Greece's parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill on Monday to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.

Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens and black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament before lawmakers voted on the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts -- the price of a 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout needed to keep the country afloat.

State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Police said 150 shops were looted in the capital and 34 buildings set ablaze.

Altogether 199 of the 300 lawmakers backed the bill, but 43 deputies from the two parties in the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the socialists and conservatives, rebelled by voting against It. They were immediately expelled by their parties.

Asian shares and the euro gained modestly on Monday, relieved by the Greek parliament's passage of austerity measures that put the country a step closer to securing a much-needed bailout fund and avoiding a messy default.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan edged up as much as 0.3 percent on the news. The rebellion and street violence foreshadowed the problems the Greek government faces in implementing the cuts, which include a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage -- a package critics say condemns the economy to an ever-deeper downward spiral.

Papademos, a technocrat brought in to get a grip on the crisis, denounced the worst breakdown of order since 2008, when violence gripped Greece for weeks after police shot a 15-year-old schoolboy. "Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and won't be tolerated," he told parliament as it prepared to vote.

"Short-term sacrifices"

But he admitted that imposing the austerity on a nation that has already endured several years of cuts would be tough. "The full, timely and effective implementation of the programme won't be easy. We are fully aware that the economic programme means short-term sacrifices for the Greek people," Papademos said.

Greece needs the international funds before March 20 to meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion euros, or suffer a chaotic default which could shake the entire euro zone.

Outside parliament chaos reigned. A Reuters photographer saw buildings in Athens engulfed in flames and huge plumes of smoke rose in the night sky. "We are facing destruction. Our country, our home, has become ripe for burning, the centre of Athens is in flames. We cannot allow populism to burn our country down," conservative lawmaker Costis Hatzidakis told parliament.

The air in Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with teargas as riot police fought running battles with youths who smashed marble balustrades and hurled stones and petrol bombs.

Terrified Greeks and tourists fled the rock-strewn streets and the clouds of stinging gas, cramming into hotel lobbies for shelter as lines of riot police struggled to contain the mayhem.

State NET television reported that trouble had also broken out in Heraklion, capital of Crete, as well as the towns of Volos and Agrinio in central Greece.

On the streets of Athens many businesses were ablaze, including the neo-classical home to the Attikon cinema dating from 1870 and a building housing the Asty, an underground cinema used by the Gestapo as a torture chamber during World War Two.
No good choices

The EU and IMF say they have had enough of broken promises and that the funds will be released only with the clear commitment of Greek political leaders that they will implement the reforms whoever wins an election potentially in April.

Euro zone paymaster Germany ratcheted up the pressure on Sunday. "The promises from Greece aren't enough for us any more," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview published in Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"Greece needs to do its own homework to become competitive, whether that happens in conjunction with a new rescue programme or by another route that we actually don't want to take."

When asked if that other route meant Greece quitting the euro zone, Schaeuble said: "That is all in the hands of the Greeks themselves. But even in the event (Greece leaves the euro zone), which almost no one assumes will happen, they will still remain part of Europe."

The bill sets out 3.3 billion euros ($4.35 billion) of extra budget cuts for this year alone. It also provides for a bond swap to ease Greece's debt burden by cutting the real value of private-sector investors' bond holdings by some 70 percent. Greece would have missed a Feb. 17 deadline to offer a debt "haircut" to private bondholders if the vote had not been passed.

Many Greeks believe their living standards are collapsing already and the new measures will deepen their misery. "Enough is enough!" said 89-year-old Manolis Glezos, one of
Greece's most famous leftists and a national hero. "They have no idea what an uprising by the Greek people means. And the Greek people, regardless of ideology, have risen."

Glezos is a national hero for sneaking up the Acropolis at night in 1941 and tearing down a Nazi flag from under the noses of the German occupiers, raising the morale of Athens residents.

Greek workers went on strike against austerity measures on Friday, docking ships and halting public transport, hours after euro zone finance ministers said Athens needed to make more cuts to convince them to release a financial bailout.

The euro and shares fell on Friday, reflecting concern over a possible failure in the debt restructuring after the European Union and International Monetary Fund indicated that a hard-won Greek deal on spending cuts and wage cuts did not go far enough.

The EU and IMF are exasperated by a series of broken promises by Athens and weeks of disagreement over the terms of a 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout, with time running out to avoid a default.

Before they release more aid, Greece's financial backers have demanded parliamentary ratification of the new austerity package this weekend, the identification of a further 325
million euros of spending reductions by next Wednesday and a strong commitment from all parties to implement the reforms.

But it may be a demand too far. Many Greeks, already suffering from five consecutive years of recession, are increasingly angry about the measures, which are unlikely to ease an economy, where one in five is unemployed, shops close one after another and households are tightening their budget.

The central Athens Syntagma square, in front of parliament, echoed with loudspeaker calls to rally against the measures: "No to layoffs! No to salary cuts! No to pension cuts! Do not bow your heads! Resist!"

Strikers brought the metro and buses to a halt, and ships were docked in the country's main ports in a 48-hour general strike, not long after another nationwide action on Tuesday.

Hospital doctors and bank employees also walked off the job and teachers were set to join on Friday. Flights were not affected by the strike, an airport official said.

"Tombstone"

"The measures included in the new (EU/IMF) memorandum and which the three political leaders agreed with the government and the troika are the 'tombstone' of the Greek society," the civil servants' union ADEDY said in statement. "It's time for the people to speak up."

ADEDY and its private sector sister GSEE represent about two million workers, or roughly half the country's workforce. They have staged repeated strikes since the country first resorted to a bailout from foreign lenders in 2010.

The two unions have called for protesters to rally in front of parliament. Turnout at protests has been relatively small over the past months and Friday's rally will be a test of the anger against the new austerity measures.

Facing elections as soon as April, Greece's party leaders have been loath to accept the lenders' tough conditions. After days of delays, and under threat of a messy default that could force Greece out of the euro zone, they agreed on Thursday to cut the minimum wage by 22 percent as part of efforts to make the economy more competitive.

Two sources said the government was also promising spending cuts and tax rises worth 13 billion euros from 2012 to 2015, almost double the seven billion originally pledged.

Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of finance ministers in the euro zone, urged Greece late on Thursday to act on their promises. "In short, no disbursement before implementation," he told a news conference after six hours of talks in Brussels.

Germany's deputy finance minister, Steffen Kampeter, piled on the pressure on Friday, underlining the need for structural change in Greece - a comment echoed by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso visiting India.

"Obviously these political decisions are grim, but they are necessary because the alternative is giving them money without changes in behaviour, which neither the German parliament nor other euro zone parliaments will approve," he told local television.

Some Greek newspapers seemed to support the demands. "Greece's credibility is zero. That is why the troika (of officials from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank) is asking for written assurances and the voting of the implementation laws," financial daily Imerisia wrote in an editorial. "Let us decide ... if we want to continue being part of the euro zone or if we wish to walk down a dark path."

Greek leaders failed on Thursday to agree on a reform and austerity programme, the price of a financial bailout to avoid a messy default, forcing Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos to go to the country's financial backers with an incomplete deal.

Venizelos will travel to Brussels later on Thursday, where his fellow euro zone finance ministers had hoped he would present a commitment to make budget savings worth 3.3 billion euros ($4.4 billion) this year.

But after all-night talks with leaders of the three parties in the Greek coalition and with officials from the EU and IMF, Venizelos emerged shortly before dawn to say that one issue remained unresolved.

"I am leaving for Brussels in a short while with the hope that the Eurogroup meeting will be held, and a positive decision on the new programme will be taken," he told reporters.

"The financial survival of the country in the coming years depends on the new programme ... It is time of responsibility for everyone."

Venizelos did not say what the problem was or why he was not certain the Brussels meeting on the 130 billion euro bailout would go ahead.

A spokesman for the socialist PASOK party said disagreement over pension reform had been the stumbling block.

A senior government official said the party chiefs had agreed on how to make about 90 percent of the promised savings, leaving a relatively small hole in the calculations.

Athens had to close this gap quickly, said the official. "Greece has another 15 days to specify fiscal savings worth 300 million euros," he said on condition of anonymity.

PM hopes

Earlier, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said he hoped the party leaders could sort out their differences before the euro zone finance ministers meet at 1700 GMT.

Prospects for a long-awaited deal on Greece's second bailout since 2010 appeared to brighten when the finance ministers' chairman Jean-Claude Juncker called the Brussels meeting – which IMF managing director Christine Lagarde will also attend – to examine the bailout and accompanying bond swap.

On offer from the European Union and International Monetary Fund is a package involving the new rescue funds - which Greece needs to avoid a chaotic default when big debt repayments fall due on March 20 - and a bond swap with private creditors to ease the nation's huge debt burden.

In return, Athens must accept conditions requiring big cuts in many Greeks' living standards. The smallest member of the coalition, the far-right LAOS party, was particularly uncomfortable with the measures.

"The president of LAOS George Karatzaferis expressed serious reservations," said Papademos, a former central banker brought in when a PASOK government collapsed last November.

Panos Beglitis, spokesman for PASOK which is in the coalition along with LAOS and the conservative New Democracy party, said they had disagreed over the level of cuts to
supplementary pensions needed to safeguard the pension system.

However, Beglitis told reporters the leaders had agreed to cut the minimum wage by 22 percent as part of efforts to make the economy more competitive. Plans to scrap bonuses paid to private sector workers at Christmas, Easter and in the summer had been dropped.

Two sources close to the Athens talks said the government would promise spending cuts and tax rises totalling 13 billion euros from 2012 to 2015, almost double the seven billion it originally pledged.

The United Nations' top human rights official called on Wednesday for urgent international action to protect civilians in Syria, saying she was appalled by the Syrian government's military onslaught on the city of Homs.

Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, also implicitly criticised Russia and China for vetoing an Arab and Western move in the U.N. Security Council to get Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to quit.

"I am appalled by the Syrian government's wilful assault on the city of Homs, and its use of artillery and other heavy weaponry in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in the city," Pillay said in a statement.

Anti-Assad activists in Syria say that, after an overnight artillery bombardment, government forces are thrusting into rebel-held areas of Homs with tanks as troops fired rockets and mortars, leaving many dead.

Pillay, a former South African high court judge said it was extremely urgent "for the international community to cut through the politics and take effective action to protect the civilian population."

She said "the virtual carte blanche" granted to Syria by the veto of the U.N. resolution "betrays the spirit and the word" of a 2005 global accord on collective action to protect civilians when their government was failing to do so.

Her statement came as both Russia and China continued to defend their stance.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was "not really the international community's business" to try to determine the outcome of a national dialogue between government and opposition in Syria.

China said its veto was based on the U.N. Charter and principles and a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that Beijing would make "unremitting efforts for the peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis".

Pillay said over the past 11 months of a "brutal government crackdown on largely peaceful protests in Syria," thousands of people had been killed, detained, tortured and abducted.

Officials in her Geneva office say the deaths are now so widespread around the country that they can no longer issue reliable estimates. Last December she put the figure at more than 5,000.

"All evidence points to the involvement of the Syrian army and security forces in the perpetration of most of these crimes," said Pillay, who is also a former judge in the International Criminal Court. "In the light of their nature and scale, they may constitute crimes against humanity, punishable under international law.

"Those in command should remember that there is no statute of limitations for serious international crimes and that there will be a sustained effort, for as long as it takes, to bring justice to all those who have been victims of the gross and systematic crimes taking place in Syria today."

Greek leaders face crunch talks on Tuesday to agree on unpopular reforms to secure a 130-billion-euro ($170 billion) bailout and avert a chaotic debt default which could threaten its future in the euro zone.

The leaders are caught between their increasingly frustrated partners in the European Union for failing to pass the reforms quickly and workers who went on strike on Tuesday to protest against the austerity measures.

European Union (EU) officials say the full package must be agreed with Greece and approved by the euro zone, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund before Feb. 15 to allow time for complex legal procedures involved in the bond swap to be completed in time for a March 20 bond redemption.

In some euro zone countries, including Germany and Finland, parliamentary approval is required to raise the bailout money.

In Paris, German Chancellor Angel Merkel on Monday expressed the exasperation among euro zone leaders at seemingly endless arguing in Athens that has yet to produce a definitive acceptance of the austerity and reform demanded by the lenders.

"I honestly can't understand how additional days will help. Time is of the essence. A lot is at stake for the entire euro zone," she told a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

But leaders of the three parties in the coalition government appeared to need at least one additional day. The office of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, a former central banker who heads a government of politicians, said that a meeting of leaders from the conservative, socialist and far-right parties due on Monday had been postponed to Tuesday.

No reason was given for the delay. Papademos held further talks with the "troika" of lenders - the European Commission, ECB and IMF - on Monday.

The party leaders, positioning themselves for a likely general election in April, have balked at accepting another package of deeply unpopular wage and pension reductions, job cuts and tougher tax enforcement measures.

Alarmed by the prospect of yet more budget cuts, Greece's two main trade unions said they would hold a 24-hour strike on Tuesday in protest against policies they say have only driven the economy into a downward spiral. Demonstrations are planned in central Athens.

Patience wearing thin

Greeks watched the political drama with the same exasperation they have shown throughout the nation's nearly three-year crisis, mixed with fear of the consequences of leaving the euro.

"We are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We are lost either way but political leaders have to agree," said Kosmas Georgiou, a 31-year old company inspector. "Going back to the drachma is not an option, it's disaster." "They are delaying this just to look like heroes."

Merkel made clear that her patience was wearing thin on a deal that affects not only Greece but the wider currency bloc, which fears that a default would hit much larger economies such as Spain and Italy.

One government official said the entire Greek side had to agree terms of the rescue, which would be the second for Athens since 2010, with international lenders before the next meeting of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers.

No date has been set for the Eurogroup meeting, and a European Commission spokesman said it would be held only when Greece had made a commitment to the deal.

Papademos said after five hours of talks on Sunday that party chiefs had agreed measures including wage cuts and other reforms as part of spending cuts worth 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.

But leaders of the PASOK socialist party, the conservative New Democracy and the far-right LAOS party still have to reach agreement on several unresolved issues.

These include labour market reform and shoring up domestic banks. Greece needs the bailout money by mid-March to meet big debt repayments but tempers are rising in the EU over what it sees as Greek dithering on implementing reforms.

Greeks have been worn down by a deep recession, now in its fifth year, and wave after wave of austerity measures imposed under the first bailout.

The French and German leaders meet on Monday in Paris for annual talks in which they will seek further economic coordination in the crisis-hit European Union and discuss the escalating violence in Syria.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is openly backing President Nicolas Sarkozy in April's presidential election, will also give a joint interview with Sarkozy to French and German television networks in the evening.

"The meeting will be dedicated to deepening Franco-German cooperation in all fields ... and notably fiscal convergence," the French presidency said in a statement.

The German chancellor is seen in France as a trustworthy leader capable of dealing with the euro zone debt crisis, and so could boost Sarkozy's credibility on economic issues.

French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said Merkel's visit, which takes place as Greece struggles to avoid a chaotic debt default that would have repercussions across Europe, was to ensure the bloc's main drivers were on the same page.

"As we are the two main contributors (to the euro zone) if you don't have an accord between France and Germany you can be sure not only of Europe's slow descent in international competition, but into chaos," he told Europe 1 radio. "No agreement between the two means no engine."

German government officials said the meeting would focus on corporate tax harmonisation, one aspect of Berlin and Paris' goal to drive economic coordination within the EU.

The meeting would produce a "green paper" - intended to stimulate debate on the subject within the European Union – that aims to make it easier for small- and mid-sized companies to work across borders.

"It is also important to bring to life these agreements made by the Council of the European Union on growth and employment," said Berlin's new coordinator for German-French relations, Michael Link.

"We must show that bilateral relations are not a museum object, and have a very lively political character."

The intergovernmental meeting includes separate talks between various ministers including foreign policy chiefs Alain Juppe and Guido Westerwelle. It will be followed by a joint news conference at 12:45 p.m. (1145 GMT).

Sources said discussions would also focus on how Europe will act on developments in Syria after Russia and China vetoed a U..N. resolution, backed by France and Germany, that would have supported an Arab plan urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.

"European and international subjects will also be discussed during these discussions," Sarkozy's office said. Sarkozy said France was consulting with Arab and European countries to create a contact group on Syria to find a solution to its crisis.

An exceptional harvest after good rains and food deliveries by aid agencies have ended famine in Somalia although conditions remain fragile and could worsen, the United Nations said on Friday.

The U.N. declared famine in two parts of southern Somalia last July and extended the famine warning in September to six out of eight regions in the anarchic Horn of Africa country.

The U.N. said initially 750,000 Somalis faced imminent starvation and lowered this to 250,000 by November. Six months after famine was declared, 4 million Somalis were in need of aid and the U.N. said the number now stood at 2.34 million.

"The gains are fragile and will be reversed without continued support," said Mark Bowden, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia. There are 1.7 million people in southern Somalia still in crisis. Millions of people still need food, clean water, shelter and other assistance to survive and the situation is expected to deteriorate in May," he said in a statement.

While aid deliveries to some 180,000 people in camps in the capital Mogadishu have improved the situation there, fighting in southern and central Somalia is still hampering food deliveries to the worst-hit areas.

Government forces have been fighting Islamist rebels for the past five years, while Kenyan and Ethiopian forces both moved into the country last year to help fight the al Qaeda-linked militants al Shabaab.

The fighting, combined with attacks on aid workers and a history of aid being manipulated for political gain, means Somalia is one of the toughest countries for relief agencies to operate in.

The U.N. said the latest harvest in Somalia was double the average of the past 17 years, and this had lowered food prices, though mortality rates in southern Somalia were still among the highest in the world.

Al Shabaab expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday, one of the few international aid agencies delivering food aid to areas under rebel control, accusing it of providing out-of-date food to women and children.

The ICRC said it regretted the decision as it halted a programme that had given food to more than 1.2 million people between June and December 2011. The ICRC said 6 percent of the food provided had deteriorated and was withdrawn, or destroyed by al Shabaab.

"The crisis is not over," said Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation. "It can only be resolved with a combination of rains and continued, coordinated, long-term actions that build up the resilience of the population and link relief with development."

Scotland's leader is unveiling detailed plans for a referendum that will ask voters whether they want to leave the United Kingdom and form an independent country.

First Minister Alex Salmond on Wednesday will outline his preferred options for the vote, to be held in the fall of 2014.

The British government insists it has the final authority to authorize a binding referendum and wants a straight "yes or no" question.

But Salmond has suggested he wants to add a third option of more Scottish autonomy, short of full independence.

Scotland and England united in 1707 to form Great Britain. Salmond argued Tuesday that splitting the 300-year-old union would be good for everyone, saying current arrangements "are not fair to Scotland, and they are not fair to England."

Croatia voted on Sunday to join the European Union next year, shrugging off concerns over the economic turmoil in the bloc and fears that membership will compromise its hard-won sovereignty.

Provided all 27 member states ratify its accession, the Adriatic state will enter the EU on July 1, 2013, more than two decades after breaking away from socialist Yugoslavia and fighting a 1991-95 war to secure independence.

It will become the second former Yugoslav republic to join the EU, following Slovenia in 2004.

Sixty-six percent ticked "Yes" in the referendum, the state electoral commission said with almost all votes counted. "This is a historic moment, and could be a turning point in our history," Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic told reporters.

Turnout, however, was low, at 44 percent of eligible voters, well below the resounding votes of many former communist countries that joined in 2004 and 2007. That figure appeared to reflect widespread uncertainty among Croats over what membership will really mean.

But the result suggested the EU had not completely lost its appeal in the struggling western Balkans despite the debt crisis that is threatening the single currency.

Many Croats hope accession will mark a clear break with the region's recent past of war and nationalism, and help its weak economy through EU funds and full access to the bloc's common market.

The slow pace of reform in the rest of the western Balkans, and waning enthusiasm within the EU for further enlargement, mean other countries in Croatia's neighbourhood - such as Serbia, Bosnia and Albania - will wait years before they too can join. Tiny Montenegro on the Adriatic coast is next in line.

"Great relief"

"I feel great relief, for me, for my children," said bank worker Jasna Maric, 43. "Only fifteen years ago, we were still killing each other here, so this was a strategic decision."

Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic, though visibly delighted, sounded a note of caution: "With this, we leave behind political instability, but the rest will depend on our ability and creativity," Pusic said. "Our chances will be better, but no one will do the job for us."

Croatia saw strong growth in the past decade on the back of foreign lending and waves of tourists to its Adriatic coast, but its economy has been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

It will have to work hard to make its public finances sustainable before it is allowed to join the euro zone, which analysts say is unlikely in the next five years. Its gross domestic product per capita is 61 percent of the EU average.

Analysts and government officials had warned that rejection of EU accession on Sunday would have hit the country's credit rating, deterred investors and further dampened any prospect of a quick economic recovery.

The "No" camp expressed bitter disappointment, and argued the referendum did not truly reflect the will of the people because of the low turnout. "This result is against the interests of the Croatian people," said Zeljko Sacic, a war veteran and leading Euro-sceptic. "This is the end of Croatia's freedom. The EU is falling apart and the Croatian man will be worse off than today."

Texas Governor Rick Perry was poised to drop his run for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination later on Thursday, CNN reported.

Perry entered the race in August and briefly was at the front of the pack of Republican candidates, but a series of gaffes and controversial statements during the campaign undermined his standing in polls.

CNN cited two unnamed sources in saying Perry would drop his candidacy later on Thursday.