Demonstrators protest on anniversary of Iraq invasion

Two women have begun a fast outside the US Embassy in Wellington to show their solidarity with the people of Iraq.

Hana Plant and Emma Wills were part of a 150-strong demonstration in the capital yesterday.

Twenty protestors have pitched their tents on the lawn nearby.

Their protest came as thousands took to the streets across Europe to protest on the second anniversary of the war in Iraq.

Hana Plant is the woman who bared her breasts at Prince Charles.

Emma Wills was recently arrested at a protest over Wellington's inner city bypass.

They say their hunger strike will last until tomorrow.

Wills, a 20-year-old political science student, said they are fasting in support of victims of US imperialism everywhere.

She is condemning what she calls an appalling situation when police made three arrests at a protest at the ANZ Bank in Auckland yesterday.

She said police violently silenced a legitimate protest.

Around 300 protesters took to the streets of Auckland yesterday to mark the two-year anniversary of the launch invasion of Iraq.

It began on March 20, 2003.

Yesterday was an International Day of Action organised by the World Social Forum.

Workers Against the War on Terror spokesman Dave Bedggood said the war on Iraq still rankles with many, but especially young people.

He said three protesters were arrested after arguments with the police and members of the public outside the ANZ Bank in Victoria Street.

He said they targeted the ANZ, because they claim it is part of a consortium financing Iraq's trade.

He said they believe the bank is complicit with the continued occupation.

Protestors also gathered outside the US Embassy in Auckland, and smaller protests were held in several places in the inner city.

Police say despite the arrests, they are describing the protests as largely incident-free.

The protestors dispersed shortly after midday.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have marched through central London calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to get his troops out of the country.

Police said 45,000 people were taking part in the march on Saturday which wound from Hyde Park Corner past the American Embassy to a rally in Trafalgar Square.

"It is peaceful. There have been no incidents and no arrests," a police spokesman told Reuters.

The protesters placed a black cardboard coffin with the slogan "100,000 dead" scrawled across the daffodil-strewn lid against a tree in front of the American Embassy.

As the coffin was laid down, the crowd chanted: "George Bush ... Uncle Sam. Iraq will be your Vietnam."

Organisers, the Stop the War Coalition, said they had tried but failed to deliver a letter to the embassy insisting that Bush and his staunch ally Blair to pull all their forces out of Iraq.

"We demand that you set an early date for the swift withdrawal of our troops from occupied Iraq as the Italian government has been forced to do and restore full and unconditional sovereignty to the Iraqi people," the letter said.

Blair said on Wednesday he had no intention of an early withdrawal of British troops which are based in the southern part of Iraq around the city of Basra.

Stop the War said it hoped that eventually 250,000 people would join the march, one of many being held around the country and across the world to mark the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

- NEWSTALK ZB, REUTERS