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One Dead, Two Seriously Injured at G8 Summit
ROME, July 20 (News Agencies) - One male protester was killed, one young woman demonstrator seriously injured and a police officer "very seriously injured" during clashes outside the G8 summit Friday, an Italian interior ministry spokesman said.
Witnesses in Genoa told AFP that a young man had been shot in the head in the Via Caffa, a street leading to the summit venue.
A body was lying under a white sheet in the street with blood visible at about head height, an AFP reporter said.
Police detained more than 30 protesters earlier Friday, CNN reported, and have used tear gas, water cannon and baton charges to hold activists back from the "no-go" zone in a protective ring of steel behind which the G8 leaders met.
But CNN said that, in the majority, most of the anti-globalization and debt relief march was peaceful, with demonstrators limiting their activities to holding up posters declaring "Zero Debt" and "People not Profits."
G8 leaders inside the summit, however, defied the activists outside with a fierce defense of free markets.
Besieged by violent protesters as they met in the no-go zone, they said free markets were the only sure way to deliver people from poverty.
"We have said together that globalization is good, globalization is an advantage for all, there is a need for more globalization to ensure more democracy, more freedom, more well-being and jobs for all of the people of this earth," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.
"It is our desire to give to those that have less than we do in a generous spirit, not a one-off initiative but to give on a steady basis so as to really be able to bring about change."
Berlusconi defended the rich nations against accusations that they have failed the poor as he launched a $1.2-billion (1.4-billion-euro) war chest to fight AIDS and other major diseases.
"Those who are against the G8 are not fighting against leaders democratically elected in their countries, they are fighting against the Western world, the philosophy of the free world," he said.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and planned economies, free markets had been shown to be the only system that can create wealth, said the Italian host of G8 leaders.
"It may have flaws, there may be delays and shortcomings, but it is a system that can bring about change, it has within it the tools that will enable this change, that will enable wealth to be generated," he added.
In a communiqué by the Group of Seven nations, the leaders vowed to launch a new round of free trade talks in November while giving better market access to the poor.
Open markets and a stronger World Trade Organization are an economic imperative, said the statement drawn up by leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States in the meeting in Genoa, Italy.
"It is for this reason that we pledge today to engage personally and jointly in the launch of a new ambitious round of global trade negotiations at the fourth WTO ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar, this November," the document said.
"We are committed to working with developing countries, including the least developed, to ensure that the new round addresses their priorities through improved market access and sounder, more transparent trade rules."
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