New Strike Paralyzes Greece#

ATHENS — Most international travel was halted and public services thrown into disarray on Thursday as thousands of Greek workers protesting austerity measures staged a general strike and joined demonstrations in the capital that turned violent.
Thursday’s strike was the latest and most disruptive in a series of protests that have unsettled Greece in recent weeks as the country grapples with a debt crisis that has fanned fears of spreading financial instability across the 16 countries that use the euro.

All scheduled flights into and out of the country were canceled, international trains were not operating, bus and subway service was suspended and ferries remained in their ports. Tax offices and courts shut down, and hospitals were operating with only emergency staff members. The streets were littered with mounds of trash as a strike at the city’s main landfill entered its sixth day.

The general strike was called by the country’s two main labor unions, which represent about 2.5 million workers and have led resistance to the new austerity measures that raise taxes and reduce civil servants’ vacation pay by 30 percent.

The measures, approved by Greek lawmakers on Friday, are expected to raise $6.5 billion and help plug a budget deficit that stands at 12.7 percent of the gross domestic product.

“They keep trying to make the workers pay the price for this crisis — that’s not fair and we won’t accept it,” Yiannis Panagopoulos, the leader of the country’s main labor union, said Thursday.

An estimated 20,000 demonstrators converged in central Athens, according to the police. Some chanted slogans taunting the European leaders who had pressed Greek authorities to push through unpopular measures. There were banners asking “How much longer will they make us pay?” and saying “We must become their crisis.” Tensions peaked in the early afternoon as dozens of self-styled anarchists, most wearing scarves or gas masks, squared off against riot police officers outside the main building of Athens University. The anarchists pelted the police with beer bottles, stones and chunks of paving stones torn up from sidewalks. The police responded with several rounds of tear gas, leaving a thick, acrid cloud of smoke that sent passers-by scurrying into side streets, eyes streaming.

At least two policemen were injured, and a bystander was hit in the face with a rock. The police said at least 10 people had been detained. Greece’s European Union partners and the global financial markets have welcomed the new measures, which follow an original austerity package in January worth $6.8 billion and are expected to help the government reduce its budget deficit to 8.7 percent this year and appease fears of a debt crisis in the euro zone.

But public support is crucial if the measures are to be carried out, and, despite the strikes and demonstrations, some Greeks say they accept the necessity of austerity.

Daphne Christodoulou, a 42-year-old schoolteacher making her way through the crowds in Athens, said: “We’re going to have to sit down and shut up at some point. There are some things that must change.”