Protesters end US stand-off

Police and protesters reached an agreement

After two days of street battles, activists demonstrating against the World Bank and IMF reached a peace deal with Washington police.

They agreed to be arrested after police allowed waves of about 15 demonstrators to pass through security cordons in an orderly fashion.

About 600 demonstrators were arrested on Monday both before and after the agreement, Washington police chief Charles Ramsey said.

The number of people detained now stands at about 1,300.

Earlier, police had used water cannon against the protesters

Neither the battles nor the arrests prevented ministers from attending the meeting of the joint committee of the World Bank and the IMF.

Negotiation

Police negotiated for an hour with protest organiser Mary Bull - wearing a green foam plastic tree on her head - before proceeding with the arrests.

"Give yourselves a hand," Terry Gainer, executive assistant police chief, told the crowd after the arrests.

He gave Ms Bull some flowers, then placed her under arrest.

The protesters were charged with unlawful assembly and crossing police barricades.

Earlier, police had used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon and pepper spray to try to prevent the anti-globalisation protesters disrupting the meeting.

Escaping a 'mistaken' tear gas attack

Chief Ramsey said tear gas was mistakenly used against demonstrators when a number of delegates were surrounded by around 200 protesters.

"The officer got out, thought he was throwing a smoke grenade to break up the crowd and it actually was tear gas," Mr Ramsey said.

"It did disperse the crowd and the delegates were able to get in safely," he added.

The US government earlier closed down many of its offices as a rare precaution.

Aids

At the joint committee meeting, the Aids epidemic was one of the main discussion points.

The World Bank president James Wolfensohn said no proper programme for tackling Aids should fail for lack of funds.

Ministers considered how to integrate the problem into development programmes and discussed measures to develop medicines better suited to conditions in developing countries.

The BBC economics correspondent says the meeting heard some stark analyses of the impact of the epidemic, which kills people in the prime of life, devastating the workforce and making orphans of millions of children.