WASHINGTON/LARNACA, 19 January 2003 — In the biggest day of protest the world has yet seen against a war in Iraq, from Washington to Tokyo, Liverpool to Damascus, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across four continents took to the streets yesterday.

The US was the scene of the biggest anti-war demonstrations of George W. Bush’s presidency, with tens of thousands of people braving freezing weather to join protests in Washington, San Francisco and other cities, despite the near-unanimous support for war on Capitol Hill and in the US media.

There was also a series of smaller anti-war demonstration in Britain, including a two-hour protest outside the Permanent Joint Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Northwood, north London. There were anti-war rallies or vigils in Bradford, Bristol, Hereford, Liverpool and Glasgow.

There were similar demonstrations across France and Germany, in Russia, Ireland, New Zealand, Japan, Pakistan and in the Middle East. One of the largest was in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The protests were made against the background of a continuous buildup of troops in the Gulf, and renewed political pressure on the Iraqi government to surrender any weapons of mass destruction.

Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix arrived in Cyprus ahead of scheduled talks in Baghdad. Blix said he was still unsatisfied with Iraq’s weapons disclosure, while atomic agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei revealed that UN arms experts had found 3,000 undisclosed documents apparently relating to nuclear weapons technology.

Speaking in an interview with CNN, El-Baradei asked why the Iraqis had not disclosed the documents, and warned that the inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction would continue to raid private homes despite protests. El-Baradei said the documents, which were being translated after being found at an Iraqi scientist’s home, dated from the 1980s and referred to "laser technology used for enriching uranium to make a nuclear bomb."

Blix, speaking to journalists at his hotel in Larnaca, Cyprus, again expressed dissatisfaction with the level of Iraqi cooperation with inspectors. "There has been prompt access, which is fine," he said, "but on substance there has not been sufficient cooperation. They need to have a sincere and genuine cooperation." He added: "I think it is in Iraq’s interests that the inspectors go in everywhere, whether it’s private or public."

Some 50,000 protesters near the Capitol building in Washington braved sub-freezing temperatures to carry placards saying "No blood for oil," and "Support our troops — keep them home," according to reporters on the scene. Police in Washington do not release crowd estimates, but organizers claimed some 200,000 people attended.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson addressed the shivering Washington crowd. "The world is cold but our hearts are warm, because we got fire in our belly for peace," he said. Jackson led marchers to a nearby navy installation in Washington, escorted by police on motorcycles and bicycles.

Anti-war rallies drew 200,000 people onto the streets of Paris and around 40 other French cities yesterday, organizers said. "In total some 200,000 people gathered across the country," said Pierre Villard, a co-president of the Movement for Peace, one of the groups which organized the rallies under the banner "No to war on Iraq, Yes to a world of justice, peace and democracy." He said 25,000 people had turned out in Paris, while police estimated the crowd at 6,000.

In Japan, organizers said up to 5,000 protesters had marched through Tokyo’s glitzy shopping district Ginza. Massive rallies were staged throughout the Middle East, including a march through the Syrian capital that brought 15,000 people into the streets. In neighboring Lebanon, more than 8,000 protesters marched to UN offices in central Beirut in the largest anti-war rally held in support of Iraq in the past year.

In Moscow, several hundred Communist activists wielding banners of Lenin and Stalin and waving red flags demonstrated outside the US Embassy against the threat of war. The militants, who arrived to the sound of revolutionary songs broadcast by loudspeakers from a lorry, brandished placards denouncing the United States as a "terrorist" and "world policeman" and Bush as "Hitler" and his policies "fascist."

El-Baradei had earlier said in Vienna that UN inspectors should be allowed to keep working in Iraq after Jan. 27, when he and Blix are to brief the UN Security Council on the results of the inspections. "To fulfill their mission, they will need some more time, a few months more," El-Baradei said. "Inspectors should be able to work beyond this date."

It is widely thought that following the report, the US will decide whether to launch an attack on Iraq. On the day after the report, Bush is due to give his State of the Union address. Blix and El-Baradei head to Baghdad today, where they will hold talks with senior officials.

In Rome, Bush’s top military adviser, Gen. Richard Myers, said that war with Iraq was not inevitable and the US military buildup in the Gulf is "totally reversible."

"There is no ‘point of no return’ in my mind," Myers said at a news conference in Rome. "At any time this is totally reversible." "From a military viewpoint, I can tell you ... I don’t think we’re any closer today than we were two days ago" to a conflict, Myers said. Myers comments came a day after US Secretary of State Colin Powell raised Washington’s tone against Iraq, accusing it of failing to comply with UN disarmament resolutions.

Egypt became the first of five Middle Eastern countries — Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria being the others — to accept Turkey’s proposal for a meeting to discuss ways of preventing a US-led war on Iraq. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reminded Iraq that it had "an obligation to implement UN Security Council resolutions" on disarmament "so that its people could be spared the war planned," Information Minister Sfwat Al-Sherif said.

Experts pushed ahead with their intensified search for banned weapons yesterday, returning to the Iraqi arms depot where they found the empty warheads, while other teams investigated mobile laboratories, state companies and colleges. New protests by Iraqi journalists greeted UN arms experts yesterday. (The Independent)