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G8 leaders in no-win situation

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Annan speaks about AIDS, flanked by the leaders of Italy, France, the U.S. and the UK (from right to left)  


By CNN European Political Editor Robin Oakley

GENOA, Italy (CNN) -- The G8 summit leaders resumed their meeting saddened by the death of a protester and frustrated that the violence has so far overshadowed their efforts to combat poverty and infectious diseases in the developing world.

They have not let Friday's street violence in the Italian city of Genoa, which was well removed from the medieval palace where they deliberated, affect their agenda.

While protesters agitated against globalisation they insisted that more global trade was the best way of combating third world poverty and reaffirmed their determination to press for a new round of liberalising world trade talks this autumn.

But the widespread street violence has led some of the leaders to air their worries about whether summit meetings like the G8 can continue in their present form.

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VIDEO
Alessio Vinci: Protester killed amid fierce clashes (July 20)

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G8 leaders discuss global trade as protesters demonstrate outside. CNN's John King reports (July 20)

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U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice talks to CNN's John King about G8 protests, missile defense, other issues (July 20)

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GALLERY: Genoa clashes  
 
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CNN's Alessio Vinci: Anarchists were ready for battle
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Street protests erupted at the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in 1999 and has escalated steadily since at such gatherings as the EU summits in Nice last December and Gothenburg in June, and at the Davos World Economic Forum in January.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister and the summit host, suggested this could “well be the last G8 in its present form” and Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission said: “We have got to think profoundly about the way these meetings are conducted.”

Jacques Chirac, the French President agreed that “global institutions need to listen to the voices of protesters.”

But a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said that it would be wrong to stop democratically elected world leaders from getting together to discuss key world issues, although he said Blair was concerned at “the worrying trend that the only way some people feel they can make a point is with violence”.

The leaders have a problem. They cannot be seen to give way to violent protesters, but the more they are forced to retreat behind a fortress-like ring of steel with a massive police presence, the more they appear remote from their electorates and ordinary people and the easier it becomes to incite protest against them.

They would like to isolate the genuinely peaceful protesters, whom they acknowledge have serious points to make, from the rioters and to engage in debate with them. But there is no easy way of doing so without risking disruption of their meetings by those determined to engage in violence.

The leaders are particularly frustrated in Genoa because they argue that the items on their agenda are largely ones to address the concerns of the protesters-the cutting of poor countries’ debts, education in the developing countries and the devastation wrought in Africa by infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

They had sought to focus attention on Friday on the positive side of global action by backing with more than $1 billion worth of subscriptions a new World Health Fund to combat those diseases.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who had come to Genoa for the launch, said of the fund: “In this effort there is no us and them, no developed and developing countries, no rich and poor-only a common enemy that knows no frontiers and threatens all people.”

The G7 leaders are joined on Saturday by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. They plan further talks on trade and development issues and are likely to engage in the debate started by U.S. President George W. Bush about whether aid is best given to the poorest countries as grants or loans.

Bush wants to see half the funds given as tightly targeted grants.Other leaders say that would diminish the overall sums available to help them as no money would be recycled. But the sharpest debate is likely to be on what they do about their summits in future to break the cycle of increasing violence.






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