Additional reporting by Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Staff

Protestors burn U.S., Israeli flags, symbol of terrorism according to one demonstrator

CAIRO, January 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In what observers branded “clear-cut no message to the U.S. military plans against Iraq”, people all over the globe flooded the streets Saturday, January 18, to demonstrate against spelling more human blood, whether for oil or for any other reason.

In Germany, several thousands people took part in two large scale demonstrations Saturday, January 18, to protest U.S. preparations for a war with Iraq, police and organizers said, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In the north eastern port city of Rostock, 3,000 protestors took part in a demonstration called by the post communist faction in the state parliament and a local residents' group, police said.

The organizers of the protest said that as many as 5,000 demonstrators were involved.

Meanwhile, in the southwestern university town of Tuebingen, 1,000 people followed a call by pacifist and anti-globalization groups to take to the streets, according to police and organizers.

Iraq was also due to be one of the main topics at a major meeting of the anti-globalization association ATTAC, which is taking place this weekend in the northern city of Goettingen.

A massive protest against war is planned to take place February 15 in Berlin.

Demonstrations were also held in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, and several other countries

In Britain, whose Prime Minister is (U.S. President George W. Bush’s staunchest ally), demonstrators gathered in several cities Saturday to join worldwide protests against a possible U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Police said they arrested one woman, aged 67, outside Northwood, the permanent joint headquarters of the British armed forces, in northwest London, where about 200 demonstrators gathered.

Northwood was the focal point of the British protests, with protesters - by way of an act of civil disobedience - snapping photographs of the facility in deliberate breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Hundreds of other protesters rallied in the northern English city of Bradford, in an event organized by peace group Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In the Irish Republic, some 1,000 people were expected at the gates of Shannon airport to protest against its use as a refueling stop for U.S. warplanes en route to the Gulf.

Later Saturday, candlelit vigils were to be held in Birmingham, Nottingham and in London's Trafalgar Square where former Labor MP and veteran left-winger Tony Benn was to give a keynote speech.

In France, an anti-war demonstration kicked off in central Paris with hundreds of union and left-wing activists demanding the United States abandon preparations for a military strike on Iraq.

Protesters from around 40 organizations rallied behind the banner "No to war on Iraq, Yes to a world of justice, peace and democracy," to denounce U.S. preparations for a war against the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

The demonstration, grouping left-wing, student, feminist and peace activists, was one of several planned throughout France Saturday as Washington increased its military build-up in the Gulf.

Similar protests were underway or planned in other parts of Europe as well as across Asia and the Middle East over the weekend.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 demonstrators marched through the southwestern Swedish city of Gothenburg Saturday to protest against the looming U.S.-led war on Iraq, Swedish news agency TT reported.

Only a handful of policemen were on hand to keep an eye on the demonstrators as they marched quietly through the centre of the city. "This is calm and quiet, no problems. But the protest gathered a lot more people than we expected," police commissioner Tommy Johansson told TT.

In Vienna, around 1,000 people took part in a demonstration against a U.S.-led war on Iraq Friday night, one of the organizers of the protest, the "Anti-Imperialist Coordination", said Saturday.

Most of the demonstrators were students or schoolchildren. They went from the university in the city center to the nearby U.S. embassy where they burned a U.S. flag and chanted "Stop the War", "Lift the embargo (against Baghdad)" and "No European participation" in a war on Iraq, police said.

Another demonstration in the Austrian capital against a war on Iraq is scheduled for February 15.

Russians & Japanese, Too 

"I hope that President Bush, who is acting like a cowboy, will recognize that an era of western films is over," one demonstrator said.

In Russia, several hundred activists wielding banners of Lenin and Stalin and waving red flags demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy Saturday against a U.S. war on Iraq.

The demonstrators, who arrived to the sound of revolutionary songs broadcast by loud-speakers from a lorry, brandished placards denouncing the United States as a "terrorist" and "world policeman" and President George W. Bush as "Hitler" and his policies "fascist."

Slogans included "Yankee, hands off Iraq" and (President Vladimir) "Putin, stop kowtowing to Bush".

One of the organizers, Sergei Mitropolsky, told AFP he expected up to 3,000 people to take part.

"We decided to organize this demonstration on Saturday so that more people can come," he said. "We want to show that Muscovites are against a war in Iraq."

"As a grandmother, I am against war," pensioner Lyudmila Pudnikova said. "It's terrible. The people in Iraq are afraid every day that they will be killed by U.S. bombs," she said, adding that she would like to see "socialism rule all over the world."

In the far east of the globe, several thousand people staged rallies across Japan Saturday, kicking off a worldwide demonstration against war in Iraq.

Protests were being held from the nation's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido to the southernmost Okinawa, ranging from study group meetings to concerts.

In the capital, a massive rally began with a concert in a park close to the Kasumigaseki government ministry district, including a performance to the beat of traditional drums from Okinawa, which hosts about two-thirds of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

Participants then marched through Tokyo's main streets through Ginza, Tokyo's glitziest shopping street.

"Between 4,000 and 5,000 people gathered when we started marching," said an organizer, adding more people were expected to join the protest later.

One protester carried a signboard that said "Don't let us suffer any more" along with a picture of a smiling Muslim girl. Similar rallies were held in more than 10 Japanese cities.

Tomoharu Yamauchi, 45, a coffee shop owner in Tokyo, said he took part in the protests to express his anger over Bush's aggressive stance. "I hope that President Bush, who is acting like a cowboy, will recognize that an era of western films is over," Yamauchi said.

"We have to stop (the United States) from killing people. Victims are always the weak."

One American man, David Loy, carried a banner, which read: "Today, I am ashamed to be a U.S. citizen".

"There is really no good justification for war there," said Loy, a 55-year-old from Chicago who teaches philosophy and religion at the private Bunkyo University near Tokyo.

Loy said Washington's real aim in wanting to go to war against Iraq was to gain control of its precious oil reserves and extend its influence in the Middle East.

"It is absurd that we're using the excuse of weapons of mass destruction that Iraq might have when the country in the world that has the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction is the United States. This is crazy," he said.

"There is a rogue nation in the world right now, but it's not Iraq. It's the United States."

Demonstrations were also held in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, and several other countries, including massive rallies in major U.S. cities. It seemed like the peoples of the world decided, without prior organization, to express their refusal to the U.S. justifications to get a go-ahead for its plans against the people of Iraq.

According to analysts, Bush may be able, through horse-trading and political as well as economic blackmail, to get a go-ahead from the Security Council to strike Iraq. Therefore, the peoples of the world blocked that authorization with that popular veto.

The question remains though, will that work?