November 17, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 1, 1422

OTTAWA, Nov 16: A world on the brink of recession will be the focus of top-level financial meetings in Ottawa this weekend after the International Monetary Fund issued grim new warnings on the global economic slowdown.

Participants at three meetings include finance ministers and central bank chiefs from rich and poor countries. They will look at how to kick-start the economy and how to cast a worldwide net to capture the bank accounts of violent groups such as those behind the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

“Certainly we’ll see the assessment of the global economy. You’ve got all of the main players, from the United States to Argentina to Japan,” said Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin, chairman of the G20 group of rich and poor countries.

“We want to come to an agreement on both the national and the global plan to fight terrorist financing and to understand how Sept 11 makes it more imperative that we build the structures by which nation states can make globalization work,” Martin told Reuters.

The G20 meeting takes place on Saturday morning, followed by postponed gatherings of the policy-making committees of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.

The IMF and World Bank meetings were originally scheduled for Washington in the fall, but were cancelled in the uncertain international environment that followed the Sept 11 attacks. The G20 meeting had been due to be held in India, which pulled out for the same reason.

The Ottawa meetings have already been targeted by anti-globalization activists and will take place under the protection of three Canadian police forces.

Demonstrators opposed to IMF and World Bank policies promise their protests will be peaceful.

“We don’t want to see tear gas in the streets of Ottawa but what we do want is the opportunity to really express...the concrete objections to the policies we’re seeing implemented,” said Jamie Kneen of Global Democracy Ottawa.

Police say they do not expect a rerun of violent clashes that disrupted a summit of American leaders in Quebec City and led to the death of one protester at a G7 meeting in Italy.

But police have erected barricades around government buildings in downtown Ottawa and fenced off the Rideau Canal, which is beside the conference center. Some 400 delegates and 700 journalists are expected to take part.

“The threat with respect to terrorism is very low,” police spokesman Marc Richer said earlier this week. “There has been no specific threat with respect to this event.”

The US attacks had an ugly impact on the world economy and an IMF forecast released on Thursday admitted that the world is headed to what amounts to a recession, with global growth of just 2.4 per cent, down from a September forecast of 2.6 per cent and just over half the 4.7 per cent rate in 2000.—Reuters