An arms fair in Adelaide, South Australia, due to start - tactfully - on Remembrance Day, November 11th, has been cancelled due to fears of violent protests. Police gave the state government a report which outlined what they knew about the planned protests - plus a large bill to cover their operation - and the Asia-Pacific Defence And Security Exhibition was called off.

Acting state premier Kevin Foley spoke of "these feral anarchists that would be descending on Adelaide", referring to the nationwide rent-a-mob who have wreaked havoc at summit events in recent years, naming two direct action groups, Mutiny and Arterial Bloc. At the 2006 G20 meeting in Melbourne, protesters attacked and outnumbered police, while the 2007 APEC meeting in Sydney also saw a large demo and was further embarrassed when people from the satirical TV programme The Chaser, driving a fake motorcade, breached the APEC security zone.

The APDSE was to be the first arms fair held in Australia since the AIDEX Arms Fairs in Canberra, running between '89-91 - with attending demonstrations. The planned 1993 event was cancelled after the scale of the 1991 protests. See www.apdsexhibition.org.