Toronto:
Police on heightened alert before a summit of world leaders in Toronto stopped a car with a large container strapped to its roof and arrested the driver after finding gasoline canisters, a chainsaw, a cross bow, arrows and sledge hammers inside.
The vehicle was flagged because it looked suspicious and unsafe, police said, but there was no evidence that the car was related to the arrival of dignitaries this weekend in Canada's largest city. 53-year-old Gary McCullough was charged with one count of a possessing dangerous weapons. He was due in court on Friday.
Leaders of the world's major industrial countries, representing 85 percent of the global economy, will meet in Canada starting on Friday for economic summits of the Group of Eight and G-20 nations. The G-8 summit of large industrial nations begins Friday in Huntsville, Ontario, three hours north of Toronto. It is followed on Saturday and Sunday by the G-20 summit, which brings leaders of an influential grouping of both rich and developing nations to central Toronto. In preparation, Toronto's downtown resembles a fortress with thousands of police.
A big steel and concrete fence surrounds several blocks around the summit site. About 19-thousand security personnel are on duty for the summits. Thursday's arrest was the third ahead of the meeting this week. In another incident, a man and woman were charged with possession of explosives, but authorities said there is no risk to public safety.
World leaders started to arrive in Toronto on Thursday for the global economic talks, the first for the new leaders of Australia, Japan and Britain. With recoveries in their countries proceeding at starkly different paces, leaders of the 20 largest industrial and developing nations are finding themselves at odds over how to strike the right balance between continued government stimulus spending and confronting ballooning budget deficits. World leaders are also divided on proposals for a global bank tax and over how much multi-national banks should be required to keep in reserve as a cushion against loan losses.