Ghana has been celebrating the seventh anniversary of its independence with big parades and torch-light processions, many of them of school children who had been given time off from classes to take part.

The Education Minister, Mr. Dowuona-Hammond and the Minister of Defence, Mr. Kofi Baako, were the Chief Government ministers watching the parade.

Some six-thousand children took part in the march and as they passed the saluting base, they chanted "Three Cheers to the President."