News from Spain

Workers took over cities across Spain on Tuesday to press the social democratic government not to go ahead with plans to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67.

Some 70,000 took part in a demonstration in Madrid, while 50,000 rallied in Barcelona and thousands more took to the streets in other cities across the country.

Addressing a massive crowd in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square, Comisiones Obreras union confederation general secretary Ignacio Fernandez Toxo urged Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero "not to play around with pensions, with the future of millions and millions of people in our country."

The Spanish government is currently seeking to satisfy the European Union's diktat that the "sovereign" eurozone governments cannot allow public deficits to exceed 3 per cent of GDP.

The economic crisis has resulted in Spain's deficit exploding to 11.4 per cent and unemployment is running at 19 per cent - the highest in Europe.