Nightclubs closed their doors Monday in four more regions of Spain as new measures to curb a rise in COVID-19 infections came into effect, a day after a noisy Madrid protest against virus restrictions.

Spain's most populous region, Andalusia, along with Galicia and Cantabria in the north and Castilla and Leon in the centre were the latest Spanish regions to begin enforcing 11 measures the government unveiled Friday to curb one of the fastest virus growth rates in Europe.

Two other regions, La Rioja and Murcia, began applying the measures on Sunday.

They include the closure of all discos, night clubs and dancing halls while restaurants and bars are required to close by one am, with no new guests allowed in from midnight in a country known for late-night partying.

All of Spain's 17 regional governments, which are responsible for healthcare, agreed to enforce the measures which also include a ban on smoking outdoors in public places when a distance of two metres cannot be maintained and limits on visits to retirement homes.

Chanting "freedom", between 2,500 and 3,000 people, according to a police estimate, rallied in Madrid on Sunday evening against the mandatory use of facemasks and other government-imposed virus restrictions.

Many protesters did not wear a mask in public even though it is required by law across Spain and did not respect social distancing rules.

"What happened will be punished with the greatest severity," the central government's representative in Madrid, Jose Manuel Franco, told Cadena Ser radio.

Meanwhile the northern Basque Region on Monday declared a "health emergency: which will allow it to impose tougher restrictions than its neighbours because of the risk of a "tsunami" of new infections.

Spain counts nearly 343,000 infections, the highest amount in Western Europe. In the past 14 days, it produced 115 new cases per 100,000 people, compared to 45 in neighbouring France, 19 in Britain and 16 in Germany.

But a large part of the new cases are in asymptomatic people and the lethality of the virus has decreased considerably -- out of the 28,617 virus deaths which Spain has recorded less than 300 have occurred since the end of a strict lockdown on June 21.

Brazil indigenous protesters demand help against virus
Novo Progresso, Brazil (AFP) Aug 17, 2020 - Brandishing bows and arrows, dozens of indigenous protesters blocked a main highway through the Brazilian Amazon Monday, demanding help against the new coronavirus and an end to illegal mining and deforestation.

Members of the Kayapo Mekranoti ethnic group set up a road block across highway BR-163, the main artery connecting Brazil's mid-western agricultural heartland to the river ports of the Amazon, AFP correspondents said.

The blockade caused a long line of semi-trucks hauling corn and soybeans to form outside the town of Novo Progresso, in the state of Para.

Wearing traditional feather headdresses and body paint, the protesters blocked the road with tires, wielding sticks, machetes and bows to discourage drivers from attempting to go around.

The coronavirus pandemic has hit especially hard among indigenous people in the region, who have a history of vulnerability to outside diseases.

In Brazil, 21,000 have been infected and 618 have died, according to the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples' Association (APIB), which accuses far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of turning a blind eye to the problem.

"This sickness is getting worse by the day," chief Beppronti Mekragnotire said at the roadblock, through an interpreter.

"That's why we are protesting, so that the government will look at indigenous people, not just here but across Brazil."

Brazil has the second-highest number of infections and deaths in the pandemic, after the United States: more than 3.3 million and 107,000, respectively.

The Kayapo Mekranoti live on two reservations, the Bau and Menkragnoti, that together span 6.5 million hectares (more than 25,000 square miles), an area larger than Croatia.

Of the 1,600 inhabitants in their 12 villages, around 400 have caught the virus and four have died, according to the rights group Kabu.

The virus is believed to have arrived in the region with illegal miners operating on the reservations.

The protesters demanded the government act to stop such encroachments by gold miners and deforestation in the Amazon, blamed mainly on illegal farming and ranching.

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