Occupy Wall Street: Thousands Join the Movement

Oct. 16, 2011— -- The Occupy Wall Street movement that has sparked protests across the nation and the world enters its fifth week today as more demonstrations are planned.

This weekend, the protests and demonstrations expanded across Europe and in Asia and Australia.

In London this morning, outside St Paul's Cathedral, a colorful tent city popped up overnight, where the police have allowed the protesters to remain to demonstrate peacefully.

The cold weather did not deter the protesters as they said they will stay for as long as it takes.

Most of the protests around the world sparked by the movement were peaceful, but in Rome a small group broke away from the main protest and smashed shop windows and torched a car.

As Rome burned, the protests spread like wildfire from Berlin, where 4,000 people tried to march to the city's parliamentary buildings, to Frankfurt, where they converged on the European Central Bank.

In America, protests focused on everything from corporate greed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Police in Chicago arrested about 175 protesters early this morning when they refused to take down their tents and leave a city park when it closed.

"The officer asked me you know did I want to leave or did I want to be arrested, and I said, well I don't want to be arrested but I think I'm going to be, and then I was," said protester David Orlikoff.

On Saturday, protesters gathered and marched in effort to bring awareness to corporate greed in Birmingham, Ala.

Occupy Birmingham organizer Allyn Hudson said demonstrators are tired of the wealthy 1 percent and corporations controlling political decisions.

"People in America are concerned with having their voices drowned out by an endless tidal wave of money that is purchasing our politicians. We want our government to be free of such influence," Hudson said.

In Sacramento, Calif., as protesters gathered at Cesar Chavez Park, among those speaking was well known war protester and California native Cindy Sheehan.

"Economic and social equality that we seek cannot be achieved without complete and unconditional peace," she said.

Protesters Take Times Square

On Saturday, thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters took their act to Broadway, marching from their encampment in a downtown Manhattan park to Times Square, as the movement went global with demonstrations in major cities around the world.

The scene in Times Square was loud and tense, but without any violence, though the New York Police Department said there were 74 arrests throughout the course of the day.

Police penned in the thousands of protesters in a three-block-long area, but the officers on the scene seemed more focused on traffic control than on any confrontation with the marchers.

Despite the loud chants and bongos of the demonstrators, police managed to keep the throngs of tourists moving pretty smoothly past the protest.

After demonstrating in Times Square for several hours, the protesters marched back downtown.

ABC News' TJ Winick, ABC News Radio and The Associated Press contributed to this report.