From rural mountainous Nepal to the industrial heartland of Germany, workers took to the streets around the world on Monday in largely peaceful May Day demonstrations for labour rights.
The crowds of workers swelled to one million across Russia, heeding the rallying call of unions as well as Soviet nostalgics, to protest against low wages and poverty.
"The industry is in ruins, the salaries are miserable, and working for a living does not provide enough to buy an apartment in a Moscow suburb," said Ivan Klyuchenko, a 17-year-old member of AKM, a group of young communists.
In Germany, trade unionists brought out half a million workers in some 500 demonstrations nation-wide in a show of force ahead of labour reform planned by the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to boost economic growth.
French unions staged more than 100 marches around the country to keep the heat turned on the weakened government to make further concessions after defeating a new labour law.
In Spain, workers targeted the rich to underscore their views. Several hundred farm labourers briefly occupied the sprawling estate of the Duchess of Alba to protest that 80 percent of European Union farm subsidies go to the 30 largest landowners in the southern Andalusia region, according to union organisers.
In Europe, trade unionists in Italy booed down two ministers from the outgoing government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Greek island ferries stayed at anchor and in Bulgaria the ex-communist ruling Socialist party addressed some 2,000 supporters in Sofia as "dear comrades."
In Prague, some 5,000 people gathered in Letna Square at the call of the country's confederation of political prisoners (KPV), ousting the communist party which had rallied there on May 1 for the past several years, to recall the deaths and imprisonments under the former totalitarian regime in the ex-Soviet republic.
In Turkey riot police detained 85 people as scuffles erupted in May Day rallies in Istanbul, Elazig and Izmir, the Anatolia news agency said.
In Iraq, which continues to be rocked by insurgent attacks, and Sri Lanka, where a cease-fire between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels is looking increasingly fragile amid an upsurge in violence, May Day celebrations were scrapped due to security fears.
In Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki ordered an immediate boost of 12 percent in the minimum wage for non-farm workers and 11 percent for farm workers, while thousands of workers in oil-rich Angola demonstrated to press demands for minimum wage negotiations with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos' government.
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