HAVANA -- Millions of workers commemorated May Day yesterday by staging largely peaceful rallies to press for better conditions or protest government policies.

But in Moscow, celebrations of the international workers' holiday turned violent when radical activists from the National Bolshevik Party and the Red Youth Avant-Garde political group clashed with riot police after several activists were detained.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, leader of one of the world's last communist regimes, demanded the United States expel a Cuban-born militant accused of blowing up a civilian jetliner.

China used the day to single out thousands of laborers and a few athletes for recognition, dubbing them 'model workers,' while the weeklong labor day holiday started with visits to squares and parks for kite flying and recreation.

Up to 5,000 Bangladeshis demanded the country's first ever minimum wage -- $50 a month. The South Asian country has 1.8 million workers in about 2,500 garment factories, exporting more than $5 billion in textiles each year.

More than 500,000 Germans staged rallies, with many accusing executives of increasing earnings while squeezing wages and slashing jobs.

Flanked by aides in red T-shirts, Castro looked out at hundreds of thousands in vast Plaza of the Revolution and demanded Washington expel Luis Posada Carriles accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976 that killed 73 people. Posada denies involvement.

Castro called Posada "the most famous and cruel terrorist of the Western hemisphere."

Posada, now 77, along with three associates were imprisoned in Panama in a plot in 2000 to kill Castro at a conference in Panama. They were pardoned last year by outgoing President Mireya Moscoso and Posada has not been seen publicly since then but has been reported to be in Florida.

Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto, says his client worked for the CIA for years and deserves asylum because he would face possible execution if returned to Cuba.

Cuban officials say Posada was involved in many attacks. He has acknowledged planning bombings of Cuban hotels, one of which killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

In France, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen marked the workers' holiday by urging his countrymen to reject the European Union constitution in a May 29 referendum.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese workers rallied for a global ban on nuclear weapons.