Anti-G8 activists take part in a demonstration in Sapporo on July 5 ahead of the Hokkaido Toyako G8 Summit 2008.

Hundreds of protesters rallied under heavy police security on Sunday in Japan as leaders from the top industrialized nations began arriving for their annual summit.
A morning protest ended peacefully. Another sponsored by leftist demonstrators was to be held later in the evening, AP reported.
The rallies follow a demonstration by about 2,500 on Saturday that lead to a brief clash with police in which four people--including a television cameraman--were detained.
The protesters are demanding the Group of Eight be dissolved and urgent measures be taken to solve climate change and world hunger.
“Down with imperialism,’’ said one large red banner carried at the front of the march.
Japanese police have been out in force to assure there are no incidents during the G-8 summit, which starts in Lake Toya, about 100 kilometers south of Sapporo city on Monday. US President George Bush arrived at Lake Toya as the march was being held.
Protesters have not been able to get anywhere near the summit venue, but have scheduled daily rallies in Sapporo, the largest city on the northern Japan island of Hokkaido. They are often outnumbered by the riot police deployed to control them.
Japan has mobilized a staggering 20,000 police officers--primarily in and around the summit site but also in major cities including Tokyo--to avert any terrorist attacks. Coast Guard vessels and military helicopters have also been deployed.
Last year, tens of thousands of anti-globalization protesters demonstrated when the summit was held in Germany and some threw Molotov cocktails at police, who used water cannons and horses to drive them back. The G-8 leaders represent the United States, Japan, Russia, France, Britain, Canada, Italy and Germany. They are being joined by African leaders and the leaders of China, India and other rapidly growing economies, making this year’s summit the biggest ever.

Bush-Sarko Argument
Meanwhile, as Bush arrived in Fokoda, former Japan’s premier Shinzo Abe revealed that Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had “fierce“ arguments at last year’s Group of Eight summit.
Abe offered the tidbit from last year’s closed-door session as a lesson for Japan not to be too reserved about steering discussions as it hosts this year’s G8 summit in the northern mountain resort of Toyako, AFP reported.
Last year’s G8 summit in Germany saw “pretty fierce“ discussions, particularly over climate change, Abe told the private Asahi network.
“In particular, President Bush and President Sarkozy had a fierce dispute,“ Abe said.
“President Sarkozy was making his argument in a very strong way,“ in part because it was his first summit and he faced elections, Abe said.
Asked if Sarkozy threatened to Bush to walk out of the summit, Abe said with a smile: “He said something close to that.“
Sarkozy has been known as more pro-American than his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who had a bitter feud with Bush over the Iraq invasion, although the French leader has also called on Bush to take tougher action on climate change.

Italian judges are threatening to strike after the new conservative government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi proposed deep cuts to their budget, media reports said on Sunday.
Judges “in revolt,“ as the daily La Repubblica headlined the news, have proclaimed a “state of agitation,“ a formal warning that can precede a strike, AFP reported.
“We’re heading towards the destruction of the justice system,“ said Luca Palamara, chairman of Italy’s National Association of Magistrates, after a near unanimous vote late Saturday.
The “drastic“ measures could reach 40 percent of the justice system’s allocations and cause an “unprecedented deterioration in magistrates’ remuneration (leading to) a substantial paralysis of the institution,“ the motion said.
The judges also oppose a series of legislative maneuvers by Berlusconi, 71, widely seen as self-serving.
The staunchly anti-communist media magnate, elected to a third stint as prime minister in April, has repeatedly accused “red“ magistrates, notably in his native Milan, of conducting a witch-hunt against him.
Berlusconi dismissed what he called a “small faction...who continue to try to subvert the results of the elections.“

The United States military wanted to test deadly nerve gases on Australian troops in a remote area of far north Queensland in the 1960s but Canberra refused, a report said on Sunday.
Washington wanted to bomb a rainforest area lying more than 600 kilometers north of Cairns, Channel Nine’s ’Sunday’ program reported, citing newly declassified documents from the Australian Defense Department, AFP reported.
In 1962, then US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara wrote to Australian officials asking that the US and Australian military conduct secret joint testing of several nerve agents, including sarin, the report said.
“The United States proposes to use the agents GB (sarin), a non-persistent nerve gas, and VX, a persistent nerve gas -- both to be disseminated by aircraft delivered by bombs and tanks,“ it quoted one document as reading.
Some 200 Australian soldiers would have been involved in the testing to “determine persistency of chemical agents on jungle foliage and pick-up of such agents by personnel traversing area under simulated military operation.“
The testing was vetoed by then prime minister Harold Holt in 1966. Holt’s former staffer Peter Bailey told Channel Nine the nerve gas plan had been considered by the Australian government and ministers were concerned that scuttling it could damage Canberra’s relationship with the US.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega warned his political adversaries on Saturday that he would not allow them to depose him as opposition groups planned street protests against his government.
“We love peace, but we are also ready to use the steel of war if they try to bring down this“ government, Ortega said in a speech, Reuters reported.
Ortega, a leftist who fought US-backed Contra rebels during his first stint as head of state in the 1980s, returned to power last year after beating conservative rivals in an election.
Thousands of people took to the streets on June 27 to protest Ortega’s handling of the economy and the exclusion of two small parties from municipal elections last year, though the country’s largest opposition party did not participate actively in the march.
Protesters that day chanted slogans that called Ortega a dictator. Nicaragua is one of Latin America’s poorest countries.
Opposition leaders are planning another protest on Friday.
Ortega, an ally of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, repeated accusations on Saturday that the US government is funding the opposition groups.
“Those that are conspiring, who are openly financed by the Yankees, better respect the institutional norms in this country. They better not provoke the people,“ he said.

British lawmakers pledged on Sunday to study the movements of planes and ships traveling to the remote British outpost Diego Garcia amid persistent suspicion that it is used by US authorities to detain or transfer terrorism suspects, AP reported.
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee said it plans a thorough investigation of the use of the Indian Ocean island, which hosts a US military base. Britain leased Diego Garcia, which is halfway between Africa and Southeast Asia, to the United States, and in 1971 barred anyone from entering the islands except by permit.
The United States initially denied using the island for extraordinary rendition flights. However, it acknowledged in February that it had misled the British government and that two suspects had been on flights that stopped to refuel on Diego Garcia en route to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002.
Reprieve, a British human rights organization, claims the US has used military ships off Diego Garcia as prisons to detain suspects in terror cases. The US Navy has previously said ships elsewhere have been used to hold a few prisoners for short periods, but denied that there are long-term floating prisons.
Committee chairman Mike Gapes said the United States’ initial lack of transparency makes it necessary to scrutinize “all flights and ships serviced from Diego Garcia.’’