In Athens, groups of black-clad anarchists in hoods and motorcycle helmets smashed three shop and hotel windows and set up barricades of burning trash bins. Around 17,000 people took part in the march, according to police estimates.
Leftist and anarchist demonstrators heckled and threw plastic water bottles at former parliamentary speaker Apostolos Kaklamanis, a governing Socialist lawmaker, after spotting him among pedestrians on the sidelines of the Athens march.
Kaklamanis, 73, was hit and kicked but suffered no major injuries and was eventually whisked away by police.
Tens of thousands of workers marched in cities from Hong Kong to Istanbul to mark international worker’s day, demanding more jobs, better work conditions, and higher wages.
May Day rallies in two North Caucasian republics turned violent as separatist militants attacked the gatherings. One man was killed and 30 people were injured when a bomb went off in Nalchik, the capital of the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Ten minutes earlier, an armed man was killed trying to enter a gathering in the city of Nazran, in neighboring Ingushetia.
Greece’s center-left government is set to announce more sweeping spending cuts through 2012 to win support for an international loan package worth $60 billion this year alone.
The Cabinet will meet today to approve the measures, with Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou expected to announce them and then fly to Brussels for an emergency meeting of euro-zone finance ministers.
The International Monetary Fund has said it will provide the money over three years, along with Greece’s partners in the euro zone. IMF and EU negotiators began talks in Athens on April 21 and continued yesterday at an Economy ministry building away from the protesters.
TV channel Mega said the Greek delegation, led by Papaconstantinou, Economy Minister Louka Katseli, and Defense Minister Evangelos Venizelos, had agreed on the essential measures and was still negotiating over the text of the law that will be submitted to Parliament as an emergency measure immediately after today’s Cabinet meeting.
