High fuel prices spark protests in Asia and Europe

|PIC1|Protesters marched in India, Hong Kong and Nepal over soaring oil prices on Tuesday and Spaniards stockpiled fuel and food, fearing shortages because of a truck drivers' strike that has halted deliveries.

South Korean truck drivers also threatened to strike, increasing pressure on Asian governments struggling to prevent rising prices from breaking their budgets and avoid making the burden on the public so heavy it threatens political stability.

The strike by Spanish truck drivers, which Portuguese drivers have also joined, was backed by protests across the border in France over the impact of high oil prices, now at record highs of over $139 per barrel.

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

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.

ONE MILLION PROTESTORS

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

Half the normal number of tankers picked up fuel at deposits on Monday, distribution firm CLH said, though the spokesman added that many oil companies had taken on extra supplies in previous days in anticipation of the strike.

In Catalonia, the worst affected region, 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.

Meanwhile 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.

Traders at Madrid's main food wholesale market, speaking on state television, said that supplies of fresh food would start to run out in the coming days.

In South Korea, up to 1 million people were expected to rally on Tuesday after a row over beef imports from the United States acted as a lightning rod for a broad range of grievances against President Lee Myung-bak's three-month-old government, including high fuel prices.

INDIA PROTESTS WANE

South Korean truck drivers voted on Monday to strike over rising fuel prices, ignoring a $10.2 billion (5.2 billion pounds)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," President Lee Myung-bak said in a speech, as the prime minister of Lee's three-month-old government offered the cabinet's resignation over the various mounting protests.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi meanwhile pledged 1 billion ringgit (157 million pounds) in extra spending for the politically key state of Sarawak, to shore up support there among lawmakers unhappy over a sharp jump in fuel costs.

A decision last week to raise petrol prices by 41 percent and diesel by 63 further soured the mood in the country, 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.

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.