Thousands of Chinese supporters and Japanese nationalists scuffled Saturday, injuring one Chinese student, as the Olympic torch ran through here on its troubled worldwide relay.


The streets of the central mountain town of Nagano were a sea of red Chinese national flags interspersed with dozens of large Tibetan flags, for the latest leg of the relay which has been marred by anti-Beijing protests.
Some right-wing groups waved Japan's old imperial flag and shouted, "Chinese, go home!"
One Chinese student at the rally suffered a cut to his forehead in a scuffle with Japanese nationalists. He was taken to a hospital but his injuries were not serious, a fire department official said.
The relay was briefly stopped as nationalists threw objects that media reports said were flares. Police immediately sealed off the area as furious Chinese shouted, "Arrest them! Arrest them!"
At another point, police tackled down one person who tried to jump into the road and seize the torch.
"At first I didn't think I would come here as I didn't have the time or money," said Xin Xin, a 24-year-old Chinese student wearing a Chinese flag.
"But many things happened this past week. We had to come here to support the Olympic games in China," he said.
The torch relay has been dogged by demonstrations against China's rule in Tibet and its human rights record, protests that have outraged China, which had hoped to make the Games a symbol of their nation's rising international clout.
China, under intense international pressure for dialogue over Tibet, announced Friday it would meet envoys of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, in the first talks since violence erupted there last month.
The Nagano leg kicked off in a parking lot rather than a celebrated Buddhist temple, which withdrew as the starting point in a protest over China's crackdown in predominantly Buddhist Tibet.
The Zenkoji temple instead held a prayer ceremony to mourn both Chinese and Tibetans killed in the recent unrest. Some 300 people prayed in silence as 20 orange-robed monks read out the names of victims and hit a gong.
Senichi Hoshino, head coach of Japan's Olympic baseball team, was the first of 80 runners to set off on the 18.7-kilometre (11.5-mile), four-hour relay, accompanied by two lines of Japanese police.
In keeping with Japanese government requests, only two Chinese guards were accompanying the torch. China has specially trained a crack squad to guard the flame, but their brusque treatment of demonstrators has caused controversy.
Police said late Friday they had made one arrest in Nagano, that of a man clad as an apprentice monk carrying a blade and a letter opposing the relay.
More than 3,000 police were deployed along the route in Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics, which has raised security to a level usually accorded to Emperor Akihito.
Japan has been trying to repair relations with China, which remain uneasy due to war memories, and has pledged to ensure top security for the relay.
China is one of the main targets for Japan's far-right activists, who are notorious for noisy demonstrations.
"I support the Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongolians and Taiwanese who are against China. We support any group that's against Communist China," said Yasuhiro Yagi, a self-described Japanese right-wing activist.
Robert Menard, the founder of rights group Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), also travelled to Nagano where he planned to wear his trademark T-shirt showing the five Olympic rings as handcuffs.
But he hailed China's announcement that it would meet Dalai Lama aides.
"If opening dialogue with the Dalai Lama's people is a sign of a broader discussion by Chinese authorities on human rights and freedom of expression in China, then we'll take another look at our strategy," he told AFP