Workers across southern Europe yesterday launched an unprecedented string of strikes to battle austerity cuts, paralyzing factories and grounding more than 700 flights.
Unions called general strikes in Spain and Portugal, the first such action across the Iberian Peninsula, along with temporary walkouts in Greece, the epicenter of the debt crisis, and Italy.
It was the first time workers had agreed on simultaneous strikes in four European countries, said the European Trade Union Confederation, which organized the “Day of Action and Solidarity.”
“In some countries, people’s exasperation is reaching a peak,” confederation general secretary Bernadette Segol said.
“We need urgent solutions to get the economy back on track, not stifle it with austerity. Europe’s leaders are wrong not to listen to the anger of the people who are taking to the streets,” she said.
Spain, the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy where one in four workers is unemployed, was holding its second general strike in eight months to protest draconian budget cuts.
In the main squares of Madrid, the main unions strung up banners declaring: “They are taking away our future.” They deployed pickets overnight at airports, markets and bus and railway stations.
“We are launching a day that will be a milestone in the history of European unionism,” said Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, head of the country’s largest CCOO union.
“It is a strike against the government’s policy of unemployment, misery and to stop this path toward the precipice,” he said.
Police set up metal barriers at an access road to parliament in Madrid, where activists called an evening rally.
Strikers froze factories, including Volkswagen’s car plant in northern Navarra and a Ford plant in the eastern Valencia region, Spanish media said. Buses and trains ran with sharply reduced schedules.
In neigboring Portugal, Lisbon’s metro service was out of service, while ferries across the River Tagus and trains across the country ran skeleton services.
Hospital staff joined the action, with up to 90 percent of staff reportedly abiding by the strike call.
Portugual’s unions have called marches and rallies in about 40 towns and cities against the government’s austerity policies.
Legislation in both Spain and Portugal require workers to provide a minimum service in essential industries, but airlines canceled many domestic and international flights.
Greece is the epicenter of the eurozone’s debt crisis, but its unions are focused on the national crisis and its protest is limited to a three-hour work stoppage and a rally in Athens.
Italian unions have also called a four-hour walkout.
Union-led rallies were also being held in support of the day of action in France, Belgium and in Poland, where workers decry “social and wage-dumping” in their country.
In Germany, viewed by many in southern Europe as the paymaster behind the austerity drive, the union federation DGB has called protests across the country, including in Berlin and Frankfurt.
“For now it is mostly people in southern Europe suffering from a crisis they are not responsible for, but the consequences will surely be felt in the rest of Europe,” it said.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
RSS