MONTREAL (AFP) - A key meeting of trade officials opened in preparation for a World Trade Organization summit, while a small group of protesters smashed shop windows and vandalised cars.
Police arrested about 100 demonstrators as the meeting got underway.
Trade ministers representing some 25 nations, including the United States, China and the European Union, gathered in Montreal in a bid to hammer out a consensus on farm subsidies and medicine for poor countries, issues that have stalled recent global trade talks.
Most of the arrests came hours after a wider demonstration, consisting of some 200 protesters, rampaged through Montreal's main shopping street smashing shop windows and vandalising two luxury cars in their path.
Described by the police as an "illegal gathering," the mainly young protesters had initially attempted to march on the Sheraton hotel where the trade ministers -- representing 75 percent of international commerce and the two-thirds of the world-wide population -- were meeting.
The meetings are due to run through to Wednesday and are being viewed as a critical gathering ahead of the 146-member WTO ministerial summit in Cancun, Mexico, in September.
However, after being rebuffed by riot police, the demonstrators swept past a construction site, collecting wooden construction boards and metal bars as they went, and headed for Montreal's main shopping street.
As they descended on the street, activists smashed the shop windows of a Burger King restaurant, a Gap clothing store and the Canadian clothing store Jacob.
Two luxury cars parked in the street, a Porsche and a BMW, had their windshields smashed by protesters.
"These are specific targets. Gap is a multinational corporation which has a terrible record in human rights and which represents global capitalism that is defended by the WTO," said Stefan Christoff, a spokesman for "Popular Mobilisation against the WTO," which represents several groups which took part in the protest.
"We have always been clear with our message: we oppose this meeting taking place in our city," he said describing the demonstration as "a success."
Further protests are planned for Tuesday and Wednesday.
The free trade talks have made little progress since being launched in 2001 in Doha, Qatar.
So far, none of the deadlines for fixing negotiation modalities have been respected just one and a half months short of the supposed mid-way point for completion of the Doha Round, set at the end of 2004.
Some officials warn that this week's meetings are the last chance to avert failure at the Cancun summit.
The failure of the Doha Round threatens to jeopardize the credibility of the eight-year-old WTO, as bilateral trade pacts are turned to instead, but senior Canadian officials have played down the Montreal talks as make-or-break.
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