Police and protesters clashed near the convention hall shortly before John McCain accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Around 250 people were arrested in what started as a peaceful demonstration.

Nearly 1,000 activists, many of them students, had gathered to march to the venue in St Paul, Minnesota, to denounce the war in Iraq, which McCain has strongly supported. But security forces blocked their path, ordering activists to disperse. Flash grenades and teargas were used to herd demonstrators onto a bridge.

More than 400 protesters had already been arrested, over the course of the four-day convention.

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