Hundreds of Indonesian students rallied in country’s capital on Thursday to protest sharp increases in fuel prices by the government.

The protesters, from several student organizations, gathered at Jakarta’s National Monument, which commemorates Indonesia’s struggle for independence. “We reject the fuel price hikes,” one of their banners read.

The government increased fuel prices by about 30% on Saturday after reducing some of the costly subsidies that have helped control inflation in the country. The hike — the first in eight years — raised the price of gasoline from 51 cents to 67 cents per liter and diesel fuel from 35 cents to 46 cents.

Protests have been held in several large cities since Monday by students, workers, farmers, fishermen and teachers.

Workers are planning more rallies and considering a national strike unless the increase is rescinded, the president of the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions, Said Iqbal, said Tuesday.

President Joko Widodo said the government was forced to raise fuel prices because the country’s energy subsidies had tripled this year to 502 trillion rupiah ($34 billion) as a result of rising global prices of oil and gas.

The government has subsidized fuel for decades in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people.

Higher fuel prices are a politically sensitive issue that could trigger broader price hikes. In 1998, an increase in fuel prices sparked riots that helped topple longtime dictator Suharto.

Australia’s Parliament on Thursday enshrined in law the government’s elevated target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

The Senate passed legislation supporting the target in a vote of 37 to 30 even though several senators who supported it wanted a more ambitious 2030 target.

The center-left Labor Party government officially committed Australia to the 43% target after it came to power for the first time in nine years at May elections. But entrenching it in law has made it more difficult for any future government to reduce the target.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the Senate vote provided certainty to clean energy investors while strengthening transparency and accountability in Australia’s carbon reduction processes.

“The message to investors is that Australia is open for business,” Bowen told Parliament.

The conservative opposition party voted against the bill. The opposition has advocated since 2015 a target of reducing emissions by between 26% and 28%.

Independent senator David Pocock insisted on several amendments touching on transparency and accountability before he supported the bill.

These were soon passed by the House of Representatives, where the government holds a majority. The government holds only 26 of the 76 Senate seats.

Greens party senators supported the 43% ambition although their proposed amendments to increase the target to at least 75% and ban future Australian coal and gas projects were defeated.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss said Thursday that her government will cap domestic energy prices for homes and businesses to ease a cost-of-living crisis that has left people and businesses across the U.K. facing a bleak winter.

Truss also said she will approve more North Sea oil drilling and lift a ban on fracking in a bid to increase the U.K.’s domestic energy supply.

Fracking is a proven drilling technology used for extracting oil, natural gas, geothermal energy, or water from deep underground.

Truss told lawmakers in Parliament that the two-year “energy price guarantee” means average household bills will be no more than 2,500 pounds ($2,872) a year for heating and electricity.

Bills had been due to rise to 3,500 pounds ($4,000) pounds a year from October, triple the cost of a year ago. Bills are skyrocketing because of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the economic aftershocks of COVID-19 and Brexit.

“We are supporting this country through this winter and next and tackling the root causes of high prices so we are never in the same position again,” Truss told lawmakers.

Business and public institutions like hospitals and schools will also get support, but for six months rather than two years.

The government says the cap will cut the U.K.’s soaring inflation rate by 4 to 5 percentage points. Inflation hit 10.1% in July and has been forecast to rise to 13% before the end of the year.

The European Central Bank is set to join the U.S. Federal Reserve in making a jumbo interest rate hike Thursday as it tries to stamp out record inflation.

The meeting of the bank’s governing council is not about whether to raise rates for the 19 countries that use the euro currency, but by how much: between half a percentage point or three-quarters of a point, analysts say. The bank made its first increase in 11 years at its last meeting in July, raising rates by a half-point when it usually changes by only a quarter-point.

The ECB, which once predicted no rate increases at all this year, has torn up its road map in the face of record inflation of 9.1% last month, which has been driven by skyrocketing prices for natural gas and lasted much longer than expected. Inflation is far above the bank’s goal of 2% considered healthiest for the economy.

The central bank’s rationale for an increase of three-quarters of a point would be that “failing to act today would lead to larger moves and higher costs in the future,” said Frederik Ducrozet, head of macroeconomic research at Pictet Wealth Management.

The price of natural gas — used to generate electricity, heat homes and run factories — has jumped more than tenfold as Russia has throttled back deliveries as tensions mount over the war in Ukraine. European politicians call it blackmail over their support for Kyiv.

The resulting inflation is making everything from groceries to utility bills more expensive, creating a cost-of-living crisis that will only worsen as many economists predict the eurozone sinking into recession at the end of this year and into 2023.