Authorities in Australia are staging the country’s biggest security operation to guard against violent protests on the first day of a visit by President Bush today.

Thousands are expected to rally against the Iraq war and global warming in Sydney, where Mr Bush is the star guest among 21 heads of state who will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Council (Apec) summit.

A vast “rabble-proof” barrier has isolated the city, where underground stations are being closed and 5,000 police and soldiers will patrol the streets in the $300 million (£122 million) security operation.

Prison authorities will release inmates this weekend to accommodate arrested protesters, who will be taken away in a fleet of public buses converted into mobile holding cells. Blackhawk military helicopters and F18 fighters will patrol the skies above Sydney as the city prepares for what John Howard, the Prime Minister, says is the most important international meeting yet held in Australia.

Mr Howard has even appealed to would-be protesters in a video clip posted on the YouTube website not to stir up trouble during the summit.

President Bush arrives today with an entourage of 250 advisers, officials and security staff aboard three Boeing 747 aircraft.

Other guests, including Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, and Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, will arrive by Friday for the weekend meeting in the Sydney Opera House, which will be closed to the public for the first time since its opening in 1973.

Tens of thousands of people who work in the central Sydney business district will be given a day off work on Friday, when leaders’ motorcades will traverse the city.

Some of the animals at Taronga Zoo in Sydney are being moved to a harbour island so that they can be viewed by the leaders’ wives without them having to suffer the inconvenience of going to the zoo.

Despite the media circus, Mr Howard hopes that the meeting of leaders might reach a broad agreement on a successor to the Kyoto agreement on climate change.

Mr Howard said that the Sydney summit, which will focus on global warming, would set no binding targets for greenhouse gas reduction but could reach an agreement on a postKyoto consensus.

“We won’t reach agreement, nor do we imagine for a moment that we could reach agreement on binding targets amongst the member countries of Apec,” he said.

Mr Howard said that developing nations, such as China, were opposed to setting binding targets and each nation should set its own greenhouse gas reduction programme.

However, Rafidah Aziz, the Malaysian Trade Minister, who will also attend the summit, said last week that the failure of Australia and the United States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol meant that they lacked the credentials to lead climate change talks in Sydney.

Australian security officials say that they have received no intelligence of a specific terrorist threat to the summit, and the nation’s counter-terrorism alert remains unchanged, at medium.

Apec’s aims

- Founded in 1989, the Asia-Pacific Economic Council represents 41 per cent of the world's population. It holds annual summits hosted and chaired by a member country, aiming to achieve cooperation on economic and environmental issues

- It is committed to eliminating tariffs and trade barriers, with participating nations not required to make legally binding commitments

(Source: apec.org)

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