[EUobserver Comment] No easy answers to the status of Ossetia, Abkhazia and others - 24.10.2008.

The collapse last week (on the first day!) of EU backed peace talks between
Georgia and Russia to resolve the crisis in the breakaway regions of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia, with the sides unable to enter the same room, serves
merely to illustrate that there are no easy answers to the question of the
status of Ossetia, Abkhazia, and indeed many other territories in the
world, writes MEP Richard Corbett.

 http://euobserver.com/9/26983/?rk=1
===============

Strained relations between Russians, EU monitors in Georgia - 24.10.2008.

Russia is not informing the EU mission of their deployment of troops, nor
is it allowing observers to enter Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Hansjorg
Haber, the head of EU’s civilian monitoring mission to Georgia (EUMM) has
said.

 http://euobserver.com/9/26993/?rk=1

==============
 Romania opens door to Gazprom pipeline - 24.10.2008.

Romania is open to investing in the Gazprom pipeline South Stream, not just
the EU Nabucco project, designed to reduce energy dependency on Russia,
Romanian minister of economy Varujan Vosganian said on Thursday as general
elections loom.

 http://euobserver.com/9/26988/?rk=1

From the Financial Times, October 24, 2008.

THEN ESCAP URGES the SPECA CENTRAL ASIA TO STRENGTHEN TIES WITH REST OF CONTINENT FOR GREATER SECURITY. The above has clearly political implications by bundling non-Arab Islamic States.

Greater cooperation between Central Asia and the rest of Asia is essential to achieve sustainable development for the whole continent, given the current climate of global financial instability and food and energy insecurity, a senior United Nations official, ESCAP’s Executive Director  stressed today of all places - right in Moscow.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) stands ready to facilitate technical and regional cooperation and provide a neutral forum for engaging in policy dialogue, Executive-Secretary of ESCAP Noeleen Heyzer told a gathering of senior Central Asian policymakers in Moscow.

“We are gathering here against the backdrop of a gloomy economic environment with pressing challenges in food and energy security, as well as the need for greater financial stability,” Under-Secretary-General Heyzer warned participants at the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) meeting.

“By adopting the South-South cooperation modality, SPECA can provide home-grown solutions and policy options to achieve inclusive and sustainable development,” she told officials from the seven SPECA member states – Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

SPECA aims to strengthen sub-regional cooperation, mainly in the areas of energy and water, transport, trade, technology, gender and the economy, in Central Asia, as well as its integration into the world economy with support from the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).

The Russians are coming — loaded with cash.

By SERGEI GURIEV (Moscow) and ALEH TSYVINSKI (Yale University, USA), Saturday October 18, 2008, The Japan Times.

MOSCOW — Russia’s government is sitting on a giant pile of cash that it plans to invest in foreign assets. The glimpse of its economic muscle was revealed when the prime minister of Iceland announced that Russia may come with about $5 billion to save its troubled economy. Who could have thought that, given the chaotic Russia of the 1990s, only 10 years later it would be in the position to bail out a developed country? Even more surprising is the fact that the helping hand for Iceland comes at a time when the domestic stock market is in a free fall and trading on the Moscow stock exchange is routinely halted.

The Kremlin thinks that now is the time to buy assets cheaply, using the current financial crisis to emerge as a powerful global economic player. As Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remarked at a recent meeting with the CEO of state-owned bank VTB, “Perhaps we should buy something (abroad)? Something that is up for grabs?” According to Arkady Dvorkovich, an economic aide to President Dmitry Medvedev, the government will support — both diplomatically and financially — the expansion of Russian companies abroad.

Following the Russian-Georgian war, the West is scared that Russia’s government will use its cash not just for economic purposes, but as an aggressive foreign policy tool. Should the West really consider blocking Russian investments abroad as a way to influence Russia?

Trying to erect an Iron Curtain around Russian funds and businesses will prove counterproductive. Indeed, a large-scale “invasion” of Russian business would be a positive development, because it would foster economic interdependence. This is true even if the economic expansion is led by state-owned companies and by Russian sovereign wealth funds. By investing in American and European assets, Russia’s government and business elites are buying a stake in the global economy. This should bring better mutual understanding and a more rational and accountable foreign policy.

Paradoxically, despite recent hits to the Russian stock market, Russia remains awash with cash. Russia’s government just rolled out a $130 billion bailout plan for the country’s banking system; as a percentage of gross domestic product this would be equivalent to about $1.3 trillion in the U.S. — almost double the Paulson plan. Yet, even this package has not significantly eaten into Russia’s sovereign wealth funds and its world’s third largest currency reserves.

The government’s Reserve Fund, created to cushion the economy from a fall in oil prices, stands at $140 billion, and the National Welfare Fund (NWF), intended mainly to solve the coming pension crisis, holds another $30 billion. The NWF, though not yet officially a “sovereign wealth fund,” is already among the 10 largest such funds, rivaling the Brunei Investment Agency.

Russian private and state-owned companies have already invested abroad extensively, often buying stakes in large foreign companies. Overall, the top 25 Russian companies hold $59 billion in foreign assets and are the third largest investors in emerging economies, following Hong Kong and Brazil. Even though the financial crisis has wiped out the Russian stock market, some of the best-run companies are hit less badly than their Western counterparts and will therefore be shopping in the global market next year.

***

Russian corporations’ foreign investments have already generated a heated debate in both the United States and Europe — even when investment was done by a private company. The largest controversy surrounded a merger that Russian steel giant SeverStal sought with Luxembourg-based Arcelor. SeverStal was rejected in favor of Mittal Steel, with some commentators claiming that the decision was taken on political grounds. But no investment by a private Russian company has, so far, been vetoed by Western governments.

Yet hostility toward investment by Russia’s government (and government companies) has been almost universal until recently. U.S. and European policymakers do not trust that foreign governments (and their sovereign wealth funds) invest solely on business grounds.

But the financial crisis is making the West happy to find “friends with cash.” During his visit to Russia in June, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson emphasized that the U.S. is interested in welcoming Russian investment, including investment by Russia’s sovereign wealth funds.

Russian authorities may be advancing that goal by taking initial steps toward improving corporate governance in state-owned companies. In an unprecedented move, the government replaced a large number of bureaucrats on the boards of these companies with independent directors (including a couple of foreigners). While it is unlikely that Russian sovereign wealth funds and state-owned companies will change overnight, they will certainly become more transparent and efficient in the near future.

***

The key benefit of Russian foreign investment is not economic, but that it helps Russia become a global citizen. Consider Russia’s elites, who buy houses in London, ski in the Alps, and educate their children in Switzerland. They have too much to lose from a worsening political climate between Russia and the West. It is time to make Russia’s big business — and its government — stakeholders in the world economy.

Sergei Guriev is rector of New Economic School in Moscow. Aleh Tsyvinski is a professor of Economics at Yale University

Forget Björk and Make Way for New Icelandic Stars: Elín & Birna
by ERIKA YOST on OCTOBER 14, 2008

Time to let the women clean up after the boys. According to the Financial Times, Elín Sigfúsdóttir and Birna Einarsdóttir are set to become chief executives of New Landsbanki and New Glitnir respectively, the nationalized banks created by the Icelandic government in the wake of the crisis. One government minister said their appointments were an attempt to signal a new culture within the banking system.

Landsbanki, Glitnir and Kaupthing – known for their aggressive international expansion – collapsed last week under the weight of their debt, leaving the Icelandic economy in very dangerous waters. Many have laid blame for the crisis on the young and predominantly male bankers whose “eyes became bigger than their stomachs”, as one banker conceded. The women are expected to curb the “bonus-driven risk-taking” culture that has dominated in recent years.

The new banks will focus solely on domestic operations, in an attempt to keep money flowing around Iceland’s crushed economy. For the full Financial Times article click here.

***

Corporate Banking at Landsbanki:  S. Elín Sigfúsdóttir
S. Elín Sigfúsdóttir is a business administration graduate from the University of Iceland (1979). She took up the position of Managing Director of Corporate Banking in May 2003. Prior to that she worked for Búnaðarbanki Íslands hf. for 24 years, rising to Managing Director of Corporate Banking after having been a Senior Director and Assistant Managing Director of the same division. She has been a board member of Landsbanki Luxembourg SA and SP-Fjármögnun hf. since 2003. She previously served on the boards of Búnaðarbanki in 1998-2003 and Lýsing hf. from 2000-2003.

****

and at the Glitnir Bank:

Birna Einarsdóttir
Executive Vice President Iceland Commercial Banking

Ms. Einarsdóttir was appointed to the Glitnir Executive Board in February 2007. She first joined Glitnir (then Iðnaðarbankinn) in 1987. She was Director of Marketing and Sales of Íslandsbanki. After working for the Royal Bank of Scotland for six years she rejoined Glitnir in 2004 and has been in charge of Glitnir’s marketing and sales teams as well as the Corporate development unit. She directed the Bank’s successful re-branding in 2006. In June 2007 she took on the role of head of Glitnir’s Iceland Commercial Bank.

Ms. Einarsdóttir holds a B.Sc. in Business Administration from the University of Iceland and an MBA degree from Edinburgh University.

from: Harry L. Langer     -      Tel: 212-517-5942      -     E-mail:  harrylanger at hllanger.com
SOVEREIGN FUNDS AS VEHICLE TO FINANCE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.

Harry suggests that Consideration be given to the creation of an international system wherein sovereign funds (and/or those of affiliates) spent outside their native countries are restricted to only lending to public and private business enterprises subject to an international regulation, control, and oversight regime and subordinate to those of the nations where the loans are made. This would:

(1) Provide additional liquidity and capital to the international financial system, maintain markets, and reduce the risk of regional and/or worldwide recession;

(2) Overcome the valid concerns ( economic, financial, security, political, etc.) and fear of sovereign funds buying up a country’s manufacturing, and service companies, agricultural enterprises, natural resources, banks, financial institutions, and technology and knowhow (industrial, military, scientific, nuclear, etc.) and engaging in economic aggression.

(3) Reduce the risk of protectionism and strife.

***

To protect and preserve the capital of sovereign fund banks, their off shore loans could be secured by the credit of the borrower and/or the nation, state, or municipal government where the borrowing enterprise is located, possibly as part of economic/job development financing programs. {so this is the required insurance for the lender.}

This approach would satisfy the concerns and requirements of all parties, supply the capitol the global economy needs to function equitably and efficiently, and encourage greater sovereign fund domestic investment to improve the educational, infrastructure, and living standards at home.
This could be accomplished through:

(1) U.N. regulations prohibiting any member nation from allowing sovereign funds (or their affiliates), either directly or indirectly, to acquire any kind of asset in their country – only lend;

(2) individual countries collectively enacting standardized legislation to prohibit sovereign funds (or their affiliates) from acquiring or purchasing stock, bonds, or equity, either directly or indirectly, in the manufacturing, mining, agriculture, or service enterprises, technology, research, intellectual and real property, patents or copyrights in their country and set lending guidelines;

(3) the U.N. requiring all of its members to comply with all international patent and copyright laws; and/or

(4) the establishment (or empowerment) of an international oversight and regulatory banking commission, like the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, European Trade Commission, or OECD to: (a) govern sovereign fund foreign lending, (b) set uniform regulations and standards for international bank and hedge fund reserve, transparency, disclosure, credit rating, and due diligence, etc. and (c) prohibit any interference or influence by sovereign funds (or their affiliates), either directly or indirectly, in the governments or politics of any country other than their own.
Private banks, financial institutions or consultants could assist sovereign funds in arranging and servicing said foreign loans on a fee basis.

Under Bush, US Influence in Latin America Wanes.
Saturday 11 October 2008, by: The Associated Press

From left to right, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva forge alliances at a regional integration meeting in Manaos, Brazil, in early October 2008. (Photo: Antonio Lacerda / EPA)

Quito, Ecuador - In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

“The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can’t?” said Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa. “If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We’re a country of open doors.”

The United States remains the strongest outside power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America swung to the left and other powers moved in.

The United States’ financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

“We did our homework - and they didn’t, they who’ve been telling us for three decades what to do,” the man who presides over Latin America’s largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, complained bitterly.

Latin America’s more than 550 million people now “have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic,” says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous.”

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. (The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.) People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.

In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China’s trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela’s Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.

“Similar deals could have been made with the United States had it been willing to share its technology,” said Geraldo Cavagnari, of the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn’t limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss “better relations in defense.” Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises as early as November.

Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran.

Although the Islamic republic’s ambassador has yet to arrive in South America’s poorest country, its top diplomat there announced Friday that Iran will open two low-cost public health clinics.

And while Bolivia’s only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense, Moscow’s ambassador told the AP - after Bolivia booted the U.S. ambassador - that Russia has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.

“We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries,” said the diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn’t comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean, and said it has no interest in reviving “Cold War rhetoric.” Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush’s presidency.

However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for the military or counternarcotics, and that Washington sends more money annually to Israel alone. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez’s checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras’ president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.

“Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked,” he said.

Costa Rica’s president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of welcomed influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington’s $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, “We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region.”

But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention in countries including Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile’s center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington’s ambassador to Chile an old joke: “Some say the only reason there’s never been a coup in the United States is because there’s no U.S. Embassy in the United States.”

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America’s elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree - though that didn’t stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military, or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counterdrug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

With the U.S. facing its own financial crisis, it’s unlikely to be able to leverage economic influence in Latin America anytime soon. Sen. Barack Obama’s senior adviser on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his candidate is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style - albeit adding a special White House envoy for the Americas.

“Barack doesn’t see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner,” Restrepo told the AP.

Reich, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who served three Republican presidents in the region, put it even more bluntly.

“No matter who is elected in November, there is not going to be any money for Latin America,” he said. “Latin Americans expecting financial resources, any kind of help from the United States, they are barking up the wrong tree.”

——–

Associated Press writers Dan Keane in Bolivia, Eduardo Gallardo in Chile and Stan Lehman in Brazil contributed to this report.

Iceland turns to Russia to avoid bankruptcy.
RENATA GOLDIROVA, the EUobserver, October 8, 2008.

The Icelandic government, fighting hard to prevent a collapse of its financial system, took control of the country’s second biggest bank, Landsbanki, on Tuesday (7 October) and has had to run to Russia for cash to support its currency.

The country’s central bank has also pegged the krona to the euro.

Reykvjavik said it had had no choice but to turn to Russia to secure a €4 billion loan lasting for up to four years - something necessary to strengthen its foreign exchange reserves and support the krona.

“We have not received the kind of support that we were requesting from our friends. So in a situation like that one has to look for new friends,” Prime Minister Geir Haarde was cited as saying by the Financial Times on Tuesday.

“In a situation like this, it’s turning out that it’s every man for himself, every country for itself, everybody’s taking care of their best interest and that’s what we are doing,” he added, stopping short of revealing which countries refused to assist in the rescue operation.

Moscow has confirmed it is assessing Iceland’s application and views the request “positively.”

“Iceland is well known as a country with tough budgetary discipline and a high rating of reliability,” Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin said, the Financial Times reports.

The volatility of the country’s currency, the krona, was so extreme that Iceland’s central bank had to peg the currency to the euro at a rate of 131 krona per euro.

A spokesperson for the International Monetary Fund said that a staff team from the IMF was in Reykjavik.

Iceland has been pummelled by the ongoing financial crisis, with the prime minister earlier saying his country risks facing “national bankruptcy”.

“What we are doing here is saving the domestic banking system and making sure that it can function properly,” he was cited as saying by the BBC, referring to the rescue plan of Landsbanki.

The institution owns British internet bank Icesave, home to some 350,000 savers in the UK and Netherlands. Its UK operation announced yesterday it had stopped customers from withdrawing or depositing money.

In separate moves, the country’s central bank injected a loan of €500 million to the largest bank Kaupthing “to facilitate operations.” The government has also stepped in to nationalise the third-largest bank, Glitnir, to avert its bankruptcy.

Obama-led US would protect eastern Europe.
VALENTINA POP, October 5, 2008 for the  EUOBSERVER from BRUSSELS.

 http://euobserver.com/9/26863/?rk=1

If elected president of the US, senator Barack Obama would not trade eastern European security for Russian help on Iran, his senior foreign policy advisor, Gregory B. Craig, told EUobserver in an interview. Any notion that the US tried to sabotage the Lisbon treaty is “silly,” he added.

Barack Obama will be a more “pro-European” president if elected, his advisor says. Mr Obama would be a “much more pro-European president” than his Republican predecessor if elected on 4 November, said Mr Craig - a lawyer who led former president Bill Clinton’s defence against impeachment and also worked as foreign policy advisor to former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

The US and Europe will have to co-operate with Russia in areas where they have “common objectives and common ground,” especially on non-proliferation - reduction of the global nuclear arsenal, security of nuclear materials and challenges such as North Korea and Iran - senator Obama’s foreign policy man explained.

“[But] that doesn’t mean that you trade away our security commitments to the new members of NATO, that’s not even thinkable. I always remember the notion that the expansion of NATO was not a threat to Russia, that this was a decision not by NATO to move east, but a decision by the new democracies from the former Soviet space to integrate with the West.”

“The notion that you choose to co-operate with Russia vis-a-vis Iran at the expense of central and eastern Europe, I just don’t accept that. That’s not viable and it won’t happen that way,” Mr Craig said.

Russia’s aggressive stance toward neighbours who want to be part of NATO and the EU is a historical throwback, he added. “I think the notion that Russia has a veto over what they decide inside of Ukraine or Georgia is very 19th to 20th century. In a 21st century world, with global impacts, global trends, Russia suffered enormously economically as a result of its intervention in Georgia.”

The Obama advisor underlined that new members of NATO are protected by a “solemn security commitment,” while NATO aspirant states can look to the United Nations charter that “requires nation states to respect the sovereignty of other nation states.”

“Although a country like Ukraine is not a member of NATO, Russia does not have under international law the right to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine. Even if there is no security obligation, the people of Europe and US will be supportive of the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people to make their own decisions, to choose democracy and affiliate themselves with Western institutions if they want to.”

Mr Craig said that senator Obama would also stick to plans to build parts of the US global missile shield in Poland and the Czech republic, despite fierce Russian criticism. The new Democratic president would “not turn his back on that agreement” as it is a “solemn commitment” signed by Washington, Prague and Warsaw.

“The timing, pace and scope of the implementation of that agreement is going to be a matter left to the discretion of the president of the United States,” he added, however.

US military facilities in Romania and Bulgaria - also disliked by Moscow - are not up for discussion either, Mr Craig said. “Democracies from the former Soviet space have every right to make their own decisions,” he explained, calling the notion of a Russian veto a “relic of the Soviet past.”

Obama good for EU-US ties:

The Obama camp believes America-bashing is decreasing in the EU in a trend that would be accelerated by a Democratic victory in November.

The European Parliament president’s recent request for an investigation into alleged CIA funding of the irish No-campaign against the Lisbon treaty is a freak event resulting from the parliament’s own upcoming elections in 2009, Mr Craig said.

“Every election has its silly season … this speculation or rumour that the CIA would support the No vote in Ireland is preposterous.”

“It seems to me that the European Union has some problems with its public relations, not just in Ireland, but also elsewhere where the [EU] constitution has been defeated. That should not, in my view, deter the Europeans from continuing on the course of consolidating its institutions, the rule of law, economic trading agreements and greater co-operation. This has been the policy of many, many US presidents and it will be the policy of president Obama to support that.”

Asked why senator Obama didn’t stop in Brusse