By Ben Harding
Reuters
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish farmers marched, Israeli truckers slowed rush-hour traffic and Nepali students stoned cars on Thursday, all angry at rising fuel prices and inflation that they say are crippling their economies.
Protests by truckers, taxi drivers, fishermen and farmers demanding fuel-tax breaks have spread across the world, increasing fears of political instability and a global economic downturn.
The oil price, which dipped $3 to $133 on news that China will raise retail gasoline and diesel prices from Friday, has touched record highs near $140 in recent months, fuelling inflation and squeezing business margins.
In Madrid, thousands of farmers brought traffic to a halt on the capital's busiest road to demand lower diesel tax to help cushion the blow of higher fuel costs and low producer prices.
"This is the last straw. If good spring rain hadn't arrived this year and last, we would already have gone bust," said sugarbeet farmer Evaristo Ortega. "The price of diesel and fertiliser is impossible to bear."
Diesel prices have shot up to around 1 euro ($1.56), from 60 cents a year ago, farmers said as they marched past soccer club Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium carrying banners reading: "For the future of our countryside".
In the United States, government data showed people drove less in April for the sixth month in a row, following record gasoline prices as more people used public transport.
In Greece, the cost of living has replaced unemployment as the top concern, unions said. Food prices have risen and motorists pay 13 percent more for fuel than a year ago and heating oil costs 38 percent more.
About 2,000 Greeks protested against sharp increases in prices and demanded action from the conservative government.
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CHINA TO RAISE GASOLINE PRICES
In the Middle East, Israeli truck drivers, supported by taxis and buses from across the country, intentionally slowed down traffic on Tel Aviv's Ayalon Highway during rush hour to demand that the Treasury remove tax charged over diesel fuel.
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