Thousands of protesters marched against the Iraq War in the US and Britain on Saturday, with at least 2,000 people demonstrating in Los Angeles and 10,000 in London.
Police said that at least 2,000 people marched down Hollywood Boulevard in the tourist district of Los Angeles, holding up coffins draped with the US flag and led by veterans from various conflicts.
The protesters carried banners denouncing US President George W. Bush and calling for an end to the conflict. Organizers put the figure at 10,000.
The protest came ahead of the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20.
Jennifer Caldwell, spokeswoman for organizers the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition, said that "up to 10,000 persons marched today in Hollywood."
Vietnam war veteran Ron Kovic, whose book Born on the Fourth of July was turned into a film with Tom Cruise, joined the march in his wheelchair, flanked by other injured veterans.
Shot and paralyzed in Vietnam 40 years ago, he said he felt "sorrow" and "anguish" for the Iraqi people and for the US men and women fighting there, "who are suffering, who are losing their arms and legs, who are being killed."
"But I feel more than anything, when I see what's going on in Iraq I feel determined, determined to fight with everything within us to stop this madness," he said.
The march ended on Sunset Boulevard, where organizers said they hoped several California lawmakers and actors would join the demonstrators.
"We've been in the war for five years, right now we're about to be in a recession and trillions of our dollars are going to a war we don't want to be in," a protester told the crowd from the platform.
In Britain, thousands of anti-war protesters also joined marches to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the war.
They took to the streets in London and Glasgow, demanding that British troops pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the Stop The War coalition, which organized the marches, said that five years after the invasion of Iraq, the world had become "a much more dangerous place."
"Estimates suggest as many as 1 million people have died violent deaths as a result of the occupation of Iraq," spokesman Paul Collins said.
The British Foreign Office, however, disputed statements by Stop The War.
"In Iraq, there is clear evidence we are making steady progress, particularly in terms of security," a spokesman said.
"In Afghanistan NATO forces are winning the struggle against the Taliban," he said.
Organizers estimated that the London march had attracted up to 40,000 protesters. Police put the figure at 10,000. In Glasgow the demonstration attracted several hundred protesters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing