Labor protests mark May Day
Seattle Times
In Germany, unions took aim at corporate greed. In Bangladesh, garment-factory employees called for better working conditions. And in Turkey, police fired pepper spray and tear gas to disperse demonstrators denouncing the International Monetary Fund and the United States.
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world turned out for May Day, a traditional workers’ holiday around the world, with protests in Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey and Chile turning violent.
About 100,000 workers took to the streets across Indonesia, protesting a labor law that would cut severance packages and introduce more flexible contracts that would chip away at worker security.
Beijing
Death toll reaches 30 in coal-mine blast
The death toll in a coal-mine explosion in northwest China rose to 30 on Monday as more bodies were recovered, the government said.
Two other miners remained missing after the blast Saturday afternoon at the Wayaobao Coal Mine in Shaanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Moscow
More toxins released from China spill
Thawing river ice months after a Chinese toxic spill has released a “second wave” of pollution into waterways near a major Russian Far Eastern city, experts said Sunday.
Residents in settlements up the Amur River from the city of Khabarovsk, population 580,000, have already started noticing a strong chemical smell coming from rivers and tributaries, NTV reported.
A Chinese factory explosion in November spewed benzene and other chemicals into the Songhua river, forcing Chinese authorities to cut off drinking water to millions of people. The spill flowed into the Amur several weeks later, threatening Khabarovsk and other Russian cities and towns.
Security forces Monday fatally shot three men wanted in terrorist bombings that killed at least 18 people in a coastal Sinai Peninsula resort last week, officials said.
The three men fatally shot Monday brought to six the number of wanted men killed in the past three days as Egyptian authorities swept the barren, mountainous and forbidding Sinai interior.
Ahmadabad, India
Police battle Hindu, Muslim mobs; 2 die
Police fired bullets and tear gas to disperse battling mobs of Hindus and Muslims, killing two people as hundreds rioted in western India after authorities demolished a small Muslim shrine, a police officer said.
Police imposed a curfew in the Fatehpur neighborhood of the city of Vadodra as Hindus and Muslims burned at least four shops, Police Commissioner Deepak Swarup told The Associated Press. The city is in the state of Gujarat.
At least 18 people were injured either by the gunfire from the police or stones hurled by rioters, he said.
Also
A sodium tank exploded Monday at a paper factory in northern India, sparking a blaze that killed 15 nightshift workers and burned into early Tuesday, police said.
