Trump presidency off to a fiery start

The Donald Trump presidency began with tradition but was also marred by the worst protest violence ever seen on inauguration day.

Trump attended three inaugural balls in Washington. He told the many supporters gathered at the balls that his first day as commander-in-chief was great. With his wife, Melania, the first couple danced to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” before being joined on stage by deputy president, Mike Pence, and his wife and Trump family members.

The newly installed president asked the crowd whether he should keep his Twitter account going, to roars of apparent approval. He said his all-hours tweeting to his more than 20 million followers was “a way of bypassing dishonest media”.

But the inauguration day was marred by violent protests that erupted in downtown Washington.

During the protest a limousine was set on fire just half a mile from Donald Trump’s victory parade.

Smoke filled the streets as the limousine burnt, with police filling the area and firing tear gas at protesters  and protesters lobbing rocks at the police.

Protesters had blocked security gates through which Mr Trump’s supporters were to enter the inauguration.

Environmental activists, their arms linked, succeeded in keeping attendees out for an extended period of time before at last being forcibly removed.

There were more than 200 arrests over the course of the afternoon, six police officers suffered minor injuries and the area remained tense into the evening.

Ronald Dye, 56, is the chief of police at Talladega College in Alabama, and travelled to Washington with students to watch the school’s marching band perform. Mr Dye said he hid under tables at Starbucks as 300 to 400 protesters swept past.

“They started throwing bricks at first, then they started throwing the trash bin but that didn’t work, then they picked up metal spikes and just started smashing the windows out,” he said.  “They had all that stuff in their backpacks.”

Mr Dye said they were terrified as the vandals wreaked havoc.

A standoff developed between police in riot gear and protesters hurling rocks, bottles and other objects. Police used smoke and flash-bang devices to try to scatter the protesters before closing in to make arrests as the crowd continued on through the scene of their destruction.

Left in their wake were broken windows and anarchist symbols spray painted on walls and emblazoned on an abandoned flag.

In addition to Starbucks the windows of a McDonald’s, Wells Fargo bank and several cars had been smashed.

As darkness began to set in protesters dressed in black began breaking up bricks and placing them in rucksacks near the scene of the limousine fire.

As night fell, protesters set a bonfire blocks from the White House. Police briefly ordered ball goers to remain inside their hotel as they worked to contain advancing protesters.

The largest demonstration associated with the inauguration will come today, as an estimated 200,000 women will flood into Washington DC for the Women’s March on Washington. The march could be one of the largest protests in the history of the US capital.

Thousands of protesters in Australia and New Zealand on Saturday joined “sister marches”.

In Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, about 3,000 people – men and women – gathered for a rally in Hyde Park before marching on the US consulate downtown.

Activists in London hung a banner reading “Build bridges not walls” on the city’s iconic Tower Bridge on Friday, in a reference to Trump’s signature campaign promise of building a wall on the US-Mexican border.

About 30 groups have obtained permits for protests they estimate will attract about 270,000 people on Friday and Saturday, far more than have been seen in other recent presidential inaugurations.