Park, surrounded by dozens of police officers on foot or on bicycles and hundreds more in buses and trailed by a water cannon,

ambulances and helicopters overhead. Many of the Chinese who had gathered at the park surged toward about 150 protesters, mostly old South Koreans and North Korean defectors, who were shouting, No human rights, no Olympics, from across a boulevard. Armed with plastic shields, the police scuffled with the Chinese as they tried to separate the two groups who were hurling objects at each other. At least one Chinese student was hauled away by the police for throwing a rock. A South Korean newspaper photographer was taken to the hospital with a cut on his head. The torch arrived in Seoul from Nagano, Japan, where protesters hurled garbage and flares during its run on Saturday and brawled with Chinese government supporters, who accused the West of vilifying Beijing. There, too, Chinese supporters had far outnumbered those protesting the run. In Seoul, several Chinese students, speaking in Korean, said in interviews that they were angered by efforts to politicize the Games and that they gathered to show our defense of them. I am so happy that we host the Olympics, so proud that I

disguise of world harmony, he said. You will see a scary Nazi-like scene tomorrow when the torch runs through Pyongyang and all those people are mobilized for the event. Several Western countries, including the United States, have urged China to resume talks with aides of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, whom Beijing has accused of masterminding recent unrest in Tibet.Chinas official news agency had indicated on Friday that Chinese officials were willing to meet with envoys of the Dalai Lama, but on Sunday the Chinese Communist Partys leading newspaper, The Peoples Daily, continued to criticize him and praised protesers against Tibetan self-rule as patriotic heroes, Reuters reported. Many placards that the Chinese waved Sunday in Seoul criticized the Dalai Lama or addressed the problems in his homeland. Tibet is part of China forever, one sign said. In Beijing, Vice President Xi Jinping said Sunday that France needed to take concrete actions and work with China to improve relations after the chaotic protests of the Olympic torch relay in Paris on April 7, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Xi met Sunday with Jean-David Levitte, the top diplomatic envoy of President

2008 Olympics causes protests throughout Asia.

police officers. The globe-trotting relay of the torch leading to the Beijing Games in August has spurred protests in some cities against Chinas crackdown on protests for independence in Tibet. However, in South Korea, one of the torchs final stops before entering the safety of China, demonstrators focused on human rights for North Koreans who live in hiding in China after fleeing hunger in their homeland. According to Chinese state media, the torch arrived late on Sunday in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, one place where the Chinese authorities can be sure there will be no protests. North Korea, an ally of China, said it was preparing an amazing welcome, indicating that the totalitarian government would mobilize hundreds of thousands of flower-waving people. Hours before the torch run began in Seoul, which hosted the 1988 Summer Games, several thousand Chinese, mostly students studying in South Korea, converged on the Olympic Park, singing, chanting and waving signs that read, We love China, or, Go, Go China. With groups of Chinese marching with Chinese flags wrapped around them, the park looked like a sea of red. When a few protesters demanded that China stop repatriating North Korean refugees, they were quickly surrounded by jeering Chinese. Near the park, Chinese students surrounded and beat a small group of protesters, news reports said. In another scuffle, at the city center where the five-hour torch run ended, Chinese surrounded several Tibetans and South Korean supporters who unfurled pro-Tibet banners, and kicked and punched them, witnesses said. The largest scuffle erupted shortly after the first torch-bearer left the Olympic

EOUL, South Korea Thousands of young Chinese who assembled to defend their countrys troubled Olympic torch relay pushed through police lines here on Sunday, some of them hurling rocks, bottled water and plastic and steel pipes at protesters who were demanding better treatment for North Korean refugees in China. Two North Korean defectors living in South Korea poured paint thinner on themselves and tried to set themselves on fire to protest what they condemned as Beijings inhumane crackdown on North Korean refugees, but the police stopped them, according to witnesses and officials. The South Korean police and Chinese students also overpowered at least two other protesters who tried to impede the run along a 15-mile route through Seoul. The route was kept secret until the last minute and was guarded by more than 8,300

am a Chinese, said Yu Liping, a Chinese student who took an early morning train from his provincial college to Seoul. I hate those who try to throw cold water on our celebration. Gao Yu, a student from Inner Mongolia, accused CNN and other news outlets in the West of spreading lies. We want to show to the world that China is one, he said. Although the torch run stirred little interest among South

back North Koreans it catches as illegal economic migrants, a policy condemned by rights groups. Once repatriated, the North Koreans face life-threatening punishment in labor camps, say rights groups. Even as it is preparing for the Olympics, China is arresting North Korean refugees and sending them to the valley of death, said Han Chang-kwon, a leader of North Korean defectors. Is that an Olympic spirit?

We want to show the world that china is one, Gao Yu said.

Koreans in general, thousands of North Korean defectors in the South and their supporers saw it as an opportunity to press Beijing to better protect North Korean refugees in China. In recent years, thousands of North Koreans have fled across the loosely controlled Chinese border. China sends

Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor and advocate for North Korean refugees, found himself surrounded by jeering Chinese students on Sunday. This torch run reminds me of Hitler, who first invented it in 1936 to divert world attention from human rights problems in Germany under the