That unguarded tunnel between the World Trade Centre and Scotia Square was always under control, G-7 security officials insisted yesterday.
For most of Friday, one could stroll through the tunnel, bypassing the elaborate security above ground. By late in the afternoon, a guard was posted.
All part of our “ops plan,” officials said, to leave things as business as usual for as long as possible.
***
When you don’t know someone, you talk about innocous things such as weather. And finance ministers apparently are no different.
According to nameless officials, Canada’s John Manley and his U.S. counterpart Paul O’Neill walked together yesterday morning from their hotel to the meetings in the World Trade Centre, hoping for more of Friday’s glorious weather.
Alas, it was not to be, leaving the two men to complain to each other about the overcast skies.
***
Missing from this summit’s news briefings were detailed accounts from bureaucrats about the mundane events of the dinner meetings, when they sometimes report who sneezed in the middle of the second course.
G-8 meeting veterans recalled with humour a meeting in the mid-’90s in Naples, when the Japanese went so far as to report that their minister had had to leave the dinner the evening before because he was suffering from a “soft poo” problem.
The Naples affair was thereafter dubbed the “Soft Poo” summit.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.