What A Week That Was
The G20 summit was designed to bring the world leaders together and agree a strategy to end the current world financial crisis. There was massive scepticism, with rallies planned and the media ready to pounce on this huge failure. However what really occurred was at a level not really expected.
Gordon Brown the UK Prime Minister instigated the idea, instead of having 20 nations doing different things to sort out their own financial affairs, why not come together and sort them out with a common course and plan. The French sent out messages that of they did not get what they wanted, they would walk out and there were mutterings from other nations too. However the day ended as what could be described as a huge success, although not everything was agreed to a higher level.
The fact that 20 nations could come together and agree on the basics including Russia and China was a huge success to Gordon Brown’s idea. The star of the show was President Obama, who chose the UK as his first official engagement outside of the USA. He mingled in with other country leaders adn can only be seen as a ray of hope and optimism. His wife attended a school with teenage girls and there is no doubt, they came away motivated and moved from the First Lady. The media also captured the pictures and the world looked on in awe.
The G20 conference ended in triumph inside and was only marred by demonstrations outside that saw some property damaged and now a police investigation to why a gentleman died of a heart attack and was it brought on by riot police.
President Obama then moved on to Strasbourg and continued to woo everyone he came into contact with. A q and A session was set up in front of the cameras and we saw a very rare thing; A USA president answering questions from an audience. A surprise visit to Bagdad afterwards to see the USA troops brought smiles to the faces of personnel serving in Iraq, something we all want to go away.
The week was something the world needed; it gave optimism and hopefully a bit of trust in the world leadership that in times of trouble we can forget some of our differences, come together and find a solution. With the USA playing the largest part in all this, it was good to see a President, sharing and talking and not dictating the odds like previous leaders.