Riots erupt in Athens-3 bank workers killed

[SemiCharmedQuark]

ATHENS, Greece – Riots over harsh new austerity measures left three bank workers dead and engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday, as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings. Police responded with barrages of tear gas.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in a nationwide strike to protest new taxes and government spending cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund and other European nations before heavily indebted Greece gets a euro110 billion ($141 billion) loan package to keep it from defaulting.

The three bank workers — a man and two women — died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens. As their colleagues sobbed in the street, five other bank workers were rescued from the balcony of the burning building.

"A demonstration is one thing and murder is quite another!" Prime Minister George Papandreou thundered in Parliament during a session to discuss the spending cuts he announced Sunday — measures even the IMF has called draconian. Lawmakers held a minute of silence for the dead — the first deaths during a protest in Greece since 1991.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100505/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_greece_financial_crisis

[Brickbat]

1. Well, SHIT.

[Auggie]

2. "new taxes and government spending cuts demanded by the IMF..."

Didn't I see this before in Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine?