April 2 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Greeks joined a
nationwide strike on Thursday to protest against low salaries
and job cuts, disrupting transport and shutting down services.
Here are details on some of the major protests:
* denotes an updated item
* BRITAIN -- British police clashed with up to 4,000
protesters outside the Bank of England in London's financial
centre on Wednesday during a day of demonstrations against the
G20 summit.
-- Trade unions, aid agencies, religious groups and
environmentalists joined together in London on March 28 under
the slogan "Put People First" to demand reform of the world's
economy. Up to 35,000 people took part in the march.
-- British workers protested at power plants in late January
against the use of foreign contractors on critical energy sites.
They voted to end strikes on Feb. 5 after French oil group Total
agreed to hire more British workers at its Lindsey oil refinery.
CZECH REPUBLIC -- Thousands of farmers from the Czech
Republic, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland
marched through Prague on March 12 to demand higher milk prices
and subsidies to boost incomes hit by the economic crisis.
* FRANCE -- On March 28 in Paris, a few hundred
demonstrators protested under the slogan "We will not pay for
their crisis".
-- Up to 3 million protesters took to the streets of France
on March 19 in a second round of strikes called to denounce
President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis.
-- On March 5, unions and authorities signed a deal to end a
six-week general strike over wages and prices that had paralysed
France's Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. A union leader was
killed, and shops were burned and looted in the protests.
-- Thousands of workers marched in France's Indian Ocean
territory of Reunion on March 5 and March 10 in a campaign of
strikes and protests to push for wage increases.
* GERMANY -- About 15,000 people marched through Berlin on
March 28 with black-clad protesters throwing rocks and bottles
at police. Police said several arrests were made. Up to 14,000
assembled in Germany's financial capital Frankfurt.
-- 15,000 Opel workers from Germany rallied on Feb. 26 at
the German headquarters of their struggling company, demanding
parent General Motors scrap plans for plant closures in Europe.
* GREECE -- Thousands of Greeks joined a nationwide strike
on Thursday to protest against low salaries and job cuts,
disrupting transport and shutting down services. The 24-hour
strike was called by public and private unions representing
about half of the country's 5 million workforce. Greek unions
have staged repeated protests against the government, saying its
measures to tackle the global crisis only burdened the poor.
-- The fatal police shooting of a 15-year old in December
sparked the country's worst riots in decades, fuelled by anger
at economic hardships and youth unemployment.
IRELAND -- Taxi drivers and airport workers protested on
March 20 over job prospects.
-- Nearly 100,000 people marched through Dublin on Feb. 21
to protest at government cutbacks.
POLAND -- Up to 10,000 workers, mostly from the arms
industry, demonstrated on March 6 against lay-offs after Poland
announced defence budget cuts. In Gdansk, 3,000 workers
protested against power producer Energa's job cut plans.
PORTUGAL - Thousands marched in Lisbon on March 13 against
the Socialist government, which unions say are increasing
unemployment and favouring the rich at a time of crisis.
RUSSIA -- About 1,000 demonstrators called for the
government to resign during a peaceful march in Vladivostok on
March 15. About 800,000 Russians had lost their jobs in December
and January, taking the total number of unemployed to more than
6 million, or 8.1 percent of the working population.
-- Sixteen steelworkers at ESTAR's Zlatoust steel mill
suspended a hunger strike over wages on March 14 after
management agreed to some demands, but threatened to resume the
rare show of dissent over spreading economic hardship.
(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
(for story on Greek strike, double-click on [])
