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May Day clashes and anger over food prices
2008-05-01
Police firing pepper gas and water cannons clashed with union activists in Istanbul on Thursday, as workers around the world made soaring food prices their May Day battle cry. Clashes erupted in the Turkish capital as hundreds of police surrounded the main square to stop a planned rally. Thirty-eight people, including eight police officers, were injured, and 530 were arrested, the governor of Istanbul said at a press conference. Volatile crowds also staged rallies in the Philippines' capital of Manila and Indonesia's Jakarta, carrying signs demanding "Jobs, Justice, Food" and "Lower Food Prices Now." Sharply rising prices for staples such as rice were the focus of many demonstrations in Asia, where rallies were patrolled by huge numbers of police. In Singapore and Bangkok, protesters waved signs reading "Expensive rice prices, cheap labor wages. How can laborers live?" The benchmark Thai rice variety now fetches some 1,000 dollars a tonne, three times more than a year ago. Fears over fuel prices were also on people's minds, with about 44,000 people attending a Tokyo rally where Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii railed against the government for reinstating a controversial petrol tax. Some of the biggest demonstrations were in Europe. In France, the interior ministry told AFP almost 120,000 people marched across the country demanding higher wages and pensions, increasing the pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy to tackle rising living costs. More than two million people joined Mayday demonstrations in 1,000 towns across Russia, Ria Novosti news agency said, with worries about soaring prices overshadowing official calls for unity a week ahead of Vladimir Putin's departure from the Kremlin. "The party of power is not ashamed that its members are millionaires. These are the millionaires who robbed the country," former chess great turned politician Garry Kasparov told a rare demonstration in Saint Petersburg. In Spain some 25,000 people marched in Madrid amid concerns over rising unemployment as a decade-long economic boom ends due to a slowdown in the property sector. Spanish General Workers Union general secretary Candido Mendez rejected calls by business and political leaders for wage restraint to help fight rising inflation. "They should tell the big executives of big multinationals that they, and only they, should tighten their belts," he said. In Cuba, President Raul Castro led a vast crowd summoned to Havana's Revolution Square in a rally that focused on the country's future after Castro, 76, replaced his ailing brother Fidel, 81, as president in February. Many analysts say Raul Castro is under intense pressure to deliver improvements in Cubans' standard of living. Organized workers also marched across Latin America, with major rallies held in Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Argentina. In Chile, 96 people were arrested after clashes broke out at a giant downtown labor rally. And in Venezuela separate marches were held by unions in favor and against the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez. Labor Day is celebrated in early September in the United States, but thousands of activists gathered to march in major cities, such as Los Angeles and Miami, to draw attention to the need for immigration reform. Tensions over a neo-Nazi party in Germany meanwhile forced a major security operation to separate rival rallies in Nuremberg and Hamburg. And in Greece, transport and public services ground to a halt as unions called a 24-hour May Day strike against a privatization drive and pensions reform. Business also stopped in China as the communist nation celebrated the national holiday, with traffic jams blocking some roads out of Beijing. In South Africa, ANC leader Jacob Zuma told a rally that state social security aid for 12 million citizens is now "under strain due to the rising cost of living." African trade unions called for a cancellation of interim trade accords with the EU that replaced preferential tariff agreements early this year. The International Trade Union Confederation-Africa's secretary general Kwasi Adu-Amankwah said the richer European Union had arm-twisted Africa into the deals.
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