Prospect of Barack Obama show causes UK to clear its decks | World news | The Observer

Is this amount of staff for a travelling president a normal thing?  How much is this costing the American taxpayer?

 

Prospect of Barack Obama show causes UK to clear its decksWith an entourage of 500 staff, an armour-plated limousine and a fleet of decoy helicopters, America’s new president will arrive for his first visit to Britain amid huge razzmatazz on Tuesday for the G20 summit. But it will be his closed-door meetings with world leaders that are likely to prove the most significant of the trip

Britain will get its first chance to see Barack Obama this week when a White House cavalcade – complete with armoured limousines, helicopters, 200 US secret service staff and a six-doctor medical team – sweeps into the UK.

Obama will fly into London for his first visit to the UK as president of the United States on Tuesday to take part in the G20 summit in the capital’s Docklands area. He will not be travelling light.

More than 500 officials and staff will accompany the president on his tour this week – along with a mass of high-tech security equipment, including the $300,000 presidential limousine, known as The Beast. Fitted with night-vision camera, reinforced steel plating, tear- gas cannon and oxygen tanks, the vehicle is the ultimate in heavy armoured transport.

In addition, a team from the White House kitchen will travel with the president to prepare his food. As one official put it: “When the president travels, the White House travels with him, right down to the car he drives, the water he drinks, the gasoline he uses, the food he eats. America is still the sole superpower and the president must have the ability to handle any crisis, anywhere, any time.”

US security teams have already carried out three visits to prepare for Obama’s first official visit to Britain. The first was a “site survey”, the second a “pre-advance visit” which was carried out to pick sites that the president would visit. Finally there was the “advance trip”, which took place last week. Its purpose was to set up equipment, sweep venues for electronic bugs, test food for poison and measure air quality for bacteria.

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via Prospect of Barack Obama show causes UK to clear its decks | World news | The Observer.

GM CEO resigns at Obama’s behest – Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein – POLITICO.com

By MIKE ALLEN & JOSH GERSTEIN | 3/29/09 5:23 PM EDT Updated: 3/29/09 7:53 PM EDT Text Size:

The White House confirms Wagoner is leaving at the government’s behest.

The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.

On Monday, President Barack Obama is to unveil his plans for the auto industry, including a response to a request for additional funds by GM and Chrysler. The plan is based on recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, headed by the Treasury Department.

The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government’s behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

General Motors issued a vague statement Sunday night that did not officially confirm Wagoner’s departure.

“We are anticipating an announcement soon from the Administration regarding the restructuring of the U.S. auto industry. We continue to work closely with members of the Task Force and it would not be appropriate for us to speculate on the content of any announcement,” the company said.

The surprise announcement about the classically iconic American corporation is perhaps the most vivid sign yet of the tectonic change in the relationship between business and government in this era of subsidies and bailouts.

Wagoner has been CEO for 8 years and at GM for more than 30. It is not yet clear who would replace him, or what role the administration would play in that process.

Industry sources had said the White House planned very tough medicine in Monday’s announcement, which turned out to be an understatement. And it went to the very top. The measures to be imposed by the government will have a dramatic effect on workers, unions, suppliers, bondholders, shareholders, retirees and the communities where plants are located, the sources said.

GM and Chrysler first requested billions in federal aid in November, warning that they could run out of cash in a matter of months if they didn’t receive it. In December, President Bush agreed to loan $9.4 billion to GM and $4 billion to Chrysler.

Last month, GM asked for $16.6 billion more and Chrysler requested an additional $5 billion.

Earlier this month, Obama agreed to loan $5 billion to American auto parts manufacturers to help them weather the steep drop in new vehicle orders and the financial uncertainty at the Big Three.

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via GM CEO resigns at Obama’s behest – Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein – POLITICO.com.

Brown snubbed over tax – Times Online

Jonathan Oliver and Bojan Pancevski

GORDON BROWN’S carefully laid plans for a G20 deal on worldwide tax cuts have been scuppered by an eve-of-summit ambush by European leaders.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last night led the assault on the prime minister’s “global new deal” for a $2 trillion-plus fiscal stimulus to end the recession.

“I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money,” she said.

The Spanish finance minister, Pedro Solbes, also dismissed new cash being pledged at Thursday’s London summit.

“In these conditions I and the rest of my colleagues from the eurozone believe there is no room for new fiscal stimulus plans,” he said.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has insisted that “radical reform” of capitalism is more important than tax cutting.

The attacks on Brown’s ambitions for the G20 to inject more money into the world economy come at the end of a week where the prime minister has travelled to three continents to build support for his proposals.

The likely deadlock at this week’s meeting will kill any remaining hope that Alistair Darling’s April 22 budget will offer significant tax cuts.

The assault by European Union leaders also represents a defeat for President Barack Obama, who is desperate for other big economies to copy his $800 billion stimulus plan.

“There will be a very long communiqué, but there won’t be much in it,” said a Washington economist.

Adding to the disarray, a draft of the agreement Brown hopes to secure was leaked to a German news magazine, prompting suggestions of “dirty tricks” by Berlin.

The draft stated that Britain wanted a “$2 trillion” global fiscal stimulus. However, the figure appeared only in brackets, indicating agreement on the package had yet to be reached.

The stimulus would boost world growth by 2% and employment by 19m, the draft said. The rest of the document was mainly general pledges.

“We believe that an open world economy, based on the principles of the market, effective regulation and strong global institutions, can ensure sustainable globalisation with rising well-being for all,” it said.

A No 10 source expressed “disappointment” at the leak and insisted the $2 trillion figure was not new money but an expression of the total tax and spending packages already pledged by G20 members.

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via Brown snubbed over tax – Times Online.