Tens of thousands of Germans protested on Saturday against Germany’s biggest austerity drive since World War II, adding to pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s increasingly unpopular coalition.
Merkel’s Cabinet on Monday last week unveiled plans for 80 billion euros (US$96.30 billion) in budget cuts and taxes over the next four years, but faces a challenge convincing parliament, unions and voters to accept the savings package.
Organizers said between 15,000 and 20,000 people demonstrated in Berlin, in one of the biggest protests against government reform in recent years. Police estimated that up to 10,000 people took part in protests in Stuttgart.
Protesters’ banners read “The crisis is called capitalism,” “Employment, human rights, secure future for everyone” and “Pensions should be enough to live on.”
Merkel’s government proposed saving 30 billion euros over the next four years in welfare, mainly from unemployment benefits, and slashing thousands of federal government jobs. The proposals have prompted criticism both from the opposition and from within Merkel’s own ranks.
A new poll by Infratest dimap showed that 79 percent of Germans thought the savings package was not socially balanced and 93 percent thought measures were not enough to meet the government’s savings goal.
Saar state Premier Peter Mueller, a member of Merkel’s conservatives, criticized the savings package for weighing disproportionately heavily on the poor.
“If you have to tighten your belt, then the biggest belts shouldn’t be immune,” he told German magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
Mueller said the introduction of a luxury tax on goods such as yachts, expensive cars and champagne “would be a contribution to more tax justice and acceptance of savings measures.”
Merkel, however, rejected accusations the package was unfair and told German paper Bild am Sonntag that people knew “that we have to save and reduce the deficit.”
Her government aims to bring the structural deficit of Europe’s biggest economy within EU limits by 2013, but wants to avoid raising taxes after vowing to do exactly the opposite when she took power in October last year.
Merkel argued that businesses and the civil service were also contributing to budget consolidation.
The government wants to raise an extra 2.3 billion euros per year by taxing the profits of nuclear power station operators and introducing an “environmental” tax on domestic air travel. In addition, a financial transaction tax is expected to raise 2 billion euros a year from 2012.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique