Greece crippled by anti-austerity general strike

Greece ground to a halt today in the second general strike in two weeks against austerity measures crippling public transport and closing schools, hospitals and government offices.

More than a million people were called to strike and urged to join street protests headed by the country's main trade unions to protest the government's plan to solve the country's debt crisis.

Public transport was paralysed in Athens with no buses or trams running. Only one underground train line was operational in the capital.

Health centres were manned by a skeletal staff and treated only emergencies.

Air traffic controllers walked off the job at midnight, emptying the air space, and ships were anchored as port workers joined the strike call by two powerful unions comprising more than one million members.

The national news agency ANA stopped its tickers for 24 hours from 6:00 am (0400 GMT), and newspaper staff stopped working.

Tax and garbage collectors have been on strike since the start of the week.

The unions are outraged by a wave of state spending cuts and tax hikes intended to cut this year's deficit of 12.7 percent of output to get to grips with the country's debt of nearly 300 billion euros (410 billion dollars).

Similar protests last Friday, as the parliament pushed through the government's austerity package, degenerated into violence as police clashed with demonstrators.

The last one-day general strike was on February 24 and shut down schools, government offices and courthouses, also causing major disruption to public transport, banks, hospitals and state-owned companies.

Prime Minister George Papandreou received support from an unexpected source Wednesday when the head of the country's employers federation came out in support of his socialist government's austerity measures.

"Between bankruptcy and recession, between the devil and the deep blue sea, there is no other alternative to the abyss," Dimitris Daskalopoulos told reporters.

Tax hikes and spending cuts were "inevitable after many years of negligence," he said, denouncing the protesters who he said were protecting their own interests at the country's expense.

Papandreou was in Washington on Tuesday to call on US President Barack Obama to crack down on speculators he said were trying to undermine his country's as it battled its way out of the crisis.

"This is very important to stabilise international markets and to not allow the crises that may occur, such as the one that occurred in Greece, to be used to create wider destabilisation, either of the eurozone or of the world financial system," he said.

The Greek economy, which is mired in a recession, ran into more trouble on Tuesday when the national statistics agency reported the annual inflation rate jumped to 2.8 percent in February.

But there was better news from the central bank which reported Wednesday that Greek budget receipts had risen in February for the second straight month.

The bank said receipts came to 4.184 billion euros (5.7 billion dollars) last month compared with the 3.938 billion euros in February 2009.

Unemployment currently stands at over 10 percent.