24 Hour Strike

Workers on state-owned ferries followed up rail and airline strikes with their own 24-hour walkout on Tuesday. Staff members of the Tirrenia ferry line, which links Italian ports with Sardinia, Sicily and smaller islands, said they struck to support demands for higher wages. A strike by Alitalia workers grounded nearly half the national airline's scheduled flights on Monday, and other flights in and out of Rome were disrupted by a three-hour stoppage by air traffic controllers.

Thousands of tourists were stranded here Saturday by a 24-hour strike by Barcelona air traffic controllers, airport sources said. The strike affected one-third of Spanish airspace, including all of the country's eastern Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands, which include Majorca and Minorca. The Barcelona controllers also are responsible for flights leaving French airspace to overfly the Mediterranean.

If you are heading to Britain this week, be patient. Travelers entering the country are being warned to expect delays Wednesday night and Thursday at airports, international train stations and ports because of a planned 24-hour strike by passport control workers, according to a UK Border Agency statement. The statement said the start of the strike and its impact will vary by location. Here's the 411: -- Gatwick and Heathrow airports in London said in Twitter updates that only arriving passengers may be affected; those departing the country don't go through passport control.

A general strike, billed as a crucial step in a design to convince the world of Panamanians' determination to rid their country of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, fizzled out Wednesday. Despite claims by strike organizers that business "was 80% below normal," traffic was near normal, most stores, banks and businesses were open and citizens largely ignored a call to appear on the streets at noon to show their displeasure with Noriega and their support for the opposition. With the exception of fast-food restaurants, nearly all businesses were operating, and in the downtown section where much of the working-class and lower-middle-class shops, sidewalks were clogged with people buying goods.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers, police workers, immigration officers and other government employees walked off the job Thursday across Britain in a mass strike that could augur a summer of industrial action over deep cuts in public spending. The picket lines went up to protest proposed changes to state-sponsored pension plans, which would require public-sector workers to increase their contributions, retire later and collect less than they do now. The government says overhauling the system is imperative in light of the country's huge budget deficit and Britons' longer lifespans.

The Israeli government Monday declared a three-month state of economic emergency, and the country's giant Histadrut trade union federation responded by ordering a 24-hour general strike to protest stringent austerity measures imposed under the plan. The nationwide strike, scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. local time today, threatens to paralyze the country.

In a bad omen for a peak vacation season just getting started, Lufthansa pilots staged a 24-hour strike Thursday that left 65,000 passengers on the ground and cost Europe's second-largest airline at least $23 million. The second walkout in a week by the union representing the German national carrier's 4,200 pilots ratcheted up the animosity level on both sides.

About 100,000 Greek teachers began a 24-hour strike Tuesday to demand increased salaries and more spending on education.

Italy had virtually no newspapers and no radio or television newscasts Saturday because of a nationwide 24-hour strike by journalists demanding wage increases in contracts due for renewal.