Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero went before disgruntled Spaniards in an unprecedented town hall meeting on Tuesday and defended his record on everything from Basque separatism to widows' pensions and college graduates struggling to emancipate themselves on scant wages.
Zapatero stood before an audience of 100 people selected by a polling firm as representing an accurate cross-section of Spanish society. Zapatero's party faces local and regional elections in May and a general election in a year's time.
The prime minister braved questions from Spaniards who said they were outraged over the government's perceived leniency toward the Basque separatist group ETA, puzzled over why Spain's long economic bonanza does not show up in their wallets and concerned that his party seems forever at loggerheads with opposition conservatives.
On ETA, Zapatero said that after 40 years of violence by the armed separatist group it was his government's responsibility to try to end the carnage -- a peace process the government announced last year after ETA called a truce and seemed promising but ended in an ETA bombing in December that killed two people. He said ETA is Spain's only serious problem.
"It was my obligation to try to do away with this scourge," Zapatero said.
On the economy, one questioner said Spain's participation in the euro currency may have been praised as historic but meant nothing to Spaniards struggling to make ends meet on a blue-collar salary.
Zapatero said he was bullish on Spain growing even more economically.
"I have a very optimistic vision of Spain," he said.
Several young people asked the prime minister what the government planned to do to help youths who graduate from college and end up with work providing little job stability and salaries of 1,000 euros a month when an apartment in Madrid, for instance, can go for 500,000 euros (US$650,000).
The government is spending a lot on subsidized housing and trying to stimulate Spain's very dormant rental market, Zapatero said.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
The latest batch from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s e-mails illustrates the extraordinary scope of his contacts with powerful people, ranging from a top Trump adviser to Britain’s ex-prince Andrew. The US House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on trying to force release of evidence gathered on Epstein by law enforcement over the years — including the identities of the men suspected of participating in his alleged sex trafficking ring. However, a slew of e-mails released this week have already opened new windows to the extent of Epstein’s network. These include multiple references to US President Donald
LEFT AND RIGHT: Battling anti-incumbent, anticommunist sentiment, Jeanette Jara had a precarious lead over far-right Jose Antonio Kast as they look to the Dec. 14 run Leftist candidate Jeannette Jara and far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast are to go head-to-head in Chile’s presidential runoff after topping Sunday’s first round of voting in an election dominated by fears of violent crime. With 99 percent of the results counted, Jara, a 51-year-old communist running on behalf of an eight-party coalition, won 26.85 percent, compared with 23.93 percent for Kast, the Servel electoral service said. The election was dominated by deep concern over a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on foreign crime gangs. Kast, 59, has vowed to build walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to
DEATH SENTENCE: The ousted leader said she was willing to attend a fresh trial outside Bangladesh where the ruling would not be a ‘foregone conclusion’ Bangladesh’s fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated.” Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against the student-led uprising that ousted her. She was found guilty and sentenced to death earlier yesterday. “The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a statement issued from hiding in India. “They are biased and politically motivated,” she
RSS