VIVA ESPAÑA!

HAVE GUNS, BE FREE

The US Supreme Court has ruled that individual Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, ending a ban on owning handguns in the capital in its first ruling on gun rights in 70 years.

The court's 5-4 landmark decision -- on whether the right to keep and bear arms is an individual or collective right -- said the city's law violated the second amendment of the US constitution which the justices said guaranteed citizens the right to keep guns at home for self-defense.

"There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the second amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia in the court's decision.

He added the court took seriously the problem of handgun violence in cities like Washington and said there were "a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns."

"The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," the court ruled.
President George W. Bush welcomed the ruling, saying he strongly agreed with the court's "historic decision," and urged Washington authorities to "swiftly move" to protect their citizens' constitutional rights.

The ruling was a victory for gun rights advocates, but gun control proponents said it would help their cause by endorsing the regulation of firearms.

The high court had never before issued a precise ruling on the interpretation of the second amendment, which states: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."


Washington, home to the White House and the US administration, has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.
Private possession of handguns is strictly banned here, and any rifles or shotguns must be kept unloaded in homes or under a trigger lock.

City officials argued the ban, instituted in 1976, was necessary to stem rising gun violence, and that the second amendment protected gun rights for people associated with militias, not individuals.

The case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, was originally brought in 2003 by a federal building guard who carries a handgun on duty and wanted to keep it in his home for self-defense.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the right to own guns was "not unlimited" and that its decision did not cast doubt on laws prohibiting convicted federal criminals or mentally-ill patients from keeping guns.

Bans on concealed weapons or on carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools or government buildings remained legal, it said.
"This gun decision is a breath of fresh air from the US Supreme Court," said Jessica Echard of the conservative group Eagle Forum.

"The majority of Americans see the absurdity of gun control and recognize the valuable self-defense function of guns."

But Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the ruling made clear that "the constitution allows for reasonable restrictions on access to dangerous weapons."
Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said the ruling was restricted to handguns in homes and did not prevent the city from strictly regulating or banning other types of firearms.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama welcomed the decision, saying the court had endorsed "the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures."

But he came under fire from Republican rival John McCain who accused him of changing his position over the years.

"Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly," McCain said in a statement.

The McCain campaign released a memo setting out how Obama had, in 1996, expressed support for a ban on the manufacture and sale of handguns but by this year, had equivocated on whether the Washington ban was constitutional.

The Supreme Court last took up the issue in 1939, but its ruling then referred to alleged bank robbers and the registration of certain firearms.

BOLIVIA VOTES

GREENS ARE BACK!

With Russell and Havlicek sitting courtside, and Red surely lighting up a victory cigar somewhere, these Boston Celtics returned to glory like the great teams before them.
Dominant in every way.
On a new parquet floor below aging championship banners hung in the rafters two decades back, the Celtics won their 17th NBA title and a first one—at last — for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen—their Big Three for a new generation.
After 22 long years, the NBA has gone green.
Lifted by ear-splitting chants of “Beat L.A.” early and cries of “Seven-teen” in the closing seconds by their adoring crowd, the Celtics concluded a shocking rebound of a season with a stunning 131-92 blowout over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 on Tuesday night.
“It means so much more because these are the guys, the Havliceks, the Bill Russells, the Cousys,” Pierce said. “These guys started what’s going on with those banners. They don’t hang up any other banners but championship ones.
“And now I’m a part of it.”
With the outcome assured, Boston fans sang into the night as if they were in a pub on nearby Canal Street. They serenaded the newest champs in this city of champs, and taunted Kobe Bryant and his Lakers, who drowned in a green-and-white wave for 48 minutes.
Garnett scored 26 points with 14 rebounds, Allen scored 26 and Pierce, the finals MVP who shook off a sprained right knee sustained in Game 1, added 17 as the Celtics, a 24-win team a year ago, wrapped up their first title since 1986.
Rajon Rondo had 21 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and six steals as the Celtics, who built a 23-point halftime lead and obliterated the Lakers, who were trying to become the first team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the finals.
They didn’t stand a chance.
Boston’s 39-point win surpassed the NBA record for the biggest margin of victory in a championship clincher; the Celtics beat the Lakers 129-96 in Game 5 of the 1965 NBA finals.
In the final minute, Pierce doused Celtics coach Doc Rivers with red Gatorade. Owner Wyc Grousbeck, who named his group Banner 17 to leave no doubt about his goal, put an unlit cigar in his mouth—a tribute to Auerbach, the patriarch who had a hand in the franchise’s first 16 titles.
Garnett dropped to the parquet and kissed the leprechaun at center court and then found Russell, the Hall of Famer who taught him the Celtic way, for a long embrace.
“I got my own. I got my own,” Garnett said. “I hope we made you proud.”
“You sure did,” Russell said.
Rivers pulled Pierce, Garnett and Allen with 4:01 left and they shared a group hug with their coach, who was nearly run out of town last season. Rivers lost his father at the beginning of this remarkable run, a season no one expected.
By the time Rivers was handed the Larry O’Brien Trophy, it was June 18—his late father’s birthday.
When the game clock reached zeros, Rivers reflected on his dad.
“My first thought was what would my dad say,” Rivers said, “and honestly I started laughing because I thought he would probably say, if you knew my dad, `It’s about time. What have you been waiting for?”’
It’s was Boston’s first title since the passing of Auerbach, whose presence was the only thing missing on this night. Even Auerbach, who died in 2006, got some satisfaction. Led by Rivers, Auerbach’s beloved team denied Lakers coach Phil Jackson from overtaking him with a 10th championship.
The Boston-Los Angeles rivalry, nothing more than black-and-white footage from the 60s and TV highlights of players wearing short shorts in the 80s to young hoops fans, remains tilted toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Celtics are 9-2 against the Lakers in the finals.
Boston missed its first crack at closing out the series in Game 5, but the Celtics didn’t miss on their second swing, running the Lakers out of the gym.
Bryant, the regular season MVP, finished with 22 points on 7-of-22 shooting.
He started 4-of-5 from the field and seemed intent on forcing a Game 7. But he missed seven shots in a row and everywhere he went, L.A.’s No. 24 ran smack into a wall of Boston defense as high as the Green Monster.
“They were definitely the best defense I’ve seen the entire playoffs,” Bryant said. “I’ve seen some pretty stiff ones and this was right up there with them. The goal was to win a championship, it wasn’t to win MVP or anything like that, it was to win a championship.”
Garnett and Allen were All-Stars in other cities, stuck in Minnesota and Seattle, respectively, on teams going nowhere. But brought together in trades last summer by Celtics general manager Danny Ainge, a member of the ‘86 Celtics champions, they joined Pierce and formed an unbreakable bond, a trio as tight as the club’s lucky shamrock logo.
They resisted being called The Big Three, a nickname given to Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish two decades ago.
“This is the reason we came here,” Garnett said. “This is the reason we got together, and Danny made it go down. This is it right now.”
With Garnett scoring 17 points and Pierce adding 10, Boston built a 58-35 halftime lead, and unlike Game 2 when they let the Lakers trim a 24-point lead to two in the fourth quarter before recovering, the Celtics never stopped.
They pushed their lead to 31 in the third, and with Boston still up by 29 after three, plastic sheets started going up in the Celtics’ locker room in preparation for a champagne celebration.
No team had to work harder for a championship than these Celtics, who were playing in their record 26th postseason game after being pushed to seven games by Atlanta and Cleveland before taking care of Detroit in six to win the Eastern Conference title.
They entered Game 6 slowed by injuries as Pierce, Kendrick Perkins (shoulder) and Rondo (ankle) were less than 100 percent. There was also uncertainty surrounding Allen, who stayed behind in Los Angeles following Game 5 after his youngest son became ill and was diagnosed with diabetes. The Celtics needed three planes to get back from L.A. and didn’t get home until late Monday night.
But there were no excuses, and just as they had while winning 66 games during the regular season, the Celtics got plenty of help from their bench as P.J. Brown, James Posey, Leon Powe and rookie Glen “Big Baby” Davis came in and contributed.
It was a group effort by this gang in green, which bonded behind Rivers, who borrowed an African word ubuntu (pronounced Ooh-BOON-too) and roughly means “I am, because we are” in English, as the Celtics’ unifying team motto.
The Celtics gave the Lakers a 12-minute crash course of ubuntu in the second quarter.
Boston outscored Los Angeles 34-19, getting 11 field goals on 11 assists. The Celtics toyed with the Lakers, outworking the Western Conference’s best inside and out and showing the same kind of heart that made Boston the center of pro basketball’s universe in the ’60s.
House and Posey made 3-pointers to put the Celtics ahead by 12 points and baskets by Pierce, Garnett and Rondo put Boston ahead by 18.
In the final minute, Garnett floated in the lane, banked in a one-handed runner and was fouled. His free throw made it 56-35, and after Perkins scored, the Celtics ran to the locker room leading by 23.
On his way off the floor, Garnett screamed, “That’s that.”
And so it was.
Notes
The Lakers had won their previous eight straight Game 6s in the finals. … Since the finals began in 1947, 16 have gone seven games, the most recent in 2005 when San Antonio had to go the distance to beat Detroit. … It was the second biggest margin in finals history behind Chicago’s 96-54 win over Utah in 1998. … The Celtics went 48-7 at home, including 13-1 in the postseason.

NO, BUT YES TO FREEDOM

It took years to negotiate, weighs in at 260 pages, is virtually unreadable — and now could be a dead letter.

Irish voters vetoed a painstakingly drafted treaty Friday that had been designed to streamline the European Union. Politicians from all of Ireland's major parties worked hard to sell the complex, deeply technical document to a confused and suspicious public.

Only Ireland put the treaty before the voters at all. The other 26 members are ratifying it through their parliaments, in part fearful of what happened to its predecessor, an even bigger, more ambitious constitution that French and Dutch voters torpedoed in 2005.

To become law, the treaty must be unanimously approved by all 27 EU nations. But Ireland's constitution requires EU treaties be put to a vote — a risky policy for the EU, whose powerful commissioners are not popularly elected and seem distant from the ordinary European.

The overwhelming majority of Ireland's politicians supported the Treaty of Lisbon, named after the city where the charter was signed by all member governments in December 2007. But they found it impossible to sell.
"If I was ever in charge of producing another treaty, I would say strongly to everyone at the table: Would you put something into it that's a big-ticket item that you can actually sell to people? Because this was full of technical detail," said Mary Hanafin, a government minister charged with drumming up support.

Her boss, Prime Minister Brian Cowen, faces certain embarrassment and possible isolation at an EU summit next week.

This is the second time that Ireland has voted against an EU treaty. The last time, in 2001, Ireland negotiated with EU partners to produce an appendix emphasizing Ireland's independence and staged a vote a year later, this time achieving a "yes" majority.

Such diplomatic maneuverings have fueled voter resentment.

"What part of `no' do they not understand?" asked Declan Ganley, leader of an anti-treaty pressure group, Libertas.

Ganley's campaign emphasized the threat to Ireland's unusually low business tax rates, a major reason why 600 U.S. companies have made their European homes in Ireland rather than France or Germany.

Cowen rued the fact that the government found itself on the defensive because Libertas and other groups opposed to the treaty successfully played on people's fears it would mean a loss of national sovereignty.

Anti-treaty groups from the left and right mobilized "no" voters by claiming the treaty would empower EU chiefs in Brussels, Belgium, to force Ireland to change core policies — including its military neutrality and its ban on abortion as well as low business taxes.
Cowen and opposition leaders insisted that was all nonsense.

But in the towns and villages of Ireland — a country that, since joining the EU 35 years ago, has arguably benefited most from membership because of massive financial aid from wealthy EU partners — people proved receptive to the warnings.

"I like being part of Europe. But I don't want Europe to take away any more of our Irishness," said Dublin taxi driver Ray Kennedy, who like many in the Irish capital complains about the Eastern European job-seekers who have inundated Ireland since the EU's rapid expansion in 2004.

He, like 53.4 percent of voters, rejected the treaty in Thursday's referendum.
Unlike the 2001 treaty rejection, which prevailed on a weak 34.8 percent turnout, this referendum mobilized unprecedented numbers of anti-treaty voters in a 53 percent turnout, high by Irish standards. This increases the difficulty of mounting a second Irish vote, as many EU backers undoubtedly want to do.

Ireland's minister for European affairs, Dick Roche, predicted a second vote would be difficult, if not impossible.

"As far as I'm concerned, this treaty is a dead letter," Roche said, adding that Ireland's voters have "made life very difficult for us going out to Brussels. We are in completely uncharted territory here, a very strange position."

"We need to hear clearly from all our leaders that the Lisbon Treaty cannot be brought back from the dead," said Richard Greene, spokesman for a right-wing Catholic group called Coir, which is Gaelic for "Justice."

Coir plastered Ireland with posters showing three chimpanzees covering their eyes, ears and mouth and the message, "The new EU won't see you, won't hear you, and won't speak for you — vote no."

In capitals across Europe, leaders said ratification should proceed regardless of the Irish vote. Ahead lie painful months of negotiations aimed at somehow overcoming the Irish veto.

"At the European Council, we will want to confer with each other, to hear Prime Minister Cowen's analysis, as well as his ideas on how to address the concerns expressed by those who chose to vote no," EU President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters in Brussels.

In neighboring Britain, one of eight EU partners yet to ratify the treaty, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the Irish outcome "needs to be respected and digested" — but should not oblige other countries to postpone their own ratification plans.

"I think it's important that no one tells them what to do next. It's very important the Irish make their own decisions about how to go forward on the basis of a careful analysis of the results," Miliband said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed that patient diplomacy might eventually turn the Irish "No" to "Yes."

"We would have liked a different outcome, but as good Europeans we now have the task of simply taking the situation as it is and finding a way out, while at the same time respecting the vote of the Irish," she said.

HELL ROADS

Spain promised "zero tolerance" for violence by striking truckers after police cleared picket lines blocking highways during a fuel protest. The government said deliveries of food and other goods were returning to normal on Thursday after an agreement with most of the strikers although food distribution centers reported shortages and car factories remained at a standstill.

"The government is going to have zero tolerance for any act of intimidation or violence," said Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, after incidents including an arson attack on a strike-breaking truck that left the driver with burns to 25 percent of his body.

The government said it had arrested 71 picketers for offences including intimidating non-striking drivers since the stoppage by 75,000 truckers began on Sunday night to call for government help to cope with high fuel prices.

However the scene at Madrid's main food market, Mercamadrid, which supplies the capital's shops and supermarkets, was far from normal on Thursday as the number of deliveries was reduced to a trickle because non-striking truckers were still being stopped by picketers.

Car plants were also at a standstill, due to a shortage of parts caused by the strike, national car makers' association Anfac said.

In one incident, a driver working for a company which is not participating in the strike suffered burns to a quarter of his body after someone set his truck alight as he slept near where he had been trapped by a picket line.

With fishermen already on strike and Madrid taxi drivers due to stop working for 24 hours from Friday, Spain is being hit hard by the protests caused by surging oil prices, which have spread elsewhere in Europe.

Spain's economy is already reeling from the global credit crunch and the collapse of a housing boom. Economic growth fell to 0.3 percent in the first quarter from 0.8 percent in the last three months of 2007, while inflation hit 4.6 percent in May.

Zapatero has been criticized by media and the conservative opposition for failing to do more to confront the strike and the economic slowdown.
On Monday, tens of thousands of Spanish truck-drivers went on strike to protest high fuel prices and by Tuesday the escalating stoppage began severing the nation’s supply lines to supermarkets, gas stations and even small cafeterias.

In many parts of the country, Spaniards felt the pinch in different ways. Nearly half of the gasoline stations in the northern province of Catalonia were out of fuel as of Tuesday morning, and the regional government sent out an emergency convoy of 20 trucks to replenish their tanks.

Around major cities, traffic continued Tuesday to crawl behind the so-called “snail protests” of slow-moving trucks.

Television news reports showed ships in the Balearic Islands marooned in port for lack of fuel and cargo. In the northern province of Galicia and southern ports of Andalucía, the truckers’ strike, coupled with a fishing strike, left docks and fish stalls barren. Wholesale markets were surrounded by protesters. And shoppers were hoarding staples.

So far the administration of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has offered a package of measures to ease the impact of higher fuel prices on small businesses, including lower social security contributions and 55 million euros in subsidies to older truckers who choose to abandon the industry. But Mr. Somoza said the truckers consider these measures insufficient.

They are seeking government regulations guaranteeing a minimum price for their services, above fuel costs.

NO OIL, NO TRAVEL

Gas stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region began running out of fuel Monday as an indefinite strike by truckers began to bite.

The protest over soaring fuel costs began at midnight Sunday.

Antonio Onieva, president of Madrid's station owners organization, told reporters that by 5:30 p.m., 15 percent of the capital's outlets had run out of fuel. Manuel Amado, president of Catalonia's owners' federation, said 40 percent of Catalonia's 1,714 stations had sold out.

The stoppage led to lengthy lines at many gasoline stations across the country as drivers rushed to fill up.

Drivers were paying the equivalent of about $7.32 per gallon of diesel Monday. By contrast, diesel was selling in the U.S. for about $4.75.
Truckers also blocked a number of roads around the country, including some leading into the center of Barcelona and the international border with France.
"We are the ones who move the goods that this country needs to keep working. If we stop because we haven't got the money to buy fuel then the country will stop," Julio Villascusa, president of the transport association Fenadismer, told Cadena SER radio.

Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day.
Fenadismer said more than 90,000 drivers have been called to take part in the strike.

The strike was not expected to have a major effect on city food markets until later in the week.

There was almost no movement of trucks early Monday at Mercamadrid, the main wholesale food market for the Spanish capital.

Development Ministry transport chief Juan Miguel Sanchez said the government will guarantee market supplies.

Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday but failed to reach agreement, stretching the strike to a second day.

A strike by fishermen across Spain also protesting fuel costs has entered a second week. News reports said smaller boats that fish closer to the coast had now joined the protest, which began May 30.

The stoppages are part of Europe-wide protests against rising prices.

Trucks deliberately slowing down to snail's pace clogged the highways around Spain's main cities Tuesday, the second day of a nationwide strike over rising fuel costs.

Some gasoline stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region were out of fuel, and there were fears that supermarket could also be affected.

Traffic to and from Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Alicante and other cities was backed up behind trucks, the Interior Ministry's traffic division said. Trucks also blocked the Junquera border crossing with France for a second day, allowing only cars to get through.

The ministry opened up three toll roads to try to ease access to Madrid.
The striking truckers -- many of whom are independent and self-employed -- are demanding minimum, guaranteed haulage rates to offset rising fuel prices and enable them to compete with large trucking companies.

The government was meeting for a second day of talks Tuesday with the truckers' representatives. But it has said that setting guaranteed rates would violate the principle of free market competition.
The strike is the most serious labor unrest that has faced Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero since he came to power in March 2004. Spanish fishermen also have been on strike since May 30 to protest rising fuel costs.
Spain is struggling with an economic slowdown after a decade-long boom in the real estate sector came to a halt.
Meanwhile, a similar truckers' protest was taking place in Hong Kong, with truck drivers in a go-slow strike to disrupt traffic and protest rising fuel costs.
About 300 marched to Hong Kong's government headquarters and demanded that fuel taxes be slashed, according to government-run broadcaster RTHK.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery was at $134.04 a barrel Tuesday in Singapore.

Spanish truck drivers began a blockade of their country’s border with France on Monday, lining up their rigs and slowing them to a crawl to protest the cost of diesel fuel. The strike blocked the highway in both directions in southwestern France. But the Spanish drivers were not the only ones feeling the price pinch. French drivers slowed traffic near Bordeaux to demand lower fuel prices, offering a foretaste of a national strike planned by French truckers next Monday. Portuguese drivers blocked roads, and in Liège, Belgium, thousands of labor union members demonstrated to protest the rising cost of living as a result of higher fuel costs.


Fuel prices have been far higher in Europe than in the United States for many years, largely as a result of fuel taxes. Taxes account for at least half the price that motorists pay and sometimes more than 70 percent.
But the sustained surge in oil prices has left many Europeans bewildered by the relentless increase in the cost of fuel. Depending on where and how it is bought, the price of diesel — widely used in private cars as well as by truckers, fishermen and farmers — can reach the equivalent of almost $9 per gallon.
Across Spain, about 70,000 truckers joined the strike Monday, according to Desirée Paseiro, a representative of a truckers’ association that is threatening to paralyze the country unless the government introduces measures to lower fuel bills.
The strike has alarmed many people, who already have begun lining up at gas stations and supermarkets for fear that supplies will be cut. Wholesale food markets like Mercamadrid stocked up on fish and meat over the weekend so their stalls would not be left bare.
On Monday morning, groups of slow-moving trucks blocked the major highways that surround Madrid in a so-called snail protest that snarled traffic. Some food distributors fear that their trucks will not be allowed to roll.
“We are the ones who move the merchandise that this country needs to function,” Julio Villascusa, a truckers’ representative, told the Cadena Ser radio station on the eve of the strike. “If we don’t have the money to keep buying fuel to offer this public service, well, then, this country comes to a halt.”
Spanish truckers say the price of diesel, which varies among European countries, was the equivalent of $7.73 per gallon, compared with $5.58 per gallon a year ago. At that price, they argue, it costs them more to buy fuel than they earn from trucking contracts.
Prices at the pump could continue to climb, according to Jeffrey Currie, the global chief of commodities research at Goldman Sachs. At an oil and gas conference in Malaysia on Monday, he said that oil prices were likely to hit $150 a barrel this summer, surpassing the record of $139.12 set last Friday, Reuters reported.
Spain has been particularly hard hit as soaring fuel prices coincide with the sharpest economic retreat in 15 years. The Spanish government has so far offered loans to the industry, composed principally of small businesses. Tens of thousands of truckers in Spain, France and Portugal on Monday stepped up protests against rising fuel prices, causing mayhem on highways and blocking border crossings. Huge tailbacks built up around major cities and on the French-Spanish border as French fishermen in Mediterranean ports ended their three-week strike over the spiralling cost of fuel.
Spain's second largest hauliers' union Fenadismer, which claims to represent 70,000 out of Spain's 380,000 truck drivers, launched an open-ended strike on Monday. It said it was "peaceful" but followed "massively".
Talks Monday between the hauliers and the government ended in failure, Fenadismer said.
"Fenadismer will maintain its national strike" as the government's proposals were "insufficient", it said.
Trucks jammed several main highways including at the frontier with France, according to traffic officials, who also reported massive snarls in Madrid and Valencia.
A Spanish truckers' group calling itself the Platform for the Defence of the Transport Sector, who say they speak for 50,000 truckers, walked off the job last week. They have threatened to disrupt the opening this weekend of the International Exposition in Zaragosa.
The conservative Spanish newspaper ABC said the aim of the strikers was to block oil supplies from refineries and stocks at retail markets this week.
Spanish media said the number of trucks at wholesale markets on Monday were considerably lower than usual.
French truckers struggling with high fuel costs staged fresh protests near the Spanish border and in the southwest.
Several trucks from the southern city of Perpignan disrupted traffic at border posts, preventing trucks from crossing and causing a tailback of some 10 kilometres (six miles) on both sides of the border. Private cars were allowed through.
Protestors branded banners which read: "Trucker = Unemployed," and "It's the end of our profession."
Some 200 trucks converged on the four main motorways leading into Bordeaux Monday morning, causing 30 kilometers (20 miles) of tailbacks in and around the city.
"We are demanding immediate measures" to counter the impact of high fuel prices, said Jean-Pierre Morlin, president of the European trucking organisation for the Aquitaine region.
Portugal's Transport Minister Mario Lino was to meet later Monday with representatives of road transport associations in a bid to end the strike by truckers who have threatened to "paralyze" the country.
According to police, trucks parked at petrol pumps were stoned overnight or while they were on the road after the strike started at midnight.
Many had their windscreens shattered.
The strikers also blocked entrances to several factories. According to industry figures, there are some 40,000 truckers in Portugal serving an estimated 5,000 firms.
However, French fishermen from Mediterranean ports on Monday ended a three-week strike ahead of a key meeting of European fisheries ministers.
"All of the fleets from the Mediterranean ports went back to work this morning, but we remain very vigilant," said Ange Natoli, a representative of the Mediterranean fishing fleets.
Fleets in the Channel ports of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais and Dunkirk last week called off their strike pending the talks.
Portuguese fishermen called off their five-day-old strike on Wednesday.
However, their counterparts in Spain, home to Europe's largest fishing fleet, maintained their "indefinite" stoppage launched May 30.
"Almost all the ports in Spain are on strike," said the head of the Spanish Fisheries Confederation, Javier Garat.
EU fisheries ministers meet on June 23-24 tackle the fuel crisis.
Marine diesel prices have leapt by around 30 percent since the start of 2008, triggering protests in European ports as well as warnings that fishing boat owners face bankruptcy without higher subsidies.