http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/23/spain-desperate-miners-protest-march
Spain's desperate miners gather for a protest march on the capital
It is 284 miles from the Asturian valleys to Madrid. But those making the trip feel they have little to lose as savage cuts loom
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Asturian miner Ana Sánchez lays a rose on the monument to dead miners in Mieres before setting off on a 284-mile protest march to Madrid. Photograph: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images
Cristián wears the yellow and blue Asturian flag, the symbol of his homeland, tied around his dusty overalls. Olga, his mother, is writing a dedication on it that reads: "You are the hope of the mining valleys." She wants to lend her strength to her son for the miners' three-week protest march, which set off on Friday and ends in Madrid on 11 July – the most likely date for the prime minister's appearance before parliament to report on Spain's bank bailout.
Cristián's father, José Manuel, 49, a miner who took early retirement, watches from a distance. "I was a miner for 20 years; my father was also a miner and so are my two sons. I don't know what will happen to us if the mines are shut down. Those making their way to Madrid are our last hope."
Eighty miners are setting out on the 248-mile journey from Mieres, a town near the Asturian capital, Oviedo. The "black march" will cover 19 stages, with miners joining from León, Teruel and Palencia along the way. Around 200 are expected to arrive in the Spanish capital next month, one of many acts planned to protest at the proposed 63% cuts in coal subsidies already approved by the EU.
Ana Sánchez is on her knees, saying goodbye to her three-year-old goddaughter Marina. Sánchez has worked as a miner for nine years, at the María Luisa mine. She is one of four women from the Asturian valley who will join the march. "I have to do this for my unborn granddaughter. I will do whatever it takes."
One of her two children, Jane, 24, is due to give birth in November. At 45, Sánchez says "it will all be over" if the mine shuts down. "The cuts are going to choke us, and there will be no work for anyone – not for miners and not for all those who depend on us." Sánchez lives in El Entrego, a small village in the Asturian mining valley that, like so many others, revolves entirely around its coalfields.
"If miners have to leave, the schools will also close, as well as the shops and businesses. And where are the 50,000 people affected supposed to go?" she asks.
Luis Rodríguez is one of those who cannot leave. A miner at the Sotón mine for the last 10 years, he has commitments: a mortgage to pay, a nine-year-old, and a six-month-old baby. His wife, a waitress, recently lost her job. "How can I sell my house to pay off my mortgage if we have to leave?" he asks. He has the same problem as so many of his colleagues who are paying off mortgages: "If the mine is shut down, no one is going to want to buy a house on dead land."
Pepe Pérez, 45, a miner from Cerredo, adds: "The cuts approved by the conservative government would suffocate mining to the point that it would disappear. These subsidies have already been approved, so it is like we are being robbed. They want us to starve, and we cannot allow it. We must fight."
Pérez hugs his daughter Vanesa. "It is because of our children that we are marching. I took part in the second black march in history, in 2010, but that only lasted four days. This one will be much harder – it is almost 500km – but there is no other way. The government must realise we are not going to give up."
Fireworks start to fly across the Mieres sky as the 80 miners stand ready. Some of them are wearing black T-shirts bearing slogans such as: "They want to end it all. Keep the coal mines open." Before they leave, José Angel Fernández Villa, of the Soma-Fitag-UGT trade union, gives them words of encouragement: "We must persuade the government to call an urgent commission to monitor the coal plan, and it must modify the economic provisions. These brutal cuts will kill the mining industry".
It is all or nothing now: as Jorge Expósito, 26, says: "There won't be any more chances." Expósito works at the Candín mine, where five miners have locked themselves in, along with three from the Santiago mine, for 25 days now, 300 metres below ground, as they wait for a solution. Around 8,000 miners in provinces across Spain have been on strike since 31 May. "We will not stop until this is resolved," says Expósito. "They are stealing our future, and we are not going to let our families starve."
On 18 June, a general strike was called throughout the mining valleys, with a turnout of nearly 100%. There have also been road and rail barricades in all the affected areas, with burning tyres and logs being used to block the railroad tracks.
"We want to get the attention of a government that is ignoring us. We want them to be willing to negotiate, to talk," says Víctor Luis Pérez, 30, while his wife Rocío tenderly removes his helmet and writes "I love you, keep going" on it. His colleagues add their own words of encouragement. Those who cannot walk say they will be there in spirit.
Before leaving, the workers place red roses on the monument to dead miners as the notes of the mining hymn Santa Bárbara Bendita, in honour of their patron saint, ring out. The miners set off. "I just want my kid to make it there, and for this situation to be resolved. We just want to work," cries Violeta, another marcher.
Their workmates and relatives walk with them for a considerable distance, and as they pass before a nursing home one of the residents, Gloria, 69, begins to sing the hymn. Everyone at the home stands at the gates to support the marchers. "These are our miners, our brave hearts," shouts Gloria. She is the wife, daughter, sister and now grandmother of miners. "Keep going, don't give up," she cries as her grandson walks by. All of the elderly people at the home carry small placards with black ribbons on them, and they weep as they hold them up.
Despite a long road ahead, Cristián is optimistic. "This is not the first time miners have fought for all workers," he says. "We are an example to everyone, and we hope that the government will see reason."
and bank bailout to be requested Monday June 25th......
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9350098/Debt-crisis-Spain-to-request-bailout-on-Monday.html
Debt crisis: Spain to request bailout on Monday
Spain will formally request a bailout for its crisis ridden banks on Monday, finance minister Luis De Guindos said.
5:56PM BST 22 Jun 2012
An independent audit of Spain’s banks concluded that a maximum of €62bn (£50bn) of capital would be required, but ratings agency Fitch yesterday criticised the report.
Fitch said the estimate was based on the idea that banks would only need a 6pc core tier one capital ratio - a key measure of a bank’s financial strength - to regain market confidence.
Fitch however, which believes Spain’s banks could need up to €100bn of capital on a worst case scenario, said a higher level of capital reserves would be needed otherwise “the market is unlikely to resume large-scale lending to banks after such widespread losses”.
It said markets were expecting core capital ratios of around 10pc.
Eurozone members are poised to make a maximum of €100bn in bailout funds available for Spain in order to recapitalise its beleaguered banks, and Mr De Guindos said loans for at least 15 years with interest rates of between 3pc and 4pc were likely.
“We will submit next Monday the letter with the formal request for aid,” he said after talks with European counterparts in Luxembourg.
He added Spain might be granted a “period of grace going from five to 10 years” before making repayments.
Spain is pushing for an agreement which would enable its banks to directly access European rescue funds.
Under current rules, the loans would first go to the Spanish government, adding to its sovereign debt burden and potentially driving its borrowing costs higher.
“Right now there is no instrument to inject capital directly to banks. That’s the reality,” he said, adding that momentum is building toward creation of a European banking union which could change the situation.
and recapping the missteps of Spain's leadership in recent weeks .....
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Rajoy-s-Blown-Credibility-Puts-Spain-at-Risk-of-3655044.php
Rajoy’s Blown Credibility Puts Spain at Risk of State Rescue
Ben Sills, ©2012 Bloomberg News
Updated 09:15 a.m., Friday, June 22, 2012
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(Updates with comment from analyst in fifth paragraph, bond markets in sixth. See TOP CRIS for more on the euro crisis.)
June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Spanish Prime MinisterMariano Rajoy has spent much of the political capital he won seven months ago in the biggest landslide in 30 years, floundering against a crisis that risks making Spain the first $1 trillion economy to need a sovereign bailout, investors and analysts say.
Rajoy, singled out by leaders at the Group of 20 summit, has been taunted by opposition lawmakers and commentators as borrowing costs soared to a euro-era record even after Spain’s banks received a 100 billion-euro ($127 billion) lifeline. Rajoy called the rescue a victory that solved lenders’ problems.
“He clearly doesn’t get it,” said Gary Jenkins, founder of Swordfish Research Ltd. near London, who has tracked bond markets for more than 15 years. “Spain needs someone who can come in and grasp the seriousness of the situation and react to that, not just pretend everything’s okay.”
Spain may be able to stave off a full bailout for as much as 12 months as domestic banks support treasury bond auctions, according to Fidelity Investments’s Jamie Stuttard. Alessandro Giansanti at ING Bank NV said it may come by September.
“The next three months will be the path to the bailout,” Giansanti, an Amsterdam-based interest-rate analyst, said in a telephone interview on June 19.
Next Target
The yield on Spanish 10-year debt was little changed basis points to 6.61 percent at 12 p.m. today in Madrid, pushing the risk premium over German bunds to 507 basis points. Italy’s benchmark yield rose 6 basis points to 5.81 percent.
The Spanish-bank bailout made Italy the next potential investor target. Together, they could overwhelm the sums committed to safeguard the 17-nation currency bloc. Southern Europe’s two major economies have 2.8 trillion euros of government debt, four times the total of Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
“A rescue for Italy is pretty much impossible without a major change in German borrowing costs, a major change in overall euro-zone levels of inflation, a major change in the level of the euro, or a major change in the structure of the euro zone,” Stuttard, Fidelity’s head of international bond portfolio management in London, said in a telephone interview on June 19.
Bank Needs
Rajoy, 57, who was told by Germany’s Angela Merkel at the G-20 in Mexico June 19 to spell out the depth of his banks’ needs “as soon as possible,” will be under scrutiny today when he faces Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at a meeting in Rome hosted by Italy’s Mario Monti.
The contrast between the unelected Monti, praised by global counterparts for his bid to bring order to Italy’s finances, and Rajoy, who came to power just weeks later, is underscored in the bond markets.
When Rajoy took office in December, Italy’s 10-year yields were surging above 7 percent and comparable Spanish debt traded as much as 200 basis points lower. Now, Spain’s 10-year notes yield 81 basis points more than Italy’s.
The International Monetary Fund June 8 urged Spain that devising an “effective communication” strategy is “critical” for financial stability.
“The Spanish problem was entirely avoidable,” said Thomas Mayer, a Frankfurt-based economic adviser to Deutsche Bank AG. “This has been created by miscommunication.”
Policy Reversals
The run-up to the bank bailout was marked by policy reversals and self-contradictions by Rajoy, who lost two general elections in Spain before ousting the governing Socialist Party in November.
Rajoy called for the euro region’s rescue fund to recapitalize distressed lenders on May 28, even as he argued that Spanish lenders won’t need external support. On June 2, he called on euro members to give up sovereignty over their budgets to cement a fiscal union, reversing his stance from three months earlier. That’s when he said budgets were a sovereign matter as he defied deficit commitments to the European Union.
The following week, he left it to Economy MinisterLuis de Guindos to explain the bank rescue. Eighteen hours later, with Spaniards posting criticism on Twitter with the hashtag #RajoyCobarde -- Rajoy, coward -- and El Pais newspaper accusing him of hiding, the premier spoke to the press.
Rescue Winners
“Yesterday, the credibility of the euro won, yesterday the future won,” he said on June 10. “Yesterday, the European Union won.”
Then, he announced that since the banks’ funding problems were resolved he would continue with his plans to watch the national soccer team play that night and climbed aboard his government jet to fly to the Polish city of Gdansk.
“People were astonished that he was going off to Poland,” Jonathan Tepper, a partner at London-based investment research firm Variant Perception, said in a telephone interview. “Things like that make him look completely incompetent.”
A spokeswoman for Rajoy who asked not to be named said the premier wanted to be clear the June 9 agreement was not a bailout for the sovereign and he wasn’t denying reality. Spain has not been dragging its feet over the aid request since the official position has been that they would wait for yesterday’s stress-test results to decide how much capital would be required, she added.
Yield Surge
Spanish 10-year government bond yields rose as much as 76 basis points in the week that followed, the biggest weekly gain since 1997 and commentators and rival politicians mocked Rajoy for refusing to acknowledge that the loan deal was a bailout.
“Say it with me, it’s - a - res - cue,” Rosa Diez, leader of a minority group, taunted the prime minister in parliament. “Nothing bad’s going to happen if you say it.”
Rajoy’s budget cutting faces virtually no reduction in the 350-member parliament, where his People’s Party has 185 seats.
Still, his standing with the public has taken a beating. A poll conducted for El Mundo by Sigma Dos between June 12 and June 14 showed Rajoy’s disapproval rating doubled to 43 percent from January.
In Mexico, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said it wasn’t all Rajoy’s fault, criticizing Europe’s leaders for fumbling the bailout.
“To have that being a negative story is amazing” given the amount of money pledged, Zoellick told a June 17 panel discussion at the meeting in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos. “The execution was extremely poor.”
Saudi officials are preparing to pay the salaries of the Free Syria Army as a means of encouraging mass defections from the military and increasing pressure on the Al Assad regime, the Guardian has learned.
ReplyDeletehttp://gulfnews.com/news/region/syria/saudi-arabia-plans-to-fund-syria-rebel-army-1.1039475
Andia , thanks for the comments - I did see that . And I'm sure Qatar will also play a role is paying salaries or running supplies / weapons to the so called rebels .
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