Thousands of protesters marched through Dublin on Saturday to call for an end to austerity, as Ireland prepares to vote in parliamentary elections.
The “Right2Change” demonstration brought together a range of anti-austerity groups under the banner of opposing controversial water charges, which have crystallized anger over a rise in poverty, budget cuts and tax hikes since an economic crisis and bailout in 2010.
National broadcaster RTE estimated up to 20,000 attended the march, which brought central Dublin to a halt as it snaked through the capital before the crowds filled a major thoroughfare to hear speakers address a rally.
Polls ahead of the election set for Friday show Ireland might be the latest eurozone country to face political uncertainty as Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and his current coalition government could struggle to form a majority for a second term.
Protesters, who had traveled to Dublin from all around Ireland, carried colorful flags and banners reading “Can’t Pay Won’t Pay” and “Water is a Human Right,” and chanted “Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out.”
Attending the rally were leaders of the left-wing republican party Sinn Fein, which has seen its popularity rise to historic highs in polls as it embraced an anti-austerity stance.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said ahead of the protest that the 100 election candidates from left-wing groups and those standing as independent politicians who have signed up under the “Right2Change” banner represented a “real progressive alternative.”
“For the vast majority of families there is no recovery,” Adams said in a statement. “Next Friday citizens have a choice between more of the same or... a new government that will ensure working families are given a break.”
The water charges issue has galvanized opposition to austerity after the government began charging households for water, rather than financing through general taxation as had been done previously.
The eurozone nation has the highest economic growth rate in the EU — 7 percent in the first nine months of last year — but many voters say they are not feeling the benefit.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion