MADRID (AP) — Metalworkers and police clashed Tuesday in Spain’s southern city of Cádiz at the end of a protest march to demand higher wages in line with the country’s surging inflation rate. Police used rubber bullets to disperse protesters who tried to erect barricades across streets in the coastal city. The demonstration marked the eighth straight day of protests and coincided with a strike affecting the whole province of Cádiz in support of the metalworkers’ fight. The inflation rate in Spain has risen to its highest in years, driven up by energy costs. In October, it stood at 5.5%. That has infuriated many people whose wages have stagnated. Hundreds of jobs have also been lost in the province of Cádiz, which has an unemployment rate of 23%, one of Spain’s highest.

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ADDIS ABABA (AFP) -- France on Tuesday became the latest country to advise citizens to leave war-torn Ethiopia as Tigrayan rebels claimed to be advancing closer to the capital Addis Ababa. “All French nationals are formally urged to leave the country without delay,” the French embassy in Addis Ababa said in an email sent to French citizens. Countries including the U.S. and UK have issued similar advisories in recent weeks while also withdrawing non-essential staff. Northern Ethiopia has been wracked by conflict since November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into the Tigray region to topple its ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner promised a swift victory, but by late June the TPLF had regrouped and retaken most of Tigray including its regional capital Mekele. Since then the TPLF has pushed into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions. It has also formed an alliance with other insurgent groups including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which is active in the Oromia region surrounding Addis Ababa.

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SRINAGAR (Reuters) -- Rights groups including the United Nations have criticized the arrest of a prominent activist in Indian-administered Kashmir on terror funding charges. Khurram Parvez was arrested late on Monday by India’s federal National Investigation Agency (NIA), an Indian official briefed on the situation told Reuters. His residence and office were searched and a mobile phone, laptop and books seized, he added. A spokesperson for the NIA confirmed Parvez’s arrest on Tuesday. Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, called Parvez’s arrest “disturbing”. “He’s not a terrorist, he’s a human rights defender,” she said in a tweet. Parvez, one of Kashmir’s best known activists, is head of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a group of rights organizations working in the region. He was arrested and detained on similar charges in 2016, after being prevented from boarding a flight to attend a UN human rights forum in Geneva. He was eventually released without being convicted of any crime.

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SEOUL (Reuters) -- Former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, whose iron-fisted rule of the country following a 1979 military coup sparked massive democracy protests, died on Tuesday at the age of 90, his former press aide said. A former military commander, Chun presided over the 1980 Gwangju army massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators, a crime for which he was later convicted and received a commuted death sentence. Chun passed away at his Seoul home early in the morning and his body was moved to a hospital for a funeral later in the day. He was suffering from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer which was in remission, and his health had deteriorated recently, his former press secretary Min Chung-ki told reporters.

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BANGALORE, India) (AFP) – Indian tech hub Bangalore has been inundated by floodwater after torrential downpours that have killed scores of people across the country’s south in the past few weeks. Lakes dotted around the city have overflowed after three days of ferocious rain, submerging roads and flooding homes. Rescuers deployed inflatable life rafts to retrieve stranded residents while buses and motorized rickshaws carted commuters through knee-deep water. Experts say unpredictable and extreme weather across South Asia is being driven by climate change, exacerbated by damming, deforestation and excessive development. At least 30 people have been killed after flash floods around southern India in recent days, according to local media reports. Another 42 died last month when heavy rains pummeled the coastal state of Kerala, prompting authorities to suspend an annual pilgrimage to Sabarimala, site of one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines.

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QUITO (Reuters) -- Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso has pardoned prisoners jailed for minor traffic crimes and others suffering terminal illnesses to alleviate overcrowding in penitentiaries across the country, his press office said. A wave of violence has beset Ecuador’s prisons in recent months, leaving scores of prisoners dead as gangs fight for control of drug trafficking routes. As well as violence, Ecuador’s prisons are plagued by overcrowding of around 30% and poor living conditions for the system’s 39,000 inmates. In a statement announcing the move late on Monday, the government did not specify how many prisoners will receive a pardon. “This decision includes the total forgiveness of custodial sentences but does not extinguish the obligation of comprehensive reparations (to victims) that all those receiving pardons are responsible for,” the statement added. Ecuador is also preparing to send 170 Colombian prisoners back to their own country, following an agreement with Colombia’s government over the weekend.