ITALY: On a brilliant, sunny afternoon, an estimated three million people took to the streets of Rome for Saturday's colourful, noisy but peaceful demonstration against the threat of US-led military intervention in Iraq.
As always on occasions like this, opinions differed on the number of participants, with security forces counting just 650,000 marchers in and around the final rallying point in Piazza San Giovanni. In contrast, the organisers claimed that more than three million people had joined the march at some point during its 10-kilometre odyssey from the station of Ostiense to the Basilica of San Giovanni.
Parties from the centre-left opposition, a variety of Catholic lay groups, hard-line party Rifondazione Communista, trade unionists, Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, ex-state president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, anti-globalisation activists, Palestinians, Kurds and non-EU immigrant groups all joined with show-biz personalities such as American film director Spike Lee and Italian Oscar-winning comic Roberto Benigni, as well as thousands of ordinary Italians, for a demonstration that took over the centre of the Eternal City.
A massive security presence around the US embassy in central Via Veneto proved unnecessary, since at no point did the march degenerate into violent or even rowdy behaviour. Instead, the atmosphere was festive, dominated by the rainbow colours of hundreds of thousands of peace flags and by an eclectic variety of street music.
Thousands of differently worded banners all bore the same basic message - "No To War" - with many pointing an equally accusatory finger at both the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and at US policy on Iraq. Even Italy's rugby team - surprise 30-22 winners of their Six Nations tie with Wales in Rome on Saturday - got into the act, carrying a banner reading, "No War, Play Rugby" around the Flaminio Stadium at the end of their match.
Predictably, too, the huge success of Saturday's march seems sure to prove an embarrassment for the centre-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been one of the most outspoken of European leaders in his support of President Bush.
Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini, of right-wing Alleanza Nazionale, set the tone for the government's response: "After all these marches, peace is unfortunately no closer. On the contrary, this ideological anti-Americanism and totalitarian pacifism, not to mention blindness in the face of terrorism, can certainly fill the streets with rainbows and red flags but even more certainly will do nothing to induce Saddam to disarm." Centre-left opposition leader, Mr Piero Fassino, replied by claiming that the huge numbers who attended Saturday's march had given Mr Berlusconi "a lesson"
"For the United Nations, these marches are the proof that the 'Old Continent' can still recite an important role." While the thousands were marching in Rome, Saddam Hussein was receiving the Pope's personal envoy, French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, in Baghdad. Cardinal Etchegaray declined to reveal the contents of his discussion with the Iraqi leader but said: "The Iraqi people were at the centre of our conversation since over the last few days I have seen how much, from Baghdad to Mosul, the Iraqi people and even Saddam Hussein desire a lasting and just peace."