Three die in Greek street battles

A firebomb attack on a bank in Greece killed three people yesterday as police fought pitched battles with striking protesters furious at brutal budget cuts meant to avert national bankruptcy.

Hooded youths hurled petrol bombs at stores and businesses in central Athens where demonstrators tried to storm the Parliament grounds during a general strike. Violence also spread to the northern city of Thessaloniki.

Police said two women and one man died at a branch of the Marfin bank which caught fire after rioters broke a window and threw Molotov cocktails inside. Around 20 more people had to be ushered to safety.

"The attackers wore hoods. First they tried to torch our bookstore and then they threw two firebombs inside the bank," eyewitness Vassilis Hatziiakovou told Mega television.

At least two other buildings - the Athens prefecture and one used by tax officials - caught fire in other firebomb attacks on the margins of the protests.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou angrily condemned the bank attack as a "raw murderous act".

"Nobody has the right to violence and particularly violence that leads to murder," he told parliament. Greek President Carolos Papoulias said the country had "reached the edge of the abyss" and called on his compatriots "to not take the step into the void."

Bank staff later called a one-day strike today in protest at the deaths.

The violence broke out as thousands of union members rallied on the eve of a vote in Parliament on the planned cuts and tax hikes.

The general strike was the first major test of the Socialist government's resolve to push through unprecedented measures since agreeing to a €110 billion EU and IMF debt bailout at the weekend.

Mr Papandreou's insistence that the measures are vital for the nation's survival failed to dissuade unions from paralysing public services.

After rallying in two separate demonstrations in central Athens, unionists marched on Parliament where a vote on the measures will be held 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 the Athens suburb of Piraeus who earns €900 a month.

As the protesters tried to break through a police line in front of Parliament, they first hurled stones and bottles of water, prompting officers to respond with tear gas.

Full-scale clashes then erupted, with riot police trying to disperse the crowds with baton-charges and youths responding with stones, flares, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails.

Youths also went on the rampage in other parts of the capital, with several dozen youths hurling petrol bombs at stores, smashing shop windows and bus shelters with iron bars.

Athens police chiefs mobil-ised all their forces, including those not on active duty, by declaring a general state of alert.

At least 12 people were arrested in Athens and police made a further 37 detentions in Thessaloniki where protesters targeted stores and banks in the city centre before they were dispersed by anti-riot police.

A group of about 200 communists had stormed the Athens Acropolis on Tuesday, unfurling banners reading "Peoples of Europe, Rise Up".