Cut backs and fight backs - Spain

Spain's civil servants have gone on strike to protest at salary cuts as part of a plan to rein in a ballooning public deficit that has rattled global financial markets.

Unions for more than two million public workers, ranging from doctors to street cleaners, called the strike after plans to save another 15bn euros (£12bn) were unveiled

The austerity measures - intended to avoid an international rescue package like the one provided to Greece - include average cuts this year to public workers' salaries of 5%.

They are on top of 50bn euro cuts in January designed to slash the public deficit from 11.2% last year - the third largest in the eurozone behind Greece and Ireland.

uk.news.yahoo.com