Friday July 20 10:29 AM ET

Violence Erupts at Start of Genoa Summit

By Jeremy Gaunt

GENOA (Reuters) - Protesters torched cars and smashed shop windows and riot police fired tear gas and water cannon as rioting erupted on Friday on the opening day of a big power summit in the Italian port of Genoa.

Police detained 38 anti-globalization demonstrators in running clashes that broke out as Group of Eight leaders gathered in the Mediterranean city.

Seven people suffered light injuries in the hit-and-run skirmishes across the city -- four Carabinieri paramilitary troopers, one policeman, a newspaper photographer and a
demonstrator, police said.

Masked protesters threw flares at police, shattered shop windows, set fire to dozens of garbage dumpsters and overturned cars and trucks, sending thick smoke billowing over the city for hours.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon in a string of clashes with some of the tens of thousands of protesters around a high-security ``red zone'' protected by 20,000 security forces.

A Reuters reporter saw a policeman fire warning shots in the air as a crowd of protesters bore down on him.

``In front of him was a crowd of protesters, thousands-strong, and they began moving toward him,'' she said. ''He started backing away, then he fired shots into the air from a hand-held gun. Then he got on his motorcycle and rode off.''

At one point a group of 200 hard-core protesters besieged a local prison, shattering the windows and throwing a petrol bomb inside.

Smoke billowed out of a ground-floor window, but demonstrators left the area after prison guards appeared on the wall above the street.

PROTESTERS PIERCE ``RED ZONE''

Genoa has been bracing for weeks against the kind of violent anti-globalization protests that have disrupted nearly every major international meeting for the past two years.

Surface-to-air missiles have been placed at the city's airport to guard against any possible air attack. Authorities have thrown up 20-foot barricades around the red zone to stop demonstrators from getting near the leaders.

Live television showed protesters beating on the barricades with their hands and water bottles and being hosed by water cannon some 300 yards from the Renaissance palace where leaders were lunching.

A handful of protesters broke through the barriers, entering the ``red zone,'' but were quickly detained by police.

Local television showed police hitting and kicking a detained protester.

SMOKE ABOVE GENOA

Residents of one apartment block, fearing their building could catch fire, dumped buckets of water on a flaming dumpster.

Local television showed a series of shattered store fronts and a smashed cash machine outside a bank.

Four hours after the start of the anti-G8 march, thousands of protesters faced off against a phalanx of paramilitary troopers backed by 18 police vans and a water cannon truck.

Protesters, some wearing inflatable life vests and carrying plastic shields, threw stones and bottles at the Carabinieri, who responded by firing volleys of tear gas into the marchers and then charging them with shields and batons.

The marchers, united in opposition to the G8, represented a range of causes. Some carried banners saying ``People, Not Profit.''

In a nearby square, anarchists fought protesters from one of the numerous peaceful groups that had descended on Genoa.

About five km (three miles) east of the city center, some 2,000 anarchists tried to enter the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum (GSF), an umbrella group for more than 700 anti-G8 organizations, a GSF leader said.

``We are here but there are no police and we are shut up inside,'' GSF member Carlo Schenone told Reuters.

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