ATHENS-Greece's fu­ture in the eu­ro­zone came un­der re­newed threat yes­ter­day as pop­u­lar protests again turned vi­o­lent and dis­sent grew among its law­mak­ers af­ter Eu­ro­pean lead­ers de­mand­ed deep­er spend­ing cuts. The coun­try's be­lea­guered coali­tion gov­ern­ment promised to push through the tough new aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures and res­cue a cru­cial &eu­ro;130 bil­lion (US$170 bil­lion) bailout deal af­ter six mem­bers of the Cab­i­net re­signed. Prime Min­is­ter Lu­cas Pa­pademos promised to "do every­thing nec­es­sary" to en­sure par­lia­ment pass­es the new aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures that would slap Greeks with a min­i­mum wage cut dur­ing a fifth year of re­ces­sion. He al­so promised to re­place any oth­er Cab­i­net mem­bers who did not ful­ly back his ef­forts.

In cen­tral Athens, clash­es erupt­ed out­side Par­lia­ment be­tween dozens of hood­ed youths and po­lice in ri­ot gear. Po­lice said eight of­fi­cers and two mem­bers of the pub­lic were in­jured, while six sus­pect­ed ri­ot­ers were ar­rest­ed. Debt-strick­en Greece does not have the mon­ey to cov­er a &eu­ro;14.5 bil­lion bond re­pay­ment on March 20, and must reach a vi­tal debt-re­lief deal with pri­vate bond in­vestors be­fore then. Pa­pademos said the bailout and the deal with pri­vate cred­i­tors would re­turn Greece to growth next year, and de­liv­er a 4.5 per cent pri­ma­ry sur­plus in 2012-bet­ter than an ear­li­er of­fi­cial pre­dic­tion of 1.1 per cent of gross do­mes­tic prod­uct.

AP