Master of delusion

Protesters burn posters George Bush during a demonstration in Manila to mark his inauguration for a second term as US president. Photograph: Pat Roque/AP
Not everyone is delighted about George Bush's big inauguration day today and there will be anti-Bush protests both in the US and elsewhere around the world.

Some are trying to protest directly in Washington - even though it has been turned into something of a fortress - some expatriates are holding vigils, and others are simply drinking and plotting.

In today's Guardian, Suzanne Goldenberg outlines some of the US protests, including one by Turn Your Back on Bush whose supporters will be trying to do exactly that on the streets of Washington. Meanwhile, inaugurationmedia.org promises independent coverage of the day.

Here in the UK, the Stop the War coalition is planning to hold a candlelit protest outside the US embassy in London's Grosvenor Square, and other demonstrations have already taken place in Manila, Seoul and Tokyo.

Meanwhile, the UK branch of Democrats Abroad has organised a talk by Ron Suskind, who wrote the Bush-bashing book the Price of Loyalty.

The Associated Press reports that the Austrianchapter of Democrats Abroad has cancelled its black-tie "un-augural ball" because of the tsunami but will gather at a Vienna wine bar "to scheme, plot and plan the retaking of our country".

Last night in Berlin, American Voices Abroad led a candlelit vigil at the landmark Brandenburg Gate, holding a dozen American flags upside down to symbolise an SOS distress call.

In France, Democrats Abroad last night screened Bush's Brain and called on its supporters in Paris to dress in Democrat blue tonight and gather at a trendy bar for "a dialogue of truth about the Bush agenda and its global effect on all of us". They have been looking east for inspiration and AP reported that young campaigners in Ukraine who worked to elect opposition reformist Viktor Yushchenko as president had been invited to their event.

In Prague, supporters of Senator John Kerry planned what they called the "what might have been inaugural party," and in Geneva, they were holding a "counter-inaugural dinner" starting with a reading of the Langston Hughes poem, Let America Be America Again.