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.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS