GERMANY:German police have said they "fear the worst" for security at this week's G8 summit after a second running battle with masked anarchists on the streets of Rostock yesterday.
The summit begins tomorrow, 25km (15.5 miles) away from Rostock in the Baltic sea resort of Heiligendamm, which is under high security with more than 16,000 police on duty.
Some 400 officers have already gone home with broken limbs, cuts and bruises after being hit by stonethrowing anarchists on Saturday, when a demonstration turned violent.
Yesterday, police in full riot gear dissolved another demonstration through Rostock, saying it had been infiltrated by violent protesters.
Police say these so-called "Black Block" protesters, mostly clad in black hooded tops, with scarves or balaclavas ready to disguise their faces, have come from Russia, Bulgaria, Italy and Greece to cause havoc.
Leaders of Attac, a group critical of globalisation, admitted yesterday that they had no strategy for effectively weeding out violent protesters from their events.
"Saturday was a mess, we're horrified about what happened," said Mani Stenner, a spokesman for the weekend march that turned into a riot, with 1,000 people injured and several cars set alight.
"We are still working together but we are very nervous about the rest of the week."
Attac spokesman Sven Giegold said: "I don't think things will stay peaceful."
Police spokesman Axel Falkenberg said the violent protesters were keeping a low profile and "using as protection peaceful demonstrations in order to do their thing with the police".
The primary concern is to prevent an all-out riot like at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, when a 23-year-old protester was shot dead by police.
Meanwhile, former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt - one of the founders of the G8, then the G6, in 1975 - has dismissed the event, with its €100 million price tag, as a meaningless "media spectacle".
He and then French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing established the meeting as a "fireside chat" about economic issues among world leaders.
"It's such a stupid business," he told Bild yesterday. "Not much can come out of it, for which Dr [ Angela] Merkel as host cannot really do much."