LONDON-- Colorful protesters peacefully engaged in a little "guerrilla gardening" outside Britain's Parliament building on Monday, but London's streets later erupted into May Day violence as masked activists trashed a fast-food restaurant and clashed with riot-geared police.
Violence marred other May Day commemorations around the world, including Hamburg, Germany, where 12 police officers and 25 protesters were injured when leftists and police clashed just after midnight.
London's demonstration began quietly near Parliament, where protesters in colorful costumes planted seeds to add more green to Parliament Square. But a group broke away from the protest and trashed a Whitehall McDonald's restaurant, smashing all the windows and tearing down the golden arches sign.
Police pressed the demonstrators -- who pelted them with rocks, bricks, bottles and anything else that could be thrown -- toward Trafalgar Square, where the demonstration cooled.
Assistant Police Commissioner Mike Todd, who called the attackers "mindless thugs," said one officer was badly injured by a brick in the face and seven people were arrested.
"It does prove there are a small minority of people intent on violence," he said. "This is not protest. This is criminality, and these people need to be held to account."
German police prepared for violence
In Hamburg, police said more than 100 people were arrested. The protesters threw rocks at banks, broke shop windows and set fire to cars in the center of the city before police charged into the crowd, using water cannon and armored vehicles to clear the area. One officer suffered a broken arm in the melee.
Berlin was also the scene of clashes when police intervened to break up fights between neo-Nazi marchers and anti-fascist counterdemonstrators in the east Berlin district of Hellersdorf.
About 300 neo-Nazis, many of them skinheads, carried anti-immigrant banners to the Hellersdorf rally, where they listened to right-wing speeches and music.
Worried about violence, which has become a mainstay of May Day celebrations in recent years, Berlin police massed 2,500 officers to watch over the situation. Hundreds more officers were posted across the rest of the city.
Injuries in Philippines Police also employed water cannon in the Philippines, where demonstrators threw rocks while trying to break through police lines keeping them from Malacanang presidential palace in Manila.
Labor groups claim President Joseph
Estrada has sided with employers in
labor disputes, despite campaign
promises to back labor's struggle
against poverty.
Several protesters and one firefighter
were injured, and seven members of a
labor group were arrested.
Violence also erupted in South Korea,
where police tried to keep students
from joining a worker rally in Seoul.
Some 7,000 police officers kept watch
over a worker march in Colombo, Sri
Lanka, where Tamil Tiger rebels have
waged a bloody battle for an independent homeland. A rebel assassinated then-President Ranasinghe Premadasa at a May Day rally in 1993.
Poland's Baltic port Gdansk -- birthplace of Poland's modern labor movement-- also saw police move in to quell violence. According to private Radio Zet, riot police stopped dozens of skinheads who were pelting leftist marchers with eggs filled with red paint.
Less violence elsewhere
Elsewhere, May Day gatherings were
more peaceful. Pope John Paul II, a
laborer in World War II Poland, warned
that basic human rights must be
protected as economic and trade
policies are globalized.
"New realities which are forcefully
affecting the productive process, such
as globalization of finance, of the
economy, of commerce and of work,
should never be allowed to violate the
dignity and centrality of the human
person or the democracy of peoples,"
John Paul said at a Vatican Mass for
the world's workers.
In Russia, attendance at the Communist-led May Day march was low in Moscow and half-dozen other cities.
In other areas: Paris: French far-right parties staged traditional marches, targeting non-French nationals.
Turkey: Tens of thousands demonstrated against the International Monetary Fund.
Lebanon: Workers marched through Beirut, demanding better pay and job security.
Japan: More than 1,000 rallies nationwide drew nearly 2 million people.
Hong Kong: Protesters smashed rice bowls -- the traditional symbol of the worker's livelihood.
Beijing: Most Chinese took the day off and marked the occasion at parks or at visits with friends and relatives.
Cambodia: More than 1,000 garment industry workers demanded higher wages and better working conditions.
Cuba: President Fidel Castro called for millions to focus on 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, the subject of a bitter custody battle between his Cuban father and Miami relatives in the United States.
Slovakia: Supporters of former Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar demonstrated against high unemployment and a criminal investigation that resulted in Meciar's arrest last week.
Zimbabwe: Labor unions told workers to stay home and called for an end to the land reform violence that has swept the country in recent weeks.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com