Italy, July 21 (AFP) -World leaders launch into the second day of a G8 summit Saturday despite calls to cancel the talks after widespread violence, in which an anti-globalisation rioter was shot dead, cast a pall of gloom over the meeting.
However, the anti-globalisation movement said it would go ahead with the biggest demonstration yet against the domination of rich states in a march expected to draw 100,000 people onto the streets of the embattled Mediterranean city later Saturday.
The Genoa Social Forum, the umbrella group for a plethora of disparate anti-capitalist groups protesting here, called for the immediate cancellation of the summit after the rioter was shot dead in a clash with police.
It also called on Interior Minister Claudio Scajola, who has overall reponsibility for police, to resign after a day of violence in which more than 150 were injured.
In an incident likely to cause a domestic furore for the new rightwing Italian government, the young Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by an injured policeman trapped by rioters in a car.
Fellow protesters left a steadily building mound of flowers on the bloodied asphalt to commemorate his death late Friday.
Leaders of the Group of Eight powers voiced regret over the incident, which eclipsed an announcement of a 1.2 billion dollar "Global AIDS and Health Fund", and protesters said police had reneged on an agreement not to carry firearms.
The sheer disparateness of the anti-globalisation movement, a loose coalition of bodies ranging from Greens to radical leftists, made it difficult to predict whether the death would chasten or further anger its more militant elements, responsible for the mayhem on Friday.
However the British umbrella group for the elimination of Third World debt, Drop the Debt, decided that its 2,500 activists here would not take part in Saturday's march for fear of more violence, its spokeswoman Lucy Matthew told AFP early Saturday.
Tens of thousands joined Friday's demonstration, when hundreds of radicals clashed repeatedly with police and attempted to tear down barriers sealing off the old quarter where the leaders were meeting.
Demonstrators torched vehicles, ransacked a bank, smashed windows, and fought fierce running battles with police in the centre of the city over eight hours, which left the streets carpeted with debris late Friday.
The prospect for more chaos on Saturday is increased, given the sheer size of the expected crowd.
"I expect the demonstration tomorrow to be quiet and peaceful. I think that the police will be more careful. I don't think that they will let themselves be provoked in the way they were today," said 32-year-old Jaume Sanchez, a secondary school teacher from Barcelona.
"There was violence today from both sides, but there was really brutal repression from the police," he said.
"No-one has been killed in 24 years in Italian demonstrations," said Dora Beggini, 20. "This creates a completely different situation not just in Genoa but in the whole country," said Beggini, from Padua in northeastern Italy.
"Starting tomorrow it is a whole new situation. We weren't here for a war, we were here for a demonstration," said the protester, who said she was an independent radical based with anarchist groups in the Carlini stadium.
The demonstration is due to get underway around 2:00 pm (1200 GMT).
Away from the clamour on the streets, the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States will discuss poverty alleviation and aid in a morning session at the Palazzo Ducale, some 500 metres (yards) behind the barriers.
The eight leaders will also discuss conflict resolution in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East during a working lunch in Genoa's old port.
The afternoon is likely to be dominated by bilateral meetings back at the 13th century Palazzo in the heavily fortified no-go area protected by a massive police presence, the "red zone".
The violence died down as dusk fell Friday on a day Genoa, and the Italian government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, will want to forget.
Berlusconi and European Commission President Romano Prodi, who is also here as a guest, have both issued strong calls this week for an end to such high-profile summits, which the anti-global movement has attacked with increasing ferocity since the Seattle meeting 19 months ago.
Friday's violence will give their appeal a fresh impetus.
The leaders were spending the night on a specially-hired cruise liner docked in Genoa's old port and closely guarded by a flotilla of naval ships and launches.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Riot police storm past a dead protester, who was shot and killed by Carabiniere, during rioting in central Genoa July 20, 2001. Police fired live rounds, tear gas and used water cannons in an attempt to disperse the thousands of protestors at the G8 summit. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)
- Jul 20 10:48 PM ET