Thousands of Canadian police threw a tight security net over eastern Ontario on Thursday as world leaders began arriving for key summits focused on economic recovery and development.
In one of the country’s largest ever security operations, some 20,000 police have been deployed in the city of Toronto and the exclusive lakeside community of Huntsville, 225km to the north.
Leaders from the G8 leading economies began arriving at Toronto airport, where they were met on the runway by dignitaries and an honor guard of Canada’s iconic scarlet-clad Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
PHOTO: REUTERS
They were due to hold talks yesterday in Huntsville before joining up with leaders and senior officials from developed and emerging nations to form the G20, which meets in Toronto today and tomorrow.
In a huge operation costing C$1 billion (US$958 million), police barricaded Toronto’s streets with wire fences and miles of concrete blocks, while helicopters clattered overhead.
Many schools and businesses were closed, and the Union Station partially shut.
Protesters are planning days of demonstrations to focus world attention on issues from the environment to the rights of indigenous peoples.
For the second day in a row, police said they halted a potential threat, when the driver of a car laden with home-made weapons was arrested near the downtown Novotel hotel, less than 1.5km from the G20 convention center.
The silver Hyundai, topped with a riveted steel roof container, was found to contain five fuel canisters, a chain saw, a home-made crossbow and arrows.
“The design of the vehicle gave us some concern,” constable Hugh Smith told reporters, confirming that a man in his mid-50s, had been arrested.
Tensions had been running high since Wednesday, when Canadian authorities said they had uncovered a plot to bomb the summit. A 37-year-old Toronto man and his common-law wife have been charged with possession of explosives.
Among the first leaders to arrive was Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), who is combining the visit with a formal state visit to Canada. British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi arrived on Thursday, followed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flying in just hours after White House talks.
The G8 summit will focus on development and security, tackling issues such as peace-making, maternal health and international crime. Six African leaders will also participate.
The G20 talks will focus on shoring up recovery as the world economy emerges from its worst crisis in decades.
Ahead of the summits, Cameron urged G20 and G8 nations to start delivering on their pledges.
“Too often these international meetings fail to live up to the hype and to the promises made,” he wrote in an editorial in Canada’s daily Globe and Mail.
“So the challenge for the upcoming G8 and G20 is to be more than just grand talking shops,” he said.
A leaked draft of the final G20 communique, obtained by the environmental group Greenpeace, warns “the recovery is uneven and fragile and unemployment remains at unacceptable levels.”
The talks could also flare into a row between Europe and the US, with Washington urging its European allies not to cut government spending before recovery is assured, fearing it could trigger a double-dip recession.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been criticized for aiming to slash spending in Europe’s top economy by about 80 billion euros (US$98 billion), said she expected “fruitful” but “contentious” discussions.
Merkel has insisted deficits must be cut in the wake of the eurozone debt crisis that forced Berlin to stump up the lion’s share of a rescue mechanism despite fierce voter opposition.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS