Hundreds of thousands of protesters swamped Spain’s streets on Thursday to back a general strike, marred by clashes in Barcelona where youths set fire to a two-story Starbucks.
Unions said nearly 1 million people took part in Madrid alone to decry labor reforms, spending cuts and soaring unemployment in a country plunging into recession.
Demonstrations, overwhelmingly peaceful in most of the country, erupted into violence in a central portion of Barcelona. Scuffles also broke out earlier in Madrid.
Photo: EPA
Police shot smoke cannisters and fired rubber bullets into the ground so they would ricochet into people’s legs in Barcelona, television pictures showed, as a garbage container burned in a city street.
One group was “provoking confrontations and violent incidents,” a Catalan Interior Ministry spokesman said.
“They burned a two-story Starbucks cafe and another shop. It is out now. In the shop there is broken glass and they took out whatever they could burn,” the spokesman said.
Many garbage containers were also set alight, police said.
A spokesman for the Catalan government, Francesc Homs, said a minority had taken advantage of the protest.
“I don’t think this is linked in any way to the unions,” he said.
It was the first national strike to challenge Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was sworn in 100 days ago vowing to cut Spain’s 23 percent unemployment rate and fix its faltering finances.
The strike came a day before the conservative government adopts a budget set to axe tens of billions of euros in spending, adding to cuts that have already squeezed public services.
Spain’s major unions called the strike over the government’s Feb. 11 labor reform, which makes it cheaper to lay off staff and easier to cut salaries.
Minimum service agreements kept schools and hospitals open, ensuring 30 percent of trains and buses ran, and allowed some planes to fly.
Unions claimed a big turnout especially in factories, but Spanish interior ministry policy chief Cristina Diaz said fewer people took part than in the last general strike in September 2010.
Across Spain, police arrested 176 people, while 58 police and 46 civilians were injured, she said.
In one incident, a policeman hit a protester with his baton, cutting him above the eyebrow as he and others tried to stop buses leaving a station in southern Madrid, a photographer said.
In Barcelona, police said 21 people were arrested.
At a union rally in central Madrid, 56-year-old civil service worker, Angel Escolar, said the labor reform removed basic workers’ rights.
“They can change your hours, change your shifts, cut your salary and lay off people without justifying it. They are going to throw us out, and hire young people for less and with worse conditions,” he said.
Many commuters still crowded train stations and bus stops, saying they could not afford to lose a day’s pay.
“I can understand why they strike. The reform is just to fire people more easily and more cheaply, but this is not the time to lose work days. I am lucky to have a job,” said commuter Pedro Moreno, 32, who works at a supermarket.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS