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American Morning

Protesters, Police Battle at G8 Summit

Aired July 20, 2001 - 10:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Demonstrators at the G8 Summit promised to make their presence felt, and it looks like they're doing just that. Protesters clashed with police today in a bid to disrupt the global conference.

CNN's Alessio Vinci is covering this for us, in Genoa, Italy.

He joins us now, with the very latest -- Alessio.

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Leon.

I don't want to overstate what's happening here in the streets of Genoa, but there appears that there is a group of demonstrators who came here especially prepared to clash with the police. We have seen them clashing earlier this morning, about 300 yards to my left. Violent clashes there. The police tried to contain them using tear gas.

Behind me, just about a minute ago -- and I believe you do have some pictures that we just fed in -- the demonstrators -- the anarchists, as we call them -- have managed to clash again with the police. This time, however, they managed to surround some of the police and throw rocks at them and Molotovs.

At some point, a group of demonstrators surrounded one of the police vans that was stalled there and started smashing the windows and throwing stones and rocks at it. We understand that inside that police van, there were some policemen.

We have no reports, at this time, of any injured or any other official report of that. However, we have seen several ambulances leaving the area, and therefore, we can assume that there have been some people who have been injured.

We also understand that the police earlier today had detained some protesters.

We understand -- and I just want to make sure that we understand this -- a group of demonstrators are just anarchists. They have nothing to do with the 100,000 demonstrators who have gathered here in Genoa to rally against the G8 Summit, which is taking place today and tomorrow. These are just an isolated group. We understand from the German Interior Ministry, that they have sent italics to the authorities here in Italy, warning that this morning, with buses, some anarchists came to Genoa, and especially violent anarchists, who were prepared to clash with the police.

I'm Alessio Vinci, CNN, reporting live, from Genoa.

HARRIS: Thank you, Alessio.

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