国际英语新闻：Obama Europe Trip to Focus on Economy, Security

President Barack Obama is scheduled to leave early Monday for a six-day, four-nation tour of Europe.  The president will talk with European leaders about improving the global economy and regional security as well as bilateral and multilateral relations. 

After a week of concentrating on the upheavals in the Middle East, President Obama will turn his attention to Europe and its concerns, mainly the state of the global economy.

The president will start in Ireland, whose economy, once called Europe’s “tiger,” is now reeling from a debt crisis.

Mr. Obama will mix business with pleasure in Ireland, visiting a small village where some of his ancestors had lived. "I am expecting to go not only to all the famous sites, but also to go to Moneygall, where my great-great-great-great-great grandfather hails from," he said.

Almost 37 million Americans claim Irish heritage, and Mr. Obama says the two countries share a close kinship.

Next, the president will spend two days in London for a formal state visit. 

He and Mrs. Obama will stay at Buckingham Palace, where Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will host a state dinner in their honor.

In London, Mr. Obama will speak to both houses of the British Parliament, and he will talk with Prime Minister David Cameron about the economy, security and other issues.

Steven Clemons, a senior fellow at Washington’s New America Foundation, says the United States and Britain have an enormous stake in the recent changes in the Middle East and North Africa. “The phenomenal changes underway and which will likely continue for years in the Middle East, the ongoing challenges of troop deployment in Afghanistan, the combined NATO and allied forces intervention in Libya," he said.