Spanish anti-tourism protesters continually use zebra crossing to stop beachgoers

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Written by Super User

Category: Europe

Published: 27 August 2024

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BY JAMES BADCOCK

MADRID - Protesters have refused to leave three zebra crossings in a Spanish village to block tourists from visiting its beach.

About 80 pedestrians in Hio, Galicia, repeatedly crossed the road on Sunday afternoon, causing long tailbacks.

Villagers are unhappy about the traffic congestion caused by an influx of beachgoers in the summer months.

“This is not tourist phobia – it’s about locals’ right to live in peace,” said Mercedes Villar, the leader of the Hio residents’ association behind the protest.

The co-ordinated roadblocks at three zebra crossings lasted around 20 minutes and caused several drivers to turn around and seek alternative routes.

Ms Villar said villagers had unsuccessfully demanded action from the local authorities to reduce traffic. They also want to prevent the overuse of beaches, which she said were becoming “degraded”.

Hio, on the Morrazo peninsula, is known for its wild beaches and attracts visitors from across Spain. Frustration among Galicians over their presence has given rise to an increased use of the nickname “fodechinchos” – applied to brash or rude tourists, typically from Madrid.

The word, which regularly trends on social media, originally refers to tourists who stole the catch from local fishermen.

But now, according to Anton Losada, a Galician writer and journalist, it covers visitors who “ignore warnings of dangerous rip tides” or “don’t like to hear us speaking our Galician language”.

The owners of a popular bar-restaurant in Mera, Galicia, announced that they were closing in the busiest week of the year between Aug 12 and 19 to avoid the “stress and strain” caused by rude Spanish tourists.

On reopening last week, the Puerto Martina bar put up a sign saying: “You are now entering a fodechincho-free zone.”

Elsewhere in Spain, there have been large protests against the impact of mass tourism in the Canary and Balearic islands and Barcelona this year. Common complaints have included the saturation of beaches and services by mainly foreign visitors.

Foreigners make up around 30 per cent of the total annual visitors to Galicia. Many of these are drawn to the pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostela as opposed to the region’s beaches, which are more popular with Spanish visitors.

Almost three in four Britons worried about far right after

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Written by Super User

Category: Europe

Published: 22 August 2024

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LONDON - Nearly three-quarters of Britons are worried about rightwing extremism after anti-migrant riots, polling has found, with increasing numbers concerned about societal divisions.

The survey also found that while people generally believed politicians did not react especially well to the wave of disturbances, they generally felt Keir Starmer responded well – while Nigel Farage did not.

In one part of the polling where people were asked to name worries, public services and the economy were still of the greatest concern, with 84% and 83% respectively saying they were very or fairly concerned about these.

Below this, 73% of people said they were concerned about rightwing extremism, 11 percentage points higher than when the same questions were asked in March this year.

The findings come amid the worst unrest seen in the UK for a decade in a series of towns and cities after the fatal stabbing of three young girls at a dance class in Southport on 29 July.

With the 17-year-old boy charged with their murder, Axel Rudakubana, initially not named due to his age, far-right agitators helped to spread online misinformation about the attack, with some claiming the perpetrator was a Muslim refugee.

The Ipsos polling also found an increase in worries about leftwing extremism, up 7 points from March to 59%, and about religious extremism, with 74% citing it as a concern, 9 points higher than before.

Overall, 85% of those asked said they believed British society is very or fairly divided, the highest such level since 2019, with only 11% disagreeing.

Quizzed on the response to the riots, 57% of people said they thought the police had done a good job, with 19% disagreeing.

While for politicians 21% backed their response against 42% opposing, for Starmer the verdict was more supportive, with 39% saying he had done a good job versus 29% believing the opposite.

In contrast, the polling showed that only 21% of people thought Farage had responded well to the disorder, with 48% believing otherwise.

Farage faced criticism during the riots after he released online videos firstly asking if the police had withheld information about who had carried out the attack, and then challenging the argument that the disorder was largely the fault of the far right.

The verdict on social media companies was even more damning, with 60% of respondents saying they had done a bad job in connection with the riots, and just 12% supporting their actions.

One of the other notable features of the polling was the way that people took a notably more gloomy view of concerns about crime on a national level than when it came to their own area.

When asked if crime and antisocial behaviour are a big problem across the UK, 86% said this was the case, up from 79% in June. But when asked about the situation where they lived, this fell to just 40%, 1 percentage point lower.

Similar, when asked if they believed crime had risen in the past 12 months, 72% said this was the case nationally, against 41% locally.

Russia set fire to Ukrainian nuclear plant, Zelensky

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Written by Super User

Category: Europe

Published: 12 August 2024

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BY BENEDICT SMITH

KYIV - Russian forces started a fire on a nuclear power station in southern Ukraine to “blackmail” Kyiv as it pushes into Russian territory, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

A Ukrainian official said there was “unofficial” information that Russia on Sunday had set fire to a large number of car tyres on the cooling towers of the facility in Zaporizhzhia, which it occupied shortly after launching an invasion in February 2022.

Footage circulated on social media shows plumes of black smoke pouring off one of the towers.

While radiation is said to be at normal levels, it may have been a warning to Kyiv as it advances into Russian territory after launching a cross-border invasion on August 6.

Mr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, accused Moscow of attempted blackmail and said it “must be held accountable” for the provocation.

“Currently, radiation levels are within norm. However, as long as the Russian terrorists maintain control over the nuclear plant, the situation is not and cannot be normal,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“Since the first day of its seizure, Russia has been using the Zaporizhzhia NPP [nuclear power plant] only to blackmail Ukraine, all of Europe, and the world.

“We are waiting for the world to react, waiting for the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] to react.

“Russia must be held accountable for this. Only Ukrainian control over the Zaporizhzhia NPP can guarantee a return to normalcy and complete safety.”

The blaze broke out at a cooling tower “after an attack by the Ukrainian armed forces”, Vladimir Rogov wrote on Telegram after Kyiv blamed Russia for the incident.

The IAEA said on Sunday that its experts “witnessed strong dark smoke coming from ZNPP’s northern area following multiple explosions heard in the evening”.

The Russian-occupied facility’s management claimed a drone attack had taken place on one of the cooling towers.

The ZNPP said in a statement that it had contained the fire and that there was no threat of it spreading further.

It comes as Kyiv attempts to push further into the Kursk region after launching a surprise offensive earlier this month – the first foreign invasion of Russian soil since the Second World War.

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Russia’s defence ministry indicated that Ukraine had penetrated at least 20 miles into its territory, claiming to have “foiled attempts” by groups using armoured vehicles to break through defensive lines near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez.

According to images analysed by the BBC, Russia is building new defensive trench lines in the region, a short distance from one of its own nuclear power stations.

Heavy machinery is reportedly next to a long line of piled earth southeast of the Kursk facility.