying “SORRY that we blocked the road, but this is an emergency.”

“The climate crisis is not being taken seriously enough by politics, and also not by the companies. That’s why I joined,” said one protester, who gave his name to Reuters as Christiaan.