Anti-UN cholera riots spread to Haiti capital

Gangs of angry Haitians clashed in Port-au-Prince with UN peacekeepers as pre-election violence spread to the capital after days of deadly rioting in the north.Organizers had urged people to vent their anger at the United Nations and the Haitian authorities in a demonstration opposite the presidential palace, but what transpired was more like urban guerrilla warfare.Clashes lasted for hours in putrid camps as youths threw stones and troops threw tear gas from armored UN trucks under the squinted gaze of watery-eyed residents.

Clashes erupted in Port-au-Prince on Thursday between UN forces and hundreds of stone-throwing Haitians as unrest targeting peacekeepers blamed for the cholera outbreak spread to the capital.There had been fears violence could break out after protest organizers called a mass demonstration outside the health ministry for people to show their anger about cholera and the UN force, known as MINUSTAH.

Haiti's cholera crisis deepened on Thursday as the toll soared again and three more deaths in the teeming capital raised fears the epidemic could be set to explode in unsanitary camps full of earthquake survivors.The Haitian health ministry said 724 people had now died from the highly contagious water-borne disease and that the number of infections around the country had passed the 11,000 mark.The outbreak, Haiti's first in more than 50 years, erupted in the Artibonite River valley in mid-October and initially seemed to have been contained to central and northern areas.

Aid groups fought Thursday to halt the spread of cholera in Haiti's teeming capital, where makeshift camps crammed with earthquake survivors are ripe ground for the epidemic to take hold.The outbreak erupted in the Artibonite River valley in central Haiti in mid-October and initially seemed to have been contained, but the toll from the chronic diarrheal disease has since soared to 643 dead and just under 10,000 people being treated in hospital.

Aid groups fought Thursday to halt the spread of cholera in Haiti's teeming capital, where makeshift camps crammed with earthquake survivors are ripe ground for the epidemic to take hold.The outbreak erupted in the Artibonite River valley in central Haiti in mid-October and initially seemed to have been contained, but the toll from the chronic diarrheal disease has since soared to 643 dead and just under 10,000 people being treated in hospital.

Protests by Bangladeshi garment workers over low wages spread on Monday, a day after four people were killed in violent clashes between demonstrators and the police.More than 4,000 garment factory staff blocked roads and staged a sit-in in the northern district of Gazipur, one of the country's main manufacturing areas which produces clothes for many Western brands.On Sunday, four people were killed in the southeastern port town of Chittagong, where police fired live bullets and tear gas shells to control riots.

Greek anti-riot police fired tear gas at youths protesting in Athens on Saturday as a trade union march marking May Day passed in front of the finance ministry, an AFP journalist reported.Clashes erupted when several dozen youths, some armed with sticks, charged a line of anti-riot forces protecting the finance ministry, prompting police to respond with tear gas. The youths then dispersed.Police also fired tear gas when a group of anarchists got close to the entrance of a luxury hotel on Athens' central Syntagma square.

Cholera reached the Haitian capital with 73 recorded cases and a first death raising fears the epidemic could spread through the city's sprawling slums and spiral out of control."The epidemic of cholera, a highly contagious disease, is no longer a simple emergency, it's now a matter of national security," the director of the Haiti's health ministry, Gabriel Thimote, told a press conference.