Greek protests erupt into violence

Hundreds of rioters have looted shops in Athens after a mass anti-government rally against new government cuts erupted into violence.

Outside parliament demonstrators hurled lumps of marble and petrol bombs at riot police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Police said at least 14 officers were taken to hospital.

The violence spread across the city centre, as at least 100,000 people marched through the Greek capital on the first day of a two-day general strike that unions described as the largest protest in years.

Police and rioters held running battles as thick black smoke from burning rubbish and bus-stops set ablaze filled the city's skyline.

The strike, which grounded flights, disrupted public transport and shut down shops and schools, came ahead of a parliamentary vote on Thursday on new tax increases and spending cuts.

International creditors have demanded the reforms before they give Greece its next infusion of cash. Greece says it will run out of money in a month without it.

Most of the protesters who converged in Athens marched peacefully, but crowds outside parliament clashed with police who tried to disperse them with repeated rounds of tear gas. A petrol bomb set fire to a presidential guard sentry post at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, while running clashes broke out in several side streets near the legislature and the capital's main Syntagma Square.

Nearby, groups of hooded, masked protesters tore chunks of marble off building fronts with hammers and crowbars and smashed windows and bank signs. Scuffles also broke out among rioters and demonstrators trying to prevent youths from destroying storefronts and banks along the march route.

In Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, protesters smashed the facades of about 10 shops that defied the strike and remained open, as well as five banks and cash machines. Police fired tear gas and threw stun grenades.

All sectors - from dentists, hospital doctors and lawyers to shop owners, tax office workers, pharmacists, teachers and dock workers - walked out.