official fuel tax petition

[jacob]

did you see the news, there was a World Wide fuel protest today, I can't recall seeing one here or I didn't watch it long enough.

[smirnoff_rules]

Spanish fuel protest starts to bite



Slow-moving lorries have blocked roads across Spain as drivers continued their protest strike over rising fuel costs.

Their action has disrupted supplies of food, fuel and other goods.

Three car factories - Nissan, Mercedes Benz and SEAT - said they were suspending manufacture for lack of spare parts.

Meanwhile, some service stations in Madrid and the north-eastern Catalonia region ran out of fuel.

Stallholders warned of possible shortages in fruit, vegetables and meat this week at Madrid's sprawling wholesale market, Mercamadrid, if the strike continues.

Fishermen have also been on strike since May 30 in protest at rising fuel costs, which have especially hurt Spain's independent or self-employed contractors amid an overall economic slowdown. Mercamadrid took in 10 lorry loads of fish, compared with 90 on a normal day, said Manuel Pablos, president of an association of fish merchants. The combination of the two strikes "is making these days very grim," he said.

Traffic to and from Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Alicante and other cities was backed up behind trucks creeping slowly forward. Trucks also blocked the Junquera border crossing with France for a second day, allowing only cars through.

The government dropped charging on three toll roads to ease access to Madrid.

The striking drivers are demanding minimum, guaranteed haulage rates to offset rising fuel prices and enable them to compete with large companies. The government met their representatives, but it has said that setting guaranteed rates would violate the principle of free market competition.

Later, the stoppage had its first fatality when a protester was knocked down by a van at a picket outside the wholesale market in Granada, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The ministry said the van driver, who has been detained, accelerated and hit the man when protesters began to throw stones after he tried to drive past the picket.



MADRID, June 10 (Reuters) - Asian consumers protested over soaring oil prices on Tuesday and in southern Europe two pickets supporting truck drivers' strikes died.

Spaniards fear a strike that has disrupted deliveries could cause shortages and they are stockpiling fuel and food. Traders at Madrid's main food wholesale market said supplies of fresh food would start to run out soon.

Portuguese drivers have joined the strike and there were also protests in France over the impact of record oil prices, now at highs of more than $139 per barrel.

One striking truck driver was killed near a Grenada market in southern Spain. In Portugal, a picket died as he tried to stop a truck on a road north of the capital Lisbon.

Diesel has risen to 1.30 euros/litre from 0.95 euros a year ago, pressuring European Union governments to help heavy fuel users such as truck and taxi drivers, fishermen and farmers.

In Asia, governments are struggling to prevent rising prices making the burden on the public so heavy that it threatens political stability.

South Korea's cabinet offered to resign in the face of huge street protests on Tuesday about the policies of its unpopular President Lee Myung-bak.

He said Asia's fourth-largest economy could be heading into crisis because of surging resource prices and slowing growth. Producer price inflation in the world's fifth-largest crude oil importer was near a 10-year high last month.

South Korean truck drivers voted on Monday to strike over rising fuel prices, ignoring a $10.2 billion government aid package designed to cushion the impact of the fuel cost surge.

"We are faced with a 'resources crisis' coming next only to the oil crisis in the 1970s and the financial crisis in the 1990s," the president said in a speech.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pledged 1 billion ringgit ($306.6 million) in extra spending for the politically key state of Sarawak, to shore up support there among lawmakers unhappy over a jump in fuel costs.

A decision last week to raise petrol prices by 41 percent and diesel by 63 further soured the mood and the opposition is calling for protests later this week.

In Hong Kong about 500 minibuses, lorries, garbage trucks and coaches staged a go-slow protest, crippling traffic in a demonstration calling for fuel taxes to be scrapped.

Communists burned tyres and blocked roads in parts of eastern India in protests at fuel price rises but elsewhere in the country calls for strikes were largely ignored.



INCREASED PRICES

India increased petrol and diesel prices last week by around 10 percent after the cost of fuel subsidies brought state oil companies close to bankruptcy.

In Spain, cars queued at petrol stations -- 40 percent of which had run out of fuel in the worst affected area of Catalonia -- and supplies of fresh food began to run low in some markets, Spanish media reported.

"I heard all the petrol stations were running out of fuel so I came to fill up, otherwise I worried I won't be able to get to work tomorrow," said a Madrid driver who gave his name as Raul.

Police motorbike riders escorted fuel tankers to some petrol stations to break picket lines and prevent attacks, after some strikers slashed lorry tyres on Monday.

Oil company Cepsa said 45 percent of its deliveries had failed to get through to stations due to strikers blocking their path at fuel depots, although Spain's biggest oil firm Repsol said deliveries were getting through with "relative normality".

In Catalonia, car producer Seat said it stopped production on Monday night and a further two shifts on Tuesday -- cutting production by 700 cars a shift -- because supplies could not get through.

A strike by Spanish fishermen, now in its 12th day, showed no sign of breaking. Only a trickle of fish passed through Vigo -- Europe's biggest fishing port -- compared to the 200 tonnes that is normally traded there every day. (Additional reporting by Robert Hetz and Anna Valderrama in Spain; Axel Bugge in Lisbon; Sanjeev Miglani in Kuala Lumpur and bureaux in South Korea, India, Nepal and Hong Kong; Editing by Robert Woodward)

<--smirnoff_rules added 15 Minutes and 36 Seconds later...-->

pumps dry on in spain http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7446236.stm
and l hear the tanker drivers r going on strike over here too

[jacob]

l hear the tanker drivers r going on strike over here too

any idea when mate?

i have to drive my little un to school and pick her up, there's virtually no other way to get her there. if i can't get fuel i'm ~~~~ed. no fuel no school . i still totally agree with the strike tho, gawd bless the lads.

a muse:

why has fuel gone up across the world seemingly all at once? and the whole world protesting, all at once ... is this a world government thing? ...

[smirnoff_rules]

talks r going on today m8 . u will know by tomorrow . but its shell or bp cant remember now . so i think thats one in five stations will dry up

its these tarts m8 http://www.opec.org/home/

this is a worry http://www.opec.org/home/basket.aspx

[umgum]

done signed hope they do something about it
but doubt it very much

[jacob]

heh. strangely the first one indicates a price drop soon. i think

[vambo]

signed it! just filled up today ?71.00 to fill my tank!
Shocking! i remember when it cost ?40 it was'nt that long ago!

get rid of gordon!

[stew1954]

Too late

Just found petition today but was too late as it has now closed. Hope we all get the response that we are looking for... but don't hold out much hope.

Its not only the fuel its everything fuel, food, clothes etc everyday things that the wages used to cover with a little bit extra for de-stressing oneself but nothing left no not even enough to buy basics.

[bobble]

Just robery