World leaders opened a day
of summit meetings in a remote Canadian Rockies location with a focus on the economy just as global markets were roiled by the multi-billion-dollar accounting scandal at WorldCom.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will complete the line-up of G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States when he flies into the Alberta city later, prior to joining the summit.
Besides the financial ructions, divisions over how to stem the bloodshed in the Middle East are overtaking the agenda of these meetings, which had been expected to focus on the plight of Africa.
The summit is being held at the isolated Kananaskis resort 100 kilometres away from expected anti-globalisation protests in Calgary.
Canadian authorities, keen to head off any repeat of the bloody violence at last year's G8 summit in Genoa, in which a 23-year-old protestor died, have launched the country's largest ever peacetime security operation.
Thousands of police and soldiers combed the woods around Kananaskis, and anti-aircraft missiles were deployed as a precaution against the kind of attacks using hijacked airliners which rocked America on September 11th.
In Calgary, squadrons of Royal Canadian Mounted Police ringed a conference center holding thousands of journalists and delegates accredited to the summit.
The US President, Mr George W. Bush, can expect to hear the feedback on his speech on Monday on the Middle East, in which he warned Palestinians they must ditch Mr Yasser Arafat before they can inaugurate a state.
AFP