LONDON // World leaders met today for a summit that could fix the global economy as demonstrators attacked a bank in an anti-capitalist riot in the British capital. Demonstrators laid siege to the Bank of England and smashed the windows of a nearby bank that has become a symbol of the financial crisis rescue carried out by the British government which will be discussed at Thursday's Group of 20 summit in the city. Several thousand demonstrators invaded the main financial district and tensions spilt over when protesters smashed their way into a major branch of Royal Bank of Scotland, which was state-owned last year. Other anti-capitalist and anti-war activists fought police, hurling paint and smoke bombs, bottles, cans and shoes at police outside the central bank. A second demonstration with about 2,000 people gathered outside the US embassy which was also protected by hundreds of police.
The street battle went ahead as world leaders gathered amid disputes over the best way to get out of the economic crisis. France and Germany demanded tough action by the summit and President Barack Obama warned the United States could no longer be counted on to be the "voracious consumer", which would lead worldwide growth. The French president Nicolas Sarkozy said France and Germany rejected the current summit proposals on reforming the financial system and cracking down on tax havens and corporate bonuses. But other leaders played down his threat to walk out of the summit which even the German government said was "not the best idea".
"I'm confident that President Sarkozy will be at the first course of the dinner and that he will complete the dinner," said the British prime minister Gordon Brown of the threat. Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown held telephone talks Wednesday ahead of the summit and agreed on the need for tougher world finance rules, the French presidency said. But Mr Sarkozy said before leaving Paris there had been no agreement on a summit communique. "Neither France nor Germany are satisfied with the proposals as they currently stand," said the French leader. "I will not associate myself with a false summit, that concludes with a statement of hollow compromises, that does not address the problems that we face," he warned. Mr Obama and Mr Brown, who is struggling to bridge the summit gap, played down the differences but not the scope of the crisis that the summit will have to confront. "Make no mistake, we are facing the most severe economic crisis since World War II, and the global economy is now so fundamentally interlinked that we can only meet this challenge together," said the US president, who held his first face-to-face meetings with the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao. *AFP
