Amid economic malaise popular protests double in Spain

More protestors took to the streets of Madrid in the first four months of this year as a crippling economic financial crisis wreaked havoc on ordinary Spaniards. The number of street demonstrations doubled in January-April over the same period from a year earlier to reach 1,628, said Cristina Fuentes, a spokeswoman with the Autonomous Community of Madrid as health and education workers have taken the lead in the protests. "Staging 10 demonstrations per day in a city like Madrid just doesn't make any sense. This is a real torture for the citizens living downtown," she said. Almost five million Spaniards were registered as unemployed last month. The country has the second highest jobless rate in the European Union. It surged to a record high of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013, according to Spain's statistics authority. The lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria with 4.7 percent and in Germany 5.4 percent while the EU average was 10.9 percent in March 2013.