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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, June 02, 2003

Thousands of Protesters March Against G-8

Tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets Sunday to protest the Group of Eight summit across Lake Geneva in the French town of Evian, some battling with police and looting shops and gas stations.


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Tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets Sunday to protest the Group of Eight summit across Lake Geneva in the French town of Evian, some battling with police and looting shops and gas stations.

Anti-riot agents struck back with tear gas, water cannons and rubber pellets, as clashes continued into the evening.

German police brought in to bolster Swiss forces fought pitched battles with several hundred militants late Sunday in the center of Geneva. Swiss police simultaneously closed in on a youth cultural center that acted as a base for the protesters. The elegant streets of the lakeside city were turned into a sea of glass and acrid smoke filled the air.

A British man was hospitalized with multiple bone fractures when a police officer cut a rope that held him suspended from a highway overpass and he fell into a river, authorities said. Police were investigating, but said the officer who cut the rope did not know the man was there.

Police reported 10 other injuries among protesters, none life-threatening. One police officer was also hurt. Authorities searching demonstrator camps for violent youths in black masks arrested at least six people in Lausanne and detained some 400 for identification checks.

Protesters started early Sunday, timing their actions to coincide with the arrival of most of the G-8 leaders from the world's top seven industrialized countries and Russia. Most of the leaders landed at Geneva airport and traveled to Evian by helicopter.

The demonstrators �� who numbered nearly 50,000 according to Swiss police officials and 120,000 according to protest organizers �� blocked traffic for hours on bridges and highways in the French and Swiss regions around Geneva.

But they failed in their goal to disrupt the arrival of G-8 leaders and delegations or penetrate the security cordon around the lakeside summit site of Evian.

Source: Agencies


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