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.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
RSS