March 24, 2003	Monday	Muharram 20, 1424

HONG KONG, March 23: Thousands of anti-war protesters on Sunday took to the streets of Asian cities for the fourth day running as anger against the US-led invasion continued to ripple across the globe.

One day after more than a million people demonstrated in Europe and North America, new protests were held in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

More than 200,000 people took to the streets in Lahore in what is believed to be Pakistan’s biggest demonstration yet of the US-led attack.

In Australia, more than 40,000 people took part in protests in Sydney, Adelaide and the capital Canberra to denounce Prime Minister John Howard’s decision to commit some 2,000 troops to the US-led force.

Although the numbers were down from the 500,000 people who took part in the biggest anti-war protests since the Vietnam war five weeks ago, feelings were running high.

Police said an estimated 30,000 chanting demonstrators marched through Sydney, waving banners with slogans such as “Howard’s war — bloody outrage”.

At least 5,000 protesters from 23 regional towns marched through Canberra and another 5,000 packed Adelaide’s city centre. They followed similar rallies in recent days in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Hobart.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of eastern Afghanistan in the country’s first protests against the war.

More than 10,000 people swarmed through Laghman province’s capital Mehtarlam.

In the Indonesian capital Jakarta the US embassy was again the focus of anger, one day after some 3,000 radicals besieged the compound.—AFP