Death to America Day

Thousands of people in Iran have been marking the eighteenth anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy in Teheran, which followed the fall of the Shah in 1979.

Iran calls it Death to America Day and has been celebrating with ceremonies in schools and rallies across the country.

Demonstrators assembled outside the former embassy building, burned American flags and heard the parliamentary speaker, Ali-Akbar Nateq-Nuri, describe the United States as an ignorant bully which thought it owned the world.

However, at a smaller event elsewhere, President Mohammed Khatami said Iran was protesting not against the American people but against their government.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service