<p><br /> Anti-austerity demonstrations in Athens have turned ugly as protesters and police are involved in running street battles.<br /> </p><p><br /> Teargas has been fired at protesters who threw petrol bombs at two luxury hotels in the central Syntagma square outside parliament. A balcony on one of the hotels caught fire.<br /> </p><p><br /> The violent clashes have come just hours after parliament approved reforms and spending cuts. The measures are a condition of a major EU/IMF bailout.<br /> </p><p><br /> A strike by public and private sector workers has already grounded flights, shut down schools and paralysed public transport.<br /> </p><p><br /> A march of about 20,000 people reached parliament earlier. Around 200 leftists attacked former conservative minister Kostis Hatzidakis with stones and sticks, shouting: "Thieves! Shame on you!"<br /> </p><p><br /> The 300-seat house voted into law measures that cut wages in state-owned bus and railway companies and weakened the power of collective bargaining to allow company-level deals to prevail.<br /> </p><p><br /> With a comfortable parliamentary majority, and future bailout instalments at stake, the ruling socialists are unlikely to reverse course.<br /> </p><p><br /> Prime Minister George Papandreou expelled a deputy from his parliamentary team for failing to back the government in the vote. But his party still commands a comfortable 156 votes, with more belt-tightening ahead in the 2011 budget next week.<br /> </p><p><br /> Ships remained docked at ports, hospitals were working on skeleton staff and ministries shut down as civil servants and private sector workers stayed away.<br /> </p>
