Hungarian far-right, police clash in Budapest

A crowd of several hundred people threw stones at policewearing riot gear in the centre of the city and policeresponded with tear gas rounds.

News portal Origo (www.origo.hu) said a petrol bomb wasthrown at a police car and state news agency MTI saidprotesters injured a photographer from a news organisation.

A police spokesman said that 21 people were arrested inminor clashes throughout the day and that three police had beenlightly injured.

Two protesters were accidentally set on fire by petrolbombs thrown by fellow demonstrators, state news agency MTIreported, but they were not badly hurt. No other injuries werereported amongst the demonstrators.

Earlier in the day a rally by the main opposition Fideszparty which attracted around 20,000 people passed offpeacefully.

Fidesz scored a major victory against the Socialist-ledgovernment last Sunday when it won a referendum to strike downfees for health and education, a part of the government'seffort to reform Hungary's ailing economy.

Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has seen his party'spopularity plunge to around 15 percent since he broke electionpromises and hiked taxes and slashed energy and drug subsidiesto rein in the budget deficit, which hit 9.2 percent of grossdomestic product in 2006.

His admission on a leaked tape that he had lied about thepoor state of the country's finances to win re-election in 2006triggered weeks of riots in which hundreds of people, mostlypolice, were injured.

(Reporting by David Chance)