Global protests, riots mark May Day

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Demonstrators in the German capital of Berlin, where protests are traditionally held the night before May Day, torched trash bins and threw rocks and bottles at police in overnight clashes. Police said 48 officers were hurt and 57 people were detained. A Berlin rally on Friday also turned violent as leftists hurled bottles and burning objects at police, reported the Associated Press. A group of 400 protesters blocked a streetcar line by sitting on the tracks. Another 200 people were detained in the western German city of Dortmund.

Greek officers used flash grenades to disperse violent protesters in Athens after they carried out attacks on banks and traffic cameras. No arrests or injuries were reported, but strikes disrupted bus, train and ferry services as well as flights by Olympic Airlines.

French workers turned out in unusually large numbers for marches throughout the country, where fractious unions, angry at the conservative government's handling of the crisis, came together for the first time in decades to stage a Paris march. On the first May Day since the advent of the crisis, Russian police were out in force as Communists and liberals gathered to criticize the government. No violence was reported, but police said four leftists were detained after trying to light flares near the Kremlin. Dozens of nationalists and leftists were detained in St. Petersburg, Russian news agencies reported.

In Italy, union leaders shifted rallies from major cities to the earthquake-stricken town of L'Aquila as a sign of solidarity with the thousands who lost their jobs when businesses crumbled in last month's quake. In socialist Havana, hundreds of thousands of marchers waving Cuban and Communist Party flags, pictures of Fidel and Raul Castro and banners with socialist slogans marked May Day on the sprawling Plaza of the Revolution. Despite huge expectations, ailing Fidel Castro did not attend, but wrote in a column that the U.S. would like to see Cuba "return to the ranks of slaves."

In Tokyo, some 36,000 people rallied in Yoyogi Park to demand better welfare benefits, with others protesting military spending, according Agence France-Presse. There were also rallies in Seoul, Manila, the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and Taipei.