More than 30,000 people have joined demonstrations in Athens as workersd held a nationwide strike to show their anger over the country’s deepening financial crisis.

Street clashes erupted on the sidelines of the protest in the capital, with masked youths smashing shop fronts and knocking police off motorbikes.

More from the Wall Street Journal:

Violence broke out between police and protesters in central Athens on Thursday as an estimated 30,000 people gathered to demonstrate against the government’s austerity program as part of a nationwide general strike.

Riot police fired tear gas after clashing with several hundred anarchists, who responded by throwing projectiles. Hooded youths representing Greece’s anarchist movement also attacked shop fronts, smashed the windows of one hotel and set alight a car just off one of the city’s main streets. Black smoke from the burning car billowed over the student district of Athens, the site of frequent violent protests.

Greece’s two umbrella unions, the private-sector GSEE and the public-sector ADEDY, called the strike to protest the €4.8 billion ($6.55 billion) package of spending cuts and tax increases that the government announced March 3, and which was voted into law March 5. The communist-backed PAME union held a separate protest with more than 5,000 people.

The strike has affected public transport, government ministries and state-owned companies, while all flights into and out of the country have been grounded, and all ferry and rail services have been suspended.

On the streets of Athens, normal workday activity was muted. Strike posters hung on street lights and road signs announced a protest rally. Morning news shows on local television were replaced with alternative programming.

“No to unjust and antisocial measures,” said ADEDY on its Web site. “The current policies are bankrupting the lives of salaried workers and pensioners.”

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Icelanders vote in a referendum on Saturday on a $5 billion deal to repay Anglo-Dutch loans, with an expected resounding “No” set to further delay foreign aid and hopes for economic recovery. Despite the consequences of rejecting the standing deal, Icelanders are angry about what they see as harsh repayment terms from Britain and the Netherlands and they are now certain they can get a much better deal. The referendum looks like a one-way bet with no political parties backing the deal agreed in late 2009, not even Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir who brokered the agreement.

Sigurdardottir has vowed to stay on after the near certain referendum defeat and said that a quick solution to the Icesave saga was “a matter of life or death for the Icelandic economy.”

“The bill is literally an ‘orphaned’ law since there is nobody fighting for it,” she told reporters on Friday, adding that “it is quite clear it will be rejected.”

Britain and the Netherlands have offered easier terms, so there is no reason for voters to back the old deal.

“It’s of utmost importance that we don’t over-interpret whatever message comes out of this. We want to be perfectly clear that a ‘No’ vote does not mean we are refusing to pay,” Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson told reporters.

“We will honor our obligations. To maintain anything else is highly dangerous for the economy of this country.”

Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphethinsson told Reuters that he expected a new Icesave deal “in the next weeks, perhaps sooner. The economy minister said a several month delay would shave 2-3 points off GDP in 2010.

Venting Anger
The ballot gives Icelanders, who have lost 30 percent of their disposable income since 2007, an opportunity to vent anger at the bankers and politicians in Reykjavik who they blame for the island’s meltdown.
In the referendum, Iceland’s 230,000 voters will be asked whether to approve a deal on paying money back to Britain and the Netherlands, after they compensated savers in their countries who had lost money in Icesave accounts.

Sigurdardottir said Britain and the Netherlands were holding Iceland “hostage” by linking the Icesave issue to Reykjavik receiving the next tranche of aid from the International Monetary Fund. With the cash in its coffers, Iceland would be able to open its borders to capital flows that feed investments.

The Icesave debt amounts to more than $15,000 for every one of Iceland’s 320,000 people, though most of the money is likely to be raised eventually by the sale of assets of Landsbanki, which operated Icesave accounts before folding late in 2008.

The Icesave row with the two European Union countries has also rekindled anti-EU sentiment at a time when Brussels has invited Reykjavik to begin accession negotiations.

Support for membership has been falling in past months and is now opposed by more than half of Icelanders, nearly twice the level seen just after the 2008 collapse.

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Striking Greek workers shut down transport and tried to storm parliament as lawmakers passed 4.8 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in budget cuts, including wage reductions, needed to trim the regions biggest budget deficit.

More from Reuters:

Greek police clashed in front of parliament with stone-throwing youths protesting against austerity measures on Friday but lawmakers still passed the bill in an emergency vote.

Police fired teargas to disperse dozens of demonstrators who hurled stones, burnt garbage containers and scuffled with other protestors. Strikes also shut schools and brought public transport in Athens to a halt.

Police pushed back protesters from the parliament’s steps, just before lawmakers passed much of a 4.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) package including cuts on public servants’ bonuses and a 2 percentage hike of VAT.

About 12,000 demonstrators took to the streets according to police estimates, most of them peacefully. Shouting “never, never, never,” they protested the austerity measures meant to tackle Greece’s huge fiscal deficit and 300 billion euro ($408 billion) debt pile.

“We are fighting the austerity measures, the cuts in salaries and the new taxes,” said 21-year old student Christina Vasilopoulou, marching to parliament. “With these measures only a small percentage of the debt will be cut and the poor will suffer more.”

The only buses on the streets of Athens on Friday belonged to the riot police. At the airport more than 60 flights were cancelled as unions called impromptu work stoppages.

An opinion poll showed strong opposition to some measures such as higher VAT and a freeze on public pensions but support for moves to raise tax on alcohol, cigarettes and luxury goods.

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Thousands of migrant workers in Italy have gone on strike against alleged government mistreatment.

They say they work just as hard as native Italians and pay their taxes, but are not given equal rights and benefits. Some of them complain that at times they don’t even get paid at all for their work. The full story in the New York Times:

In an effort to heighten awareness about the contributions made by foreign workers to the Italian economy, the promoters of the first strike by immigrants in the country invited workers to stay home and to boycott shopping for one day.

Similar protests took place in other European countries on Monday (the initiative started in France and found supporters in Spain and Greece, as well). A comparable boycott, “A Day Without Immigrants,” championing full rights for immigrants living in the United States, took place in 2006.

But demonstrations Monday had a particular resonance in Italy, where anti-immigrant rhetoric has increased recently in anticipation of regional elections at the end of the month, and where foreign labor makes up nearly 10 percent of the work force.

While introducing one electoral initiative last week, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi accused the left of “wanting an invasion of immigrants,” only to strengthen the opposition’s electoral basis.

Around Milan, electoral posters for the anti-immigrant Northern League party depicted a Native American Indian chieftain with the slogan: “They put up with immigration, now they live on reserves.”

But various studies suggest that immigrant labor has become a fundamental component of the Italian economy.

“Many Italians are convinced that immigrants are a burden, but in fact they have a very positive effect on our welfare system,” said Maurizio Ambrosini, a professor of the sociology of migration at the University of Milan, pointing out that Italian families have become increasingly dependant on foreign caregivers to look after their children and elderly parents. The construction industry, too, is heavily dependant on foreigners, particularly from East European countries, he added. “If anything, Italy constantly needs new waves of immigrants,” he said.

Statistics published last autumn by the Catholic Caritas Migrants foundation suggested that the 4.5 million legal immigrants in Italy (about 7.2 percent of the population) contribute about 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, often in jobs snubbed by Italians.

In its most recent annual report, issued last May, the Bank of Italy estimated that in 2006 foreigners “contributed about 4 percent to revenue from personal income tax, V.A.T. and excise duties, social security contributions, and the regional tax on productive activities.” More specifically, foreign residents contributed “around €4.5 billion in personal income tax and just under €10 billion in social security contributions, equivalent to 3 and 5 percent respectively of revenue from these two items,” according to the bank’s report, which also found that “the increase in the supply of labor resulting from immigration does not seem, on average, to have had negative effects on the wages or job prospects of the native population.”

“Immigrants come here to work, they’re funding our pensions, it makes sense to integrate them,” said Ciro Piscelli, a left-leaning municipal councilman for the town of Rozzano, in the Milanese hinterland. He was one of several hundred people who met in front of Milan City Hall on Monday morning in support of the strike. Like many other southern Italians, Mr. Piscelli emigrated to Lombardy from his native Naples in the 1970s, so he said he “spoke from experience.” Immigrants, he said, “are a resource.”

But such considerations seem to take a back seat whenever trouble involving immigrants arises. Calls to toughen up immigration policies multiplied last month, after rioting between immigrant groups disrupted a Milanese neighborhood last month.

And studies suggest that racist sentiments are rising in Italy, especially among the young. Research commissioned by the national and regional governments and presented to the lower house last month found that nearly half of Italians between the ages 18 and 29 express varying degrees of xenophobic or racist sentiments. “Young people themselves say that they perceive racism as increasing,” said Enzo Risso, the director of the SWG research institute that carried out the survey.

Jorge Carazas, one of the speakers at the rally Monday, came to Italy from Argentina 10 years ago. “We are the country’s new citizens and we want to send politicians a clear message,” he said. “No matter what racist tones the government chooses to adopt, we’re not going anywhere. This is our home.”

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Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats today responded to questions posted to Facebook (Facebook.com/nickclegg) and Twitter (@Nick_Clegg) in his latest online Q & A session with voters.

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A wave of unrest is building across Europe, as governments there seek to impose austerity measures. Several European countries — Greece, Spain and Ireland — are deeply in debt and under intense pressure to slash spending. For more, Martin Savidge interviews John Authers of the Financial Times.

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Dubai’s police chief says he’s almost certain Israel was involved in last month’s assassination of a senior Hamas official.

Dahi Khalfan Tamim says if proven then an arrest warrant should be issued for Israel’s top spy, the man who’s in charge of Mossad.

Robert Fisk is the Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper the Independent. He says, if Israel is behind the assassination, then Tel Aviv could find itself in a diplomatic crisis with some of its European allies.

More on the growing row between London and Tel Aviv from the UK Guardian:

Britain today declared its “outrage” at the use of forged British passports by a hit squad that killed a Hamas official in Dubai, and dispatched police investigators to the Gulf emirate to collect evidence.

The officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) arrived in the United Arab Emirates as the investigation focused increasingly on Israel. The Dubai police chief declared that he was “99%, if not 100% certain” of Mossad’s involvement, and called on Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli spy chief, Meir Dagan. While SOCA is concentrating specifically on the misuse of British passports, it is understood that MI6 is conducting a broader, parallel probe into Israeli involvement.

Britain, Ireland and France stepped up diplomatic pressure on Israel, demanding explanations on the use of forged European passports by the assassins who targeted Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on 19 January.

However, the initial response from the Israeli envoys in London and Dublin was that they had nothing to say about the affair, bringing closer the prospect of a high-level diplomatic row. The Israeli embassy made no comment on its meeting at the French foreign ministry, which “expressed its deep concern about the malicious and fraudulent use of these French administrative documents.”

The US also looked likely to be drawn into the affair for the first time, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Mabhouh’s assassins had used American-registered credit cards to buy plane tickets.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, said the Israeli ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, had been asked to shed light on how the identities of six British citizens living in Israel had been stolen and used by the assassins. The foreign secretary said any tampering with British passports was “an outrage”. Miliband said: “We wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share what it knows about this incident and we hope and expect that they will cooperate fully with the investigation.”

Prosor, however, said he was “unable to add information” on the matter, and his counterpart in Dublin, Zion Evrony, delivered a similar response to a top Irish diplomat. “I told him I don’t know anything about the event – beyond that it is not customary to share the content of diplomatic meetings,” Evrony said.

Ireland’s foreign minister Michael Martin revealed that a further two Irish passports were used in the assassination, bringing the total number of Irish travel documents involved to five as speculation grew that the size of the hit squad was bigger than the 11 originally reported.

British diplomats in Israel have been meeting the six British nationals caught up in the assassination plot when their identities were used by the hit team. Foreign office officials said that none of the six had reported their passports stolen so the documents used by the killers appeared to be sophisticated clones. SOCA said the numbers on the fake passports were the same as the genuine ones. It confirmed the photographs and signatures on the passports used in Dubai do not match those on passports issued by British authorities.

Miliband is to meet in Brussels on Monday with his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, who has insisted there is no proof of Israeli involvement, and stressed that his government employed a “policy of ambiguity” on intelligence matters.

In Dubai, however, the emirate’s police chief, Dahi Khalfan Tamim, called on local television for Interpol to issue “a red notice against the head of Mossad … as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now.”

British officials said last night it was too early to speculate on what measures Britain might take against Israel if the government remained uncooperative.

One possible consequence could be Britain’s response to an Israeli request to change its ‘universal jurisdiction’ law on war crimes, under which a London magistrates court issued an arrest warrant in December for Israel’s former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, for her role in the Gaza offensive a year earlier.

Livni cancelled her planned visit to London as a result, leading Miliband to promise the law would be changed. “Israel is a strategic partner and a close friend of the UK. We are determined to protect and develop these ties,” Miliband said.

However, there have been growing calls for the relationship to be reassessed if Israel is proved to have been involved in the forging of British passports in the Mabhouh assassination. Sir Richard Dalton, Britain’s ambassador to Iran from 2003 to 2006 said: “All this just says how pathetic and ludicrous the claim is that Israel is Britain’s strategic partner.”

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, said Israel must provide assurances it would ban Mossad from using UK travel papers. He also called on the government to make clear when it knew about the use of falsified British passports.

The Dubai authorities said they had asked Britain for assistance at the end of January, but the foreign office insists it was only informed of the British connection hours before it was made public.

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In this week’s roundtable discussion, the panel focuses on Europe’s economic challenges, including the debt crisis in Greece that has many Europeans worried. They also focus on Iran and what the regime is trying to achieve by moving to a higher level of uranium enrichment. Carla Robbins and Garrick Utley join Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss these issues.

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Thousands of civil servants have marched through Athens, the Greek capital, as they went on a 24-hour strike in protest against the government’s plans to freeze wages, gather more taxes and reform pensions.

The action left flights grounded and many schools and government offices closed, while public hospitals were expected to only take emergency cases.

More from the New York Times:

Striking civil servants brought public services to a halt across Greece on Wednesday, in a largely peaceful one-day protest against the tough austerity measures that officials have said are necessary to stave off a mounting financial crisis.

Greece has been under intense pressure from other members of the European Union to cut its huge budget deficit and is in danger of failing to refinance some $28 billion in debt coming due in April and May. Fears of default in Greece and other struggling European countries have stirred up financial markets around the world in recent weeks.

But the government’s proposals for deep spending cuts to rein in the deficit have met significant resistance.

“We won’t pay for their crisis!” voices amplified by loudspeakers blared from Klafthmonos Square. “Not one euro to be sacrificed to the bankers!”

In Greece, commentators said the economic problems had exposed a general ignorance about the harsh realities of the global economy, while laying bare the strong sense of entitlement in a country where one out of three people is employed in a civil service that guarantees jobs for life.

But relatively modest public demonstrations Wednesday — one in the square and another nearby — were tinged with a sense of resignation.

Indeed, even many of those protesting said they realized that they needed to make sacrifices, or risk falling over what Prime Minister George Papandreou, a Socialist, called the “edge of the cliff” last week. Others expressed hope that the European Union would rescue their democracy.

“We feel humiliated and we understand that things cannot remain the same as they were before,” said Vasiliki Revithi, 56, a biochemist at the National Organization for Medicines, noting that a monthly reduction of about $950 to her salary would mean no new car and cheaper makeup. “But we gave the world democracy, and we expect the European Union to support us.”

The crisis in Greece is a credibility test for the euro zone, the 16-nation bloc where a one-size-fits-all monetary policy has underlined the challenges of managing disparate economies during an economic downturn. Last week, the anxieties spread to Portugal and Spain, where investors increasingly fear that bloated budgets will not be slimmed.

The government has announced $2.75 billion in public spending cuts. It also aims to raise $6.87 billion more from new taxes and measures aimed at fighting tax evasion, which analysts said deprived the federal budget of $44.2 billion last year. It has frozen salaries, said it would increase the average retirement age among men and women by two years to 63 by 2015 and introduced a higher gasoline tax.

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Political leaders, NGOs and scientific elites from the nine Baltic countries are meeting in Helsinki to take part in a Baltic Sea Action Summit on cleaning up one of the world’s most polluted and poisonous seas.

The sea was used to dump thousands of World War Two planes, chemical weapons, agricultural runoff, untreated waste and even dead bodies.

The World Water Forum says all the Baltic states “are sinners” for dumping over the years tons of sewage and agricultural waste into the sea. As a result, large areas of the body of water are suffering from eutrophication or lack of oxygen.

The Baltic is considered one of the most polluted waterways in the world. The Baltic Sea Action Summit brought together the nine nations who share the coastline, and was chaired by the Finnish President Tarja Halonen.

She said: “Today some of the richest and most environmentally-conscious countries on earth live on the shore of one of the world’s most polluted seas. What a tragedy. It is clear that something has to be done and quickly.”

The Lithuanian President, Dalia Grybauskaite, agreed: “Today we are also facing a historic international challenge, which I would like to point to as as the issue of chemical and conventional weapons dumped into the Baltic Sea.”

Almost enclosed, very shallow, and fed by numerous rivers, the Baltic is a vulnerable sea.

Ninety million people live around its shores, many of them depending on the sea in some way or other for their livelihoods, but waste from industry, agriculture and daily life ends up in the sea.

One of the biggest resulting dangers is too much algae. Excess growth of it robs the water of oxygen suffocating other species.

Juuka Jormola, a scientist from the Finnish Environment Institute, said: “It is caused by nutrients, too many nutrients in the water, like nitrogen and phosphorus. And some of these algae are poisonous and dangerous for children who want to swim, and these algae also appear in other lakes and also in the Baltic Sea.”

In St Petersburg, a huge new water treatment station was inaugurated in 2005 – thanks in part to a 10 million euro contribution from Finland.

It is a start towards achieving the Helsinki Commission’s aim of restoring the Baltic’s “good ecological status” by 2012.

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