Three die in violent Athens protests

Three people were killed in a firebomb attack on a bank in central Athens on Wednesday and around 20 people were evacuated from the building, police and firefighters said.

Two women and one man died in the fire, and firefighters were looking for other victims although the fire appeared to be under control, a spokesman for firemen told AFP.

At least five other people were injured and rushed to hospital.

The bank, a branch of the Marfin group, caught fire after hooded youths broke a window and hurled petrol bombs at the building on the sidelines of demonstrations against a government austerity drive.

At least two other buildings, one used by tax officials and another by regional authorities, caught fire in other firebomb attacks on the margins of the protests.

Smaller fires were reported elsewhere in the city and the city police were put on full alert.

Officers sprayed protestors with tear gas as they tried to break through a police line in front of the parliament amid a nationwide general strike.

In Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, police fired tear gas at protesting youths as they threw rocks against shops and banks.

After separate rallies in Athens, the demonstrators converged on parliament, where the government was preparing for unprecedented spending cuts and tax hikes to be voted on later today.

"They're taking everything from me, I don't know how I'm going to get by," said 61-year-old Anargyros Bizianis, a municipal worker in Athens suburb of Piraeus who earns 900 euros a month.

Protestors bore banners reading the "IMF and EU are stealing a century of social progress", "The rich must pay for the crisis" and "Take the money thieves and not the workers."

A man in his fifties carried a banner reading "I'm for rent on a low salary".

"The only way to do things now is by occupying public buildings and holding protests," said a protestors who gave her name only as Katarina.