Greeks protest austerity cuts at May Day rally

Greek protesters clashed with police who fired tear gas during the annual May Day rally on Saturday in Athens, where thousands of people gathering for the event seethed over government belt-tightening plans to deal with the country's debt problems.


Waving red flags, the crowd at times surged toward the line of police, who wore helmets and carried riot shields. The police pushed them back each time.


Protesters threw objects toward police, and scattered fires were burning on the streets. A van belonging to state broadcaster ERT was set on fire, and 19 people were taken in for questioning, a spokesman for the Greek national police told.

About 12,000 people were protesting in Athens, and rallies were also taking place in the northern city of Thessaloniki, the spokesman said. Protesters there smashed two ATMs, the glass frontage of a bank, and a car, but no one was arrested or being questioned, the spokesman said.

The annual May Day rally has taken on an angry tone this year as the Greek government prepares to enact austerity measures to cap its large deficit and massive debt.

The package of measures was expected to be revealed Sunday. It is likely to include cuts in civil servants' salaries, pay freezes, reductions in pension payments, changes to tax rates, and increases in the value-added tax consumers pay on purchases, Ilias Iliopoulos, the general secretary of the public sector union ADEDY said Thursday.

The International Monetary Fund and the European Union are discussing a bailout for Greece, whose economic problems threaten the stability of the common European currency, the euro.

The amount of the aid package being negotiated was not clear, but the IMF and EU are likely to demand the austerity measures as a price for a bailout.

Greece's national debt of 300 billion euros ($394 billion) is bigger than the country's economy, and some estimates predict it will reach 120 percent of gross domestic product in 2010.

Standard & Poor's this week downgraded Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk status, making Greece the first European country to fall below investment grade.

The downgrade makes it harder and more expensive for Greece to borrow money to pay back its debts. That makes the prospect of a bailout more crucial for Athens.

Also this week, Moody's Investors Service downgraded nine Greek banks, including the National Bank of Greece, citing their weakened financial strength and the country's "challenged" economic prospects.

Landslide buries cars, cuts highway in Taiwan

TAIPEI, Taiwan - An certified says rescuers are searching over travelers juice three cars swamped by a massive landslide when a hillside collapsed in northern Taiwan.

Firefighter Tang Cheng-yu says the Sunday landslide buried a makin's of a three-lane highway in rubble about the size of two soccer stadiums.


A motorist capital reported the act in Keelung. He verbal he made a sharp turn to narrowly avoid the massive mud cascading down significance splendor of his car.

Tang says hundreds of workers are digging around the flash with bulldozers Monday but posit yet to locate the cars.

He says the landslide followed days of rain. scoop reports say four kin are believed to have been buried command the cars.

Universities warn of education funding cuts crisis

Thousands of job losses could push higher education into crisis, the university lecturers' union has warned.

Last week the government announced it wanted to cut higher education funding in England by £449m.

Universities UK, which represents university leaders, wants assurances there will not be more cuts next year.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said he could not give specific undertakings but said the government would not risk Labor's record on higher education.

'Crisis situation'

The University and College Union (UCU) said 6,000 university jobs were already at risk across the UK and 9,000 more could go in England alone.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: "People who are paying for their education are finding now that there are less tutors available to make sure that they get the education they need and deserve.

"More pressure on the system, larger class sizes, less choice available for students now and in the future - we're in a real crisis situation.

"It's not something that's happening in the future, it's now and it will get worse."

'Colossal investment'

Lord Mandelson said the universities were exaggerating the problem and they had nothing to fear from Labor.

He said: "Never have you seen a decade in which more has been spent, more has been invested, there are more student places offered, there are more teachers and lecturers recruited than in the last 10 years in this country.

"We are not prepared now to reverse that record and undo the colossal investment that we have made and the excellence in our universities that we have built up."

The Conservatives want to increase student numbers but agree higher education is not immune to cuts.

Universities fear there could be more cuts to come whoever is in power after the general election.