SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Monday November 29 2010 A NURSE began a one-man hunger strike against health service cuts in Tenerife's capital Santa Cruz on Monday. by JAMES TWEEDIE Nurse Julian Peyrolón (pictured, in white) set up camp outside the regional Health ministry in protest at proposed budget cuts of 12 per cent that would see almost 2,000 of his colleagues lose their jobs. Lashing the guy ropes of his small tent to two public benches on the Rambla de Santa Cruz against the second government storm and flood warning in five days, Mr Peyrolón pointed out that the average cuts to health services across Spain were just 4 per cent. He warned of a brain drain in medical professionals, saying: “Here there are faculties of medicine and nursing, which cost the Canarian people money. “But the doctors and nurses go to other countries, because there is no work here for them, because here healthcare doesn't matter. “We pay much for private healthcare, but the government doesn't fund...

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Thursday November 11 2010 Demonstrators marched in Santa Cruz on Thursday night against the week-long assault on a protest camp in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. by JAMES TWEEDIE Over one thousand people, many Sahrawis but the majority Spanish Canarians, marched through the city centre to a rally at Plaza Candelaria to demand an end to the police and military operation. The streets were filled with fluttering Sahrawi flags, while demonstrators chanted: “Free Sahara” and: “The crime is Morocco's, the responsibility is Spain's”. Others protested outside the Moroccan consulate on the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria, on what was the 92 nd anniversary of the end of the First World War. Further protests were planned in the towns of La Oratava on Friday and Playa de Las Americas on Saturday, when there will also be a major demonstration in Spain's capital Madrid. More than 20,000 people had been camped outside Western Sahara's largest city El Aa...