GENOA, Italy – Italian police said a demonstrator was killed Friday as police and protesters clashed on the streets surrounding the summit meeting held by leaders of the world’s leading industrial nations.
At least 46 demonstrators and 31 police officers were hurt and 39 people were arrested in confrontations that raged for hours.
Thousands of protesters representing trade unions, environmental groups, farmers, anarchists and the unemployed have descended on Genoa because they are troubled by the direction that globalization is taking. Multinational corporations, they claim, are exploiting this new economy and need to be held in check.
President Bush rejected the protesters’ claims, saying that although protesters claimed to represent the poor, they embraced policies that ”lock people into poverty and that is unacceptable to the United States.”
U.S. officials had warned that the protests in Genoa could be worse than those that have marred recent summits in Sweden and Canada.
