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Obama Faces Tough G20 After Warmth of Indonesia

   VOA News 10 November 2010
   President  Barack Obama walks past South Korean honor guard members as
   he arrives to attend the G20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea, 10 Nov 2010

Photo: AP

   President  Barack Obama walks past South Korean honor guard members as
   he arrives to attend the G20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea, 10 Nov 2010

   U.S.  President  Barack Obama has arrived in South Korea after a brief
   visit to his boyhood home of Indonesia.
   Starting  Thursday,  the  president  will face two days of contentious
   talks  in  Seoul with the leaders of 19 other leading leading economic
   powers.
   Participants  in  preparatory  talks  for  the  G20 summit already are
   reporting  heated  discussions  about  trade  and  exchange rates, and
   several countries are complaining they will be hurt by recent steps to
   stimulate the U.S. economy.
   Earlier  Wednesday  in Jakarta, Mr. Obama gave a major speech praising
   Indonesia's  democracy and saying its spirit of religious tolerance is
   one  of  the  country's defining characteristics.  He said Indonesia,
   the  world's  most  populous  Muslim  majority  nation, and the United
   States share the value that there is strength in diversity.
   Mr.  Obama also said the United States is not and never will be at war
   with Islam.
   He  said  the  al-Qaida  terrorist  network and its affiliates have no
   claim to be leaders of Islam or any other religion. Â
   The  president  vowed to pursue peace in the Middle East, despite what
   he called "enormous obstacles."
   The president's visit to Indonesia marks a return to the country where
   he  spent  four  years  of his childhood in the 1960s. President Obama
   said Wednesday, in Indonesian, that "Indonesia is a part of me."
   Mr. Obama's speech at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta revisited
   themes  from last year's speech in Cairo in which he called for mutual
   respect between the United States and the Muslim world.
   President  Obama  said  Wednesday  that  relations  between the United
   States  and Muslim communities have frayed over many years. He said as
   president,  he  has  made  it  a  priority  to  begin  to repair those
   relations.
   Earlier Wednesday, President Obama visited Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque -
   the largest in Southeast Asia. Â
   In  South  Korea,  G20  participants  are also expected to discuss the
   Chinese  currency.   The United States and Europe want China to raise
   the value of its currency in order to trim its trade surplus, which is
   up  sharply  in  a  new  report  Wednesday.  But Chinese President Hu
   Jintao,  in  an  interview  published  Wednesday, says other countries
   should "face their own problems" and not blame China.

   Some information for this report was provided by AFP. 

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