Trump's inauguration greeted with protests at home and abroad

Protests have erupted across the world, from anti-racism groups to women's rights campaigners, as Donald Trump was inaugurated as 45th president of the United States.

Just as Trump's election victory drew widespread outrage and demonstrations, his swearing in ceremony on Friday was greeted with rallies against the business tycoon's presidency.

Demonstrations turned violent in Washington where black-clad activists smashed windows and police in riot gear responded with pepper spray and stun grenades.

About 500 people, some wearing masks over their faces, marched through the city's downtown, breaking the windows of a Bank of America branch, a McDonald's outlet and a Starbucks shop, all symbols of the American capitalist system.

The crowd, which carried banners and at least one sign that read "Make Racists Afraid Again," largely dispersed after police responded in force.

In Asia, several hundred people, most of them expatriate Americans, held a protest in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, carrying placards reading "Love Trumps Hate" and "Women's Rights Are Human Rights", as they marched along a downtown street.

In the Philippines earlier on Friday, about 200 demonstrators from a Philippine nationalist group rallied for outside the US embassy in Manila. Some held up signs demanding US troops leave the Philippines while others set fire to a paper US flag bearing a picture of Trump's face.

Stand Up to Racism has organised over a dozen anti-Trump protests in the UK today, the biggest of which will take place outside the US embassy in London as Trump is sworn in.

Protest banners were also dropped from bridges in the British capital this morning as part of the Bridges Not Walls project.

A protest banner has been unveiled on Tower Bridge in London [Getty]

More than 150 banners are being unfurled across the world, including in the US, Ethiopia, Norway and Australia.

In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians called on Trump not to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - a move which would mark the death of a two-state solution.

About 900,000 people were expected to pack the grassy National Mall facing the Capitol in Washington, where Trump was sworn in at 5pm GMT, as well as the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House and other parts of central Washington.