May Day Celebrated Worldwide

<a href=www.voanews.com>VOA News 01 May 2003, 18:56 UTC

Police have clashed with rock-throwing May Day protesters in Germany, while reports say a holiday rally in Venezuela turned deadly. German authorities say they arrested nearly 100 rioters during scuffles at the site of the former Berlin Wall. Twenty-nine police officers and a number of demonstrators were injured.

In Venezuela, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas for separate pro and anti-government marches. Local media reports gunfire disrupted the anti-government rally, leaving one person dead. Other May Day demonstrations throughout the world were largely peaceful as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in cities including Moscow, Seoul and Tokyo.

Demonstrators in Ukraine rallied against the government, while protesters in Kyrgyzstan called for the removal of U.S. troops from an airbase near Bishkek.

About 7,000 people in Zurich protested the war in Iraq, while British police were deployed to guard against violence in Thursday's demonstrations.

Cubans packed Havana's Revolution Plaza for a rally with President Fidel Castro and Greek and Turkish Cypriots gathered in Nicosia for their first joint May Day celebration in decades. Chinese officials, however, shortened the usual week-long festivities over fears of the deadly SARS virus.