G8 Protesters Take to Sapporo Streets in Anticipation of Toyako Summit

Police arrested four or five men during the march. One of the arrested was dragged out of the broken window of a truck carrying loudspeakers and other sound equipment for the march. Police had shattered the window with a nightclub when the driver of the vehicle refused to open the door for them. Two others were dragged off the back of the same truck.

A foreign cameraman working for Reuters news service was also taken away, but it is unclear whether or not he was also arrested.

At the summit, heads of state will discuss international free trade, greenhouse gas emissions, the “development” of Africa, and food and oil prices.

In the days to come, anti-G8 activists will be holding a counter-summit and convening at protest camps to come up with strategies for implementing global food security, just labor standards, and environmental sustainability. These solutions, many activists say, will be significantly different than those coming from the G8 summit that will begin on Monday at a luxury resort near Lake Toya, south of Sapporo.