Six million around the world voice their protest against war

AN estimated six million people around the world marched in protest against a US-led war on Iraq.

In a huge wave of demonstrations not seen since the Vietnam War, peace protesters from 600 cities took to the streets at the weekend.

More than 200,000 people, some waving banners asking "How many lives per litre?" thronged the streets of the Australian capital Sydney yesterday , beginning a second day of global marches calling on the United States not to attack Iraq.

Australia is one of Washington's staunchest allies and has deployed around 2,000 troops to the Middle East. Prime Minister Mr John Howard reaffirmed his support for the policy of US President George W Bush.

Mr Howard said yesterday he was not convinced that large crowds at anti-war rallies in the country's major cities were evidence that public opinion was against war. Organisers said yesterday's(OK) Sydney demonstration was Australia's largest ever and said half-a-million took part.

Rome claimed the biggest turnout 1 million according to police, while organisers claimed three times that figure. In London, at least 750,000 people demonstrated in what police called the city's largest demonstration ever. In Spain, several million people turned out at anti-war rallies in about 55 cities and towns across the country, with more than 500,000 each attending rallies in Madrid and Barcelona.

Organisers claimed nearly 2 million people gathered across the nation in one of the biggest demonstrations since the 1975 death of dictator General Francisco Franco.

More than 70,000 people marched in Amsterdam in the largest Netherlands demonstration since anti-nuclear rallies of the 1980s.

Berlin had up to half-a-million people on the streets, and Paris was estimated to have had about 100,000.

Well over 100,000 people attended anti-war demonstrations in Dublin and Belfast.

In New York, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu told around 100,000 demonstrators outside the United Nations that the US should allow UN inspectors to finish their task of searching Iraq for illicit weapons.

In Los Angeles, thousands of chanting marchers filled Hollywood Boulevard for four blocks.

Rome protesters showed their disagreement with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's support for Mr Bush, while demonstrators in Paris and Berlin backed the sceptical stances of their governments.

Some leaders in German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government participated in the Berlin protest, which turned the tree-lined boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the 19th-century Victory Column into a sea of banners, balloons emblazoned with "No war in Iraq" and demonstrators swaying to live music.

In the Paris crowd at the Place Denfert-Rochereau, a large American flag bore the black inscription, "Leave us alone".

Police estimated that 60,000 turned out in Oslo, Norway; 50,000 in bitter cold in Brussels, Belgium and about 35,000 in Stockholm, Sweden.

Crowds were estimated at 60,000 in Seville, Spain; 40,000 in Bern, Switzerland; 30,000 in Glasgow, Scotland; 25,000 in Copenhagen, Denmark; 15,000 in Vienna, Austria; more than 20,000 in Montreal and 15,000 in Toronto; 5,000 in Cape Town and 4,000 in Johannesburg in South Africa; 5,000 in Tokyo; and 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

An estimated 2,000 Israelis and Palestinians marched together against war in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

In Ukraine, some 2,000 people rallied in snowy Kiev's central square. Anti-globalists led a peaceful "Rock Against War" protest joined by communists, socialists, Kurds and pacifists.

In divided Cyprus, about 500 Greeks and Turks braved heavy rain to briefly block a British air base runway. Several thousand protesters in Athens, Greece, unfurled a giant banner across the wall of the Acropolis "NATO, US and EU equals War" before heading toward the US Embassy.