Thousands of demonstrators on Saturday hit the streets across Spain protesting the soaring cost of food, electricity and fuel, which have been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The rallies, which took place in Spain’s main cities, were called by the far-right Vox party, which sought to tap into growing social discontent over the spiraling cost of living that has left many families struggling to pay their bills.
Outside Madrid City Hall, a crowd of several thousand people gathered, waving hundreds of Spanish flags and chanting angry slogans calling for the resignation of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Photo: AP
“Sanchez, you’re rubbish, bring down our bills,” they shouted, between patriotic cries of “Long live Spain” at a rally demanding government action to lower prices.
“We have the worst possible government... It’s not even a government, it’s a misery factory ... which plunders and extorts workers through abusive taxes,” Vox leader Santiago Abascal told the rally to rousing cheers. “We will not leave the streets until this illegitimate government is expelled.”
This government “is taking everything from us,” said Anabel, a 56-year-old demonstrator who did not give her surname.
“They hike the light and gas prices, and say it’s because of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but that’s a lie. It was like this before,” she said. “Light prices really affect [my family] because some of us work from home, and we can hardly put the heating on because the price of gas has almost doubled over the past six months.”
Many said that the government should be lowering taxes to help those struggling.
“A country that raises prices in this way and doesn’t help its citizens by partially lowering taxes, is abandoning its people,” said Francisco, 53, who is unemployed and did not give his family name. “We have to force the government to act — or remove them, for Spain’s sake.”
Spain’s main right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) has also demanded that the government immediately lower taxes.
“Taxes must be lowered at once. We can’t live with prices that are over 7 percent and growing,” incoming PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo said on Saturday, referring to Spain’s annual inflation, which jumped to 7.6 percent last month, its highest in 35 years.
Last year, energy prices soared 72 percent in Spain, one of the highest increases within the EU, and costs have surged even higher since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a crisis that comes hot on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, Spanish lorry drivers declared an open-ended strike over fuel prices that soon mushroomed into multiple roadblocks and protests, triggering supply chain problems.
Rising prices have also prompted the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO), Spain’s two biggest unions, to call a national strike on Wednesday.
Spanish Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Cortes and Democratic Memory Felix Bolanos pledged that the government would unveil its planned steps to reduce the cost of energy and fuel on Tuesday next week, accusing Vox of seeking to profit from a difficult situation.
“The far-right is always stirring up problems and complicating things, no matter how difficult they are... They are not patriots they are troublemakers,” he told Spain’s public television service.
Sanchez is on a European tour to lobby for a common EU response to soaring energy prices.
Madrid has for months urged its European partners to change the mechanism that couples electricity prices to the gas market, but its pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears, despite support from Paris.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS