Twenty thousand demonstrators brushed aside a police barricade in
Seoul today to defy a ban on taking their May Dayrally toward themain government district of the South Koreancapital.
The demonstrators, strongly denouncing President Kim Dae-Jung,pushed past 300 police guarding a main road toward the Kwanghwamundistrict.
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Protestors in Sydney
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There were no violent clashes, but some student activists burnedeffigies of US President George WBush, President Kim and the USflag.
The authorities had been under pressure to prevent unrest fortheMay Day rallies following clashes with redundant Daewoo car workerslast month in which dozens of police and workers were injured.
In Poland around 6,000 supporters of the left-wing opposition marchedpeacefully through the capital to protest highunemployment, whichhas hit a six-year high of 15.9per cent under the conservativegovernment.
There was a huge turnout to mark May Day in Moscow with tens ofthousands of trade unionists andleftists marching through Moscow,with Communists demanding the government's dismissal amidnostalgiafor Soviet times.
Communist Party leader Mr Gennady Zyuganov led a procession throughthe centre of the Russian capital towards a momument to Karl Marxbeside the Kremlin that gathered up to 15,000 people.
Some 2,000 members of the IndependentUnion marched throughoutcentral Belgrade to mark the firstMay Day after the fall of formerpresident Mr Slobodan Milosevic andhis authoritarian regime.
Meanwhile thousands of Thai workers assembledpeacefully in Bangkokand called on the government to protecttheir livelihoods.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra paid a visit to the workerswhocelebrated with picnics and balloons at a local fairground,pledgingto solve workers' problems amid Thailand's gatheringeconomicgloom.
Further job losses are on the horizonaccording to an employmentstudy released yesterday by an independentThai think tank.
More than 5,000 Hungarians demonstrated against the new labour code,charging that it restrictsworkers' rights, and demanded betterwages at a rally organised bytrade unions.
The labour code was adopted by rightwing Prime Minister ViktorOrban's coalition in April despite widespread protest and ademonstrationthat attracted some 50,000 people.
Truncheon-wielding Turkishpolice broke up what they called anillegal worker's daydemonstration in the mainly Kurdish city ofDiyarbakir leaving five people injured.
The police action came when a group of some 100 people,includingtrade unionists and members of the pro-Kurdish People'sDemocracyParty (HADEP), convened to mark May Day despite a ban bylocalauthorities on all kinds of demonstrations.
Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered in 44 Turkishcities,including Istanbul and the capital Ankara, at demonstrationsapproved by local authorities.
Turkish police usually beef up security prior to May 1, whichhas inthe past served as an occasion for clashes between securityforcesand demonstrators.
The most deadly May Day in Istanbul was in 1977, when 37protesterswere killed in the city's central Taksim square duringclashesbetween demonstrators and police.
AFP