Video: President Obama’s Weekly Address – From Air Force One – G20, NATO – April 4
Text: President Obama Weekly Address – G20 Accomplishments, NATO – April 4
(Source: White House Press Office)
In this new century, we live in a world that has grown smaller and more interconnected than at any time in history. Threats to our nation’s security and economy can no longer be kept at bay by oceans or by borders drawn on maps. The terrorists who struck our country on 9/11 plotted in Hamburg, trained in Kandahar and Karachi, and threaten countries across the globe. Cars in Boston and Beijing are melting ice caps in the Arctic that disrupt weather patterns everywhere. The theft of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union could lead to the extermination of any city on earth. And reckless speculation by bankers in New York and London has fueled a global recession that is inflicting pain on workers and families around the world and across America.
Transcript: President Barack Obama Press Conference at Conclusion of G20 Summit, London
(Source: White House Press Office)
6:44 P.M. (Local)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Earlier today, we finished a very productive summit that will be, I believe, a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery.
By any measure, the London summit was historic. It was historic because of the size and the scope of the challenges that we face, and because of the timeliness and magnitude of our response.
The challenge is clear. The global economy is contracting. Trade is shrinking. Unemployment is rising. The international finance system is nearly frozen. Even these facts can’t fully capture the crisis that we’re confronting, because behind them is the pain and uncertainty that so many people are facing. We see it back in the United States. We see it here in London. We see it around the world: families losing their homes, workers losing their jobs and their savings, students who are deferring their dreams. So many have lost so much. Just to underscore this point, back in the United States, jobless claims released today were the highest in 26 years. We owe it to all of our citizens to act, and to act with a sense of urgency.
Full Text: G20 Summit Official Communique
(Source: G20 London Summit)
1. We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009.
2. We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; a crisis which has deepened since we last met, which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, and which all countries must join together to resolve. A global crisis requires a global solution.
3. We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too; and must reflect the interests, not just of today’s population, but of future generations too. We believe that the only sure foundation for sustainable globalisation and rising prosperity for all is an open world economy based on market principles, effective regulation, and strong global institutions.
Transcript: Barack Obama, Gordon Brown Press Conference, April 1
Foreign and Commonwealth Building
London, United Kingdom
10:15 A.M. (Local)
PRIME MINISTER BROWN: The whole of the United Kingdom welcomes President Obama and the First Lady on your first official visit to our country. President Obama, you have given renewed hope not only to the citizens of the United States of America, but to all citizens in all part of the world. And I want to thank you for your leadership, your vision and your courage, which you’ve already shown in your presidency, and congratulate you on the dynamism, the energy and, indeed, the achievements that you have been responsible for.
Transcript: Presidents Obama, Medvedev in London, April 1
(Source: White House Press Office)
Winfield House
London, United Kingdom
1:01 P.M. (Local)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Let me just make a brief comment. I am very grateful to President Medvedev for taking the time to visit with me today. I’m particularly gratified because prior to the meeting our respective teams had worked together and had developed a series of approaches to areas of common interest that I think present great promise.
PM Brown Lays Down the Gauntlet in Joint Appearance with Obama
At first I wondered if the headline writer for the G20′s London Summit website got a little ahead of the principals.
At 11 a.m. EDT here in the U.S., the top story on the front page was headed: World ‘a few hours’ from global plan for economic recovery and reform. That’s a big statement. It’s like, get all these powerwigs together and poof, crisis over.
Well, it’s what U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said earlier today in a news conference with President Barack Obama:
Mr Brown said the ‘first duty’ of the world leaders gathering in London was to the ordinary people suffering as a result of the global economic crisis and anxious about their jobs, their mortgages and their futures.
‘We are within a few hours, I think, of agreeing a global plan for economic recovery and reform and I think the significance of this is that we are looking at every aspect,’ he said.
I’m looking forward to today’s later presser – the one with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Merkel spent the weekend telling anyone who would listen that there’s too much spending going on, while Sarkozy has taken to blaming the whole economic mess on the “Anglo-Saxons.”
I think things boil down to this on the eve of the Summit. Brown and Obama want more worldwide stimulus and cooperation on regulatory reform for the financial system. Merkel and Sarkozy are off tilting at windmills talking about ‘offshore tax havens’ and hedge funds – neither of which have anything to do with the root cause of the worldwide slump.
Perhaps Brown knows something the rest of us don’t, something that will be revealed “within a few hours.”
Full Text: U.K. PM Gordon Brown – Global Rules, Global Values – G20 – St. Paul’s Cathedral, April 1, 2009
(Source: UK Prime Minister’s Office)
With Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, I come here to St Paul’s, a church of enormous beauty and monumental history, a place of sanctuary which amidst the passing storms of time has always been a rock of faith at the centre of our national life. St Paul’s is a place to which over the centuries people have come in hope and faith – a great national institution standing between Westminster and the City, midway on the horizon between the world of politics and the world of finance, and with a lot to teach both.
So just as i came here to speak in this cathedral before Gleneagles in 2005, I believe there is no more appropriate place to talk with you about the G20 summit which opens in London tomorrow. And let me say there is no more appropriate leader to join us in this discussion than Kevin Rudd, a Prime Minister of high courage, a leader of great conscience and a visionary for reform.
This Obama Trip to Europe Won’t Be Like the Last One …
Head Anglo Saxon In Charge?
Still LMAO about French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling the world econ-financial crisis the handiwork of “the Anglo-Saxons.” On Monday, he had this to say according to the Times of London:
President Sarkozy yesterday threatened to wreck the London summit if France’s demands for tougher financial regulation are not met.
France will not accept a G20 that produces a “false success with language that sounds good but contains no commitments”, his advisers said.
So, the Frankish Empire is not happy, what about the Teutons? Again, from the Times of London from Sunday:
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.
Brown, British PM, and President Barack Obama would like to see more spending by the world’s largest governments to keep priming the pump to flush the world from this economic cycle. Merkel and Sarkozy, not so much. China on the other hand wants a new international currency – while those crazy Russians are calling tonight for a return to the gold standard.
Here’s what’s going to come out of this summit: Absolutely nothing new.
