A demonstration in Patan, which adjoins Kathmandu, turned violent Friday with more than 100 protesters throwing stones and bricks at police who responded with tear gas and baton charges.

Some protesters were badly beaten as they were arrested, AFP reporters at the scene said.

The streets of the capital were deserted again Friday apart from the heavy security presence and sporadic protests usually by small numbers of people.

Defying a ban on public meetings, opposition parties have called a four-day general strike against King Gyanendra's power grab over a year ago and have paralysed the Himalayan kingdom.

The royal government has locked up dozens of political leaders and arrested hundreds of people this week for breaking the ban.

"This is the final push of the movement. The days of the king are numbered," said Sova Sapkota, an activist with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) as she prepared to take part in a protest in the capital.

"We will continue to defy the ban order," she said.

Newspapers issued ominous warnings about the government crackdown.

"The present aggressive course of the government is certain to escalate conflict and deepen instability further. Sooner or later the government will have to agree to a political solution," the Himalayan Times said in a Friday editorial.

International criticism of the government has mounted, with the United States, the European Union, India and Japan all expressing concern and urging the government to release those detained.

A major protest was set for the capital Kathmandu on Saturday amid rising anger over the deteriorating situation since the king seized absolute power in February 2005.

The action was called by sidelined opposition parties and has the support of rebel Maoists who have formed a loose alliance with political leaders to restore democracy.

King Gyanendra took over saying the politicians had failed to tackle a Maoist insurgency which has raged since 1996 and left around 12,500 people dead.

Police said late Thursday that some 200 people had been arrested at several demonstrations during the day, but political activists said that at least 300 had been detained while a UN rights body put the tally at 160.

"Our teams... have not been able to cover all demonstrations and all arrests. We can verify from our own monitoring over 160 arrests on Thursday," said Kieran Dwyer of the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Despite the tough stance taken by authorities -- demonstrators said one protester died in southeast Nepal Thursday after being beaten by police, who said the man had died of a heart attack -- the strike and protests are set to continue.

"Our movement will not stop until complete democracy is restored in the country and we are confident that people will actively participate in our protests," said Parajuli of the Nepali Congress Party.

A British military spokesman said he could not confirm that two soldiers had been wounded and referred questions to the U.S. military. The U.S. military said it would be releasing a statement shortly.

Taliban insurgents fighting to expel foreign troops and overthrow the Western-backed government have unleashed a wave of violence in recent weeks, including attacks on military bases, ambushes and roadside and suicide bombings.

British forces are spearheading an expansion of a
NATO-led peacekeeping force into the Afghan south, as the United States prepares to trim its force in Afghanistan and hand over responsibilities to fellow NATO members.

British soldiers have been arriving in Lashkar Ghar over recent weeks to prepare for a full deployment of 3,300 troops in the province, which is also Afghanistan's main opium-growing region.

"A consignment of these vehicles has been bought on the eve of the ... St Petersburg G8 summit," Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted Vladimir Golubyev, deputy head of the city's riot police, as saying.

"Vehicles like these are already used in Europe, for example against anti-globalization protesters during mass disturbances," he said. "It is a very effective piece of kit."

He did not say how many water cannon had been bought or how much they cost.

President Bush will lead a roster of world leaders arriving in Russia for the summit. Russia is chairing the group of wealthy nations for the first time.

The summit is a matter of personal prestige for Russian President
Vladimir Putin. He is a St Petersburg native and has lavished state funds on sprucing up his hometown.

Authorities said last month they would for the first time in Russia be deploying unmanned drones to patrol the airspace over the city during the summit.

The ship's owners had failed to include the aircraft in a special import license, the official said, and the Hong Kong authorities have impounded it pending completion of an investigation.

Ukraine's defense ministry earlier denied any connection with the aircraft.

Ukrspetsexport, Ukraine's sole weapons exporter, said it had sold the MiG-29 to a U.S. company as a museum exhibit or for scrap.

"This plane was sold in 2005 as a museum exhibit," a spokesperson said. "That is why it has been stripped of all weaponry and cannot be used as a combat aircraft."

The seizure is not the first time Soviet- and Russian-made military aircraft have been confiscated in Hong Kong, a special administrative region that enjoys a relatively large degree of autonomy.

In 2000, five Russian fighters being sent to the China Aviation Industry Supply and Marketing Corporation were confiscated over incorrect paperwork.

Under Hong Kong legislation, the maximum punishment for violation of customs regulations is a fine of 500,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $62,000) and a two-year prison term.

President Jacques Chirac has already effectively suspended the contested First Employment Contract (CPE), asking the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) to draw up a new law after consulting leaders of the protest movement.

Several commentators said Chirac's government appeared to have all but given up on the youth contract, which makes it easier to fire under-26 year-olds, but was looking for a way to repeal it without losing face.

"How to come up with a measure that looks, tastes and acts like an abrogation, but is not called an abrogation?" summed up an editorial in the left-wing Liberation newspaper.

UMP lawmakers were Friday wrapping up three days of meetings with unions and student groups, as well as the MEDEF employers' association and the CGPME small business federation, before deciding on the contents of the new law.

One union, Solidaires, said after meeting the UMP that the party "understood the urgency" of the situation, but that no announcement would be made before Monday.

MEDEF head Laurence Parisot warned Friday that the protest movement - in which students have targeted transport and industry - risked harming the French economy.

"We must do everything to quickly end this crisis, which is costing our country dearly," Parisot told France 2 television. "It is time to end this colossal disruption, which harms not only our image but our very social fabric."

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's authority has been badly undermined by the labour conflict, and his chances as a presidential candidate all but destroyed, although on Thursday he ruled out resigning over the crisis.

Humiliatingly for Villepin, responsibility for negotiating a way out of the crisis has been handed to his powerful rival, UMP chief and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Commentators say that many supporters of Sarkozy in the UMP are angry at Villepin's handling of the reform and feel little attachment to the CPE.

On Friday, former minister Roselyne Bachelot - a Sarkozy ally and senior UMP official - became the latest party figure to call openly for the CPE to be scrapped.

"Speaking in my own name, I want an abrogation, so that we can put this behind us," she said on Canal Plus television.

Conceived as a tool against youth unemployment, which runs at 22 percent in France, the CPE is a contract for under 26-year-olds that can be terminated by the employer without explanation during a two-year trial period.

It provoked a massive backlash, with Villepin accused of trampling on hard-won labour rights, and a sometimes violent protest movement in which more than 3,500 people have been arrested.

Students have been staging wildcat protests to keep up the pressure on the government - blocking two factories belonging to the aircraft manufacturer Airbus on Thursday - but there were signs of the movement fizzling out.

Friday marks the start of the academic holidays in around a third of the country, with other regions to follow, and there are mounting calls for work to resume at disrupted schools and universities in time for end-of-year exams.

Wildcat protests continued in some areas, however, such as in Nantes in the west, students blocked bus and tramway depots for several hours.

In Le Havre in the north, around 400 students occupied the offices of a UMP deputy before heading to the courtroom and city hall to press their demands.

The protestors were crossing Boulevard Saint Germain, south of the River Seine, after staging a rally outside the Sorbonne University in protest at the government's unpopular youth job reform.

Police chased and stopped the driver, ordering him out of his car, which was immediately set upon and overturned by angry students.

Students have been carrying out blockades of roads, rail traffic and industrial sites across France to force the government to repeal its First Employment Contract, which makes it easier to fire under-26-year-olds.