Violence in Athens after Greek austerity vote

Athens, Greece (News Today) - Violence broke out briefly between police and demonstrators here Thursday night, hours after Greek lawmakers approved an unpopular package of budget-cutting measures.

Thousands of demonstrators had gathered in front of Parliament to show their anger, and as dusk fell bottles were thrown at police, who responded with tear gas and pepper spray, said CNN's Diana Magnay, who was at the scene.

The government is cutting public-sector salaries, raising the retirement age for women in the public sector and imposing new taxes in order to secure billions of euros in loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Crowds dispersed quickly, Magnay said.

Four people were arrested, police said.

Demonstrations Thursday were smaller and generally more peaceful than a day earlier, when general strikes turned violent and three people were killed when a bank was fire bombed.

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Two unions had called on workers to meet Thursday evening in front of Parliament to protest the measures, which include higher taxes on cigarettes, fuel, gambling and luxuries, and an increase in the value-added tax consumers pay on purchases.

Athens police say about 8,000 protesters were outside the Parliament building while the voting was taking place and another 10,000 were at Omonia Square, including members of the militant left-wing PAME union, who planned to walk toward Parliament later.

It is not clear who started the violence. Shortly before it began police said the PAME supporters had dispersed peacefully.

Greek lawmakers voted 172 to 121 to approve the controversial package of cost-cutting measures, despite the protests, the prime minister's office announced.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted as the protests broke out, falling nearly 1,000 points and dropping below 10,000 before climbing back up and ending slightly above 10,500. Shortly after the close, the Nasdaq said faulty Procter & Gamble stock quotes were a major factor in markets' huge drop.

The European Union announced a 110 billion euro ($140 billion) aid package for Greece earlier this week.

Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announced the tough cost-cutting measures to meet European Union and International Monetary Fund conditions for the deal.

Prime Minister George Papandreou said Wednesday night that no amount of unrest on the streets would change his support of the budget cuts, and he has already said he is prepared to risk not getting a second term in office because he feels the package is so important for Greece's future.

"We are all to blame for where we are today -- even those not in government who at every stage have blocked every attempt at change," Papandreou told Parliament.

"Other countries are voting to save Greece," Papandreou said in comments directed at the opposition. "What do we say to them? Can we not unite?"

Thursday at the burned bank, people placed flowers at a memorial for the victims killed in Wednesday's violence.

Greek government debt threatens to undermine the stability of the euro, the currency used by 16 countries in the European Union, including Greece.

International ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Greek debt to "junk" recently, making it harder and more expensive for Athens to borrow money commercially. That's when the European Union and International Monetary Fund decided to intervene.

What are the protests about?

Leaders of the countries that use the euro were planning to meet Friday evening in Brussels, Belgium, to finalize the bailout and discuss the effect it's having on the eurozone.

"This crisis has demonstrated that all euro-area member states have a responsibility for the stability of the euro area as a whole and the strength of the single currency," French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a joint letter Thursday to the presidents of the European Council, which is hosting the summit, and the European Commission.

Sarkozy and Merkel urged country leaders at the summit to consider tougher fiscal surveillance and more effective sanctions for eurozone members.

They also pushed for better-quality statistics, saying, "The lack of reliability of the Greek statistics explains to a large extent the markets' distrust in this country."

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Britain faces potentially historic vote

London, England (News Today) - British voters go to the polls Thursday to determine the fate of Gordon Brown's Labour government, which has run the United Kingdom for the past 13 years.

The casting of ballots across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland caps a hectic month-long election campaign marked by first-ever televised debates between the leaders of the three main parties: Brown, David Cameron of the Conservative Party, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats.

Brown has stood at the center of British government since Labour ended 18 years of Conservative rule in 1997 -- as the powerful chancellor, or finance minister, under Tony Blair for a decade, and then as prime minister since 2007.

He's also the man who made the only gaffe that got any attention during the campaign. Not realizing he was still wearing a live microphone in his car as he was driven away from meeting a retired widow in northern England, he said the conversation was a "disaster."

"Should never have put me with that woman -- whose idea was that?" he said to an unidentified aide. "She was just a sort of bigoted woman."

Brown apologized repeatedly for the remark made eight days before the election, first on a live radio show shortly after he said it, and later at the home of the woman, Gillian Duffy.

British law prevents the media from reporting how the parties have fared in opinion polls during the campaign or from detailing the parties' positions on the issues. But online media are not required to remove such reporting from their archives.

The law restricts reporting on polling day to uncontroversial details such as where and when party leaders voted, and what the weather was when they did.

Polling stations are open from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. local time (2 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.) Many smaller parties also are competing, including nationalist parties such as the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and unionist and republican parties in Northern Ireland.

The far-right British National Party is hoping to win its first-ever seats in the House of Commons, after having won races for European Parliament seats last year. The United Kingdom Independence Party is also fielding candidates, as is the venerable if satirical Monster Raving Loony Party, whose candidates have been known to say, "Vote for insanity! You know it makes sense!"

Voters in 650 constituencies across the country choose lawmakers to represent them in the House of Commons. The candidate who gets the most votes in a constituency wins. It's not necessary to win an absolute majority of votes in a constituency to win the seat.

The leader of the party with the most seats in the Commons traditionally gets the first chance to form a government.

Due to the structure of the British voting system, one party normally wins a majority of seats, even though there are three national parties.

The last time no one party captured more than half of the seats in the Commons was in 1974. That government proved unstable, and voters were back at the polls within months.

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Belgium's lower house votes to ban burqa

(News Terupdate) - Lawmakers in Belgium on Thursday approved a ban on the wearing of burqas and other Islamic garb that covers a woman's face but the bill must still be approved by the upper house of parliament before it becomes law.

If the Senate approves it, Belgium would become the first country in Europe to ban the burqa.

The vote in the Chamber of Deputies was 136 in favor, none opposed and two abstentions, according to Dominiq van Dendossche, a press officer for the Belgian parliament.

Senate passage seems likely since the Chamber of Deputies approved it.

Human rights group Amnesty International immediately condemned the vote.

Members of parliament have said they're motivated both by security and morality in pushing for the ban.

"We think all people in public places must show their face," Denis Ducarme, of the liberal Reformist Movement, said earlier this month. "We must defend our values in the question of the freedom and the dignity of the woman."

Ducarme said it's not true that Islam requires women to wear burqas, which cover the whole body and face, or niqabs, veils that cover most of the face except for a small slit for the eyes.

"The majority of Muslims in Belgium and Europe don't accept the burqa, don't accept the niqab. It's only 10 percent who are radical," he said, blaming trends from Pakistan and Afghanistan for encouraging facial covering.

He estimated that 300 to 400 women in the country wear the niqab or the burqa.

Belgium may have more than half a million Muslims among its population of 10.5 million, researchers estimate.

Abdullah Bastin, a Muslim political leader in Belgium, warned earlier this month that the legislation could actually encourage more women to adopt the veil.

The bill would impose a fine of 15-25 euros ($20-33) or imprisonment of one to seven days for those who break the law.

Belgium is home to about 281,000 Muslims, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates. That would make the country about 3 percent Muslim.

Abdullah Bastin, a Muslim political leader in Belgium, warned earlier this month that the legislation could actually encourage more women to adopt the veil.

One town in Belgium banned the burqa six years ago.

Jan Creemers, the mayor of the tiny picture-postcard city of Maaseik, said it was no problem to enforce the ban, and that he had the support of the local Moroccan community.

Some fines were handed out, and although none was paid, no one wears a veil in Maaseik today, he said.

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