North America summit begins amid protests, hurricane*

MONTEBELLO, Canada (AFP) - - The leaders of Canada, the United States
and Mexico arrived Monday at this log cabin resort, near Ottawa, for a
two-day summit to bolster trilateral trade and security.

But, local demonstrations and a deadly hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico
already threaten to derail the talks, aimed at unifying continental
trade rules and security following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the
United States.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) was launched at the first
"Three Amigos" summit in Waco, Texas, in March 2005.

Since then, it has been maligned by activists, labor groups and
academics who lament its acute business focus.

Monday morning, hundreds of protestors poured out of a dozen yellow
school buses from Ottawa and Montreal, blocked by riot police as they
marched toward the gates of Chateau Montebello, chanting "Bush go home!"

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, meanwhile, may clip his visit to
Canada as Hurricane Dean surged toward his homeland, a diplomatic
official said.

The category-four hurricane is packing winds of 150 miles (240
kilometers) per hour, so far killing at least five people across the
Caribbean basin, and whipping up a giant surf as it heads for Belize and
Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

"We're monitoring the hurricane's progress in order to make a timely
decision (to return to Mexico) at the right moment," said a Mexican
diplomatic source in Ottawa, adding "for the moment, the summit program
is unchanged."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hosting US President George W. Bush and
Calderon for the third installment of the SPP at the resort on the treed
shores of the Ottawa River, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Canada's
capital.

Thirty top businessmen from Canada, the United States and Mexico have
also been invited.

According to organizers, Harper, Bush and Calderon will review current
market turmoil, trade and security, and strategies to stem pandemics.

The three conservatives may also confer on product safety, following
recent recalls of toys, dog food and toothpaste, and growing worries
about defective "made in China" goods, imported into North America.

"This meeting is a reaffirmation of the commitment that all three of
these countries have to creating a secure and prosperous continent,"
said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"I think they're going to go over a number of issues on both the
security and the prosperity front, from trade to border security to a
host of issues."

"I don't expect any major announcements to come from the meeting," he
added. "I think it's a continuance of discussions that we have regularly
with our two closest neighbors.

Still, a perceived lack of transparency in the negotiations has provoked
the ire of anti-globalization activists, environmentalists, peaceniks,
and civil rights groups -- all suspicious of the outcome.

A fence three meters (10 feet) high and running 2.5 kilometers (1.5
miles) around the meeting place had been erected to them keep out, and
police with dogs, in aircraft and on river boat patrols far outnumbered
protestors.

Even so, several of the demonstrators, refusing to be "caged" in a
forest clearing set up for them by summit organizers, vowed to try to
get closer to Bush, Harper and Calderon to make their views known.

Bush and Harper are also likely to discuss climate change, unrest in
Afghanistan, and competing Arctic claims by Canada, the United States,
Russia, Denmark and Norway, officials said.

Calderon, meanwhile, is likely to ask for more US aid to curb drug
trafficking, and propose a hike in the number of temporary worker visas
issued by Canada to Mexican seasonal workers, now at 12,000 annually.