Unions Join Greek Unrest

Posted on Dec 10, 2008

telegraph.co.uk

You’re fired: The death of a teenager at the hands of police has heightened pressure for the ouster of the already crisis-ridden government.

In a move that further complicates the anti-government unrest rocking Greece for the past four days, the country’s two biggest trade unions have declared their intention to go ahead with a planned 24-hour strike, likely to paralyze the economy in protest against government policies and incompetent handling of the economic crisis.

Check out the Guardian’s coverage of the unrest in live, up-to-date blog-form.

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Deutsche Welle:

A long-planned general strike by Greece’s two largest unions could not come at a worse time for the country’s embattled conservative government as students continued to riot in the streets.

The outrage of young Greeks over the fatal weekend police shooting of a teenager continued on Wednesday, Dec. 10. Protestors threw firebombs at a line of 100 riot police in front of the Greek parliament building in Athens Wednesday morning, according to media reports.

Police officers beat their shields and shouted as demonstrators also tossed pavement slabs, tangerines, water bottles and a flare which landed on a police van, AFP news agency reported.

Controversy over the killing seems unlikely to end soon. Initial results of an autopsy done on the teenager whose killing sparked the violence show that the teenager, Alexis Grigoropoulos, died from a bullet ricochet, a court source said Wednesday.

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