Cops Hose Down APEC Protesters

Riot police in Busan, South Korea, sprayed high-powered water hoses Friday to hold back demonstrators denouncing free trade and President Bush outside the building where Mr. Bush is meeting with other leaders at the APEC economic summit.

Chanting "No Bush! No APEC," the protesters tried to break through a barricade of shipping containers that police built along their route. Under the barrage of water, protesters fastened a rope to several of the shipping containers and pulled them out.

About 4,000 protesters had marched through the South Korean port city of Busan before reaching the barricade near the site of this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

When the demonstrators began banging on the containers and demanding to pass, police ordered them to stop. When they didn't, police turned the water hoses on the crowd and some responded by throwing rocks and bamboo sticks. A couple of police helicopters buzzed overhead during the clash.

The rally lasted for several hours and demonstrators dispersed after police warned they would drop water from a helicopter on the crowd.

Police said 11 officers were injured when they fell from the containers that were moved by the protesters. The lone demonstrator spotted breaking through the barricade was promptly arrested.

There was one small demonstration in praise of President Bush on Friday. About a dozen anti-North Korean demonstrators gathered to protest the regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and laud Mr. Bush for bringing attention to human rights abuses in the North.

Negotiations between North Korea and the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China concluded in September with Pyongyang's promising to end its nuclear program in exchange for aid, diplomatic recognition and security guarantees. But a disappointing new round of talks ended last week without progress on the difficult next step — how to dismantle existing weapons and verify that the country has really ended all suspicious programs.

"The challenge for U.S. and South Korean negotiators will be to determine what are the legitimate interests of Pyongyang and what is a stall," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, "The stakes become higher with the passage of time and the development of the uranium enrichment program in North Korea."

CBS News senior White House correspondent John Roberts reports that even though North Korea has pledged to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, Mr. Bush remains skeptical. The White House says the country reneged on a similar deal to shut down their nuclear program in 1994.

South Korea has resisted the tough approach advocated by the Bush administration for ending the impasse with North Korea, opposing the idea of military action if diplomacy fails. South Korea also is cool to the idea of taking the standoff to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Tens of thousands of security forces have been deployed around the venue and beachside hotels where leaders including President Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin are staying during the summit.

The leaders hope to endorse a statement expressing support for the current round of World Trade Organization talks, and to discuss counterterrorism, bird flu and other issues.

Earlier, at the start of the main demonstration, about 3,000 farmers, some dressed in traditional white Korean funeral clothes, held a memorial ceremony for one of two farmers who killed themselves in recent days by drinking herbicide, leaving suicide notes blaming plans to liberalize the domestic rice market.

"What she wanted to tell us by dying was to fight," Yoon Geum-soon, head of the Coalition of Women Farmers, said of the latest suicide victim. "We will fight, we will crush APEC, we will crush WTO, we will kick out Bush."

South Korea concluded a rice agreement with the United States, China, Thailand and six other rice-exporting countries late last year that will gradually loosen limits on imports and eventually institute a tariff system. Farmers have claimed they are already heavily indebted and their plight would worsen if cheaper rice from China and the California flood the domestic market.

At another demonstration near a subway station that later converged with the farmers, about 1,000 laborers and union members blocked an intersection and burned a coffin with "APEC" written on it.

"Rural communities are facing collapse as rice imports are being forced upon them," opposition lawmaker Dan Pyung-ho said at the protest.

Clashes erupted at a protest in Seoul earlier this week where some 10,000 farmers confronted a nearly equal number of riot police, and the activists had vowed to bring their fight to APEC.