US presidential front-runner Barack Obama will tour Europe and the Middle East next week, making much anticipated stops in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Berlin, Paris and London.
His exact itinerary has been kept a secret for security reasons, but his campaign says he will be in Amman, Jordan on Monday; Tuesday and Wednesday in Israel and the West Bank; Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Europe; and somewhere in all this, fact-finding missions to Iraq and Afghanistan.
He will be accompanied to the war zones by two US Senate colleagues, Democrat Jack Reed and
Republican Chuck Hagel, an outspoken critic of president George W Bush and the Iraq War.
Large crowds are expected at his European events as people want to get their first glance at the man who could become the first African-American president.
GATE OR COLUMN?
The Senator's visit to Berlin is not without controversy.
Local German media reported today that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was uneasy about Sen Obama giving a speech at the historic Brandenburg Gate.
It is now thought he will speak in the square near the Column of Victory.
However, the municipality office responsible for approving the venue claims it had no word yet on the preferred location from the Obama camp in the US.
Ms Merkel had aired reservations about the Brandenburg Gate (left) as possible venue, questioning whether it would be appropriate to bring a foreign election campaign to a site that symbolises Germany's Cold War division and later reunification.
Constructed in 1791 as a symbol of peace in Germany, the gate stood for 28 years during the Cold War at the heavily fortified Berlin Wall that blocked off communist East Germany's sector of the divided city.
Probably the capital's best-known monument, it has been restored as a national symbol for a reunified Germany.
But the Brandenburg Gate was also the backdrop for John F Kennedy's famous speech 'Ich bin ein Berliner', an association Mr Obama may have been keen to capitalise on.
On Friday, Ms Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said the German leader will welcome Barack Obama to her office in Berlin.
He is also expected to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.
MCCAIN SUPPORTERS CITE MEDIA BIAS
Conservative supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain say the media's planned coverage of Mr Obama's upcoming trip is biased because US television networks did not devote the same level of resources during Sen McCain's recent European trip.
'This trip with Sen Obama must be like the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles all rolled into one for the liberal media. For all three nightly news anchors to get to go on the road with him must be a dream come true,' said Brent Bozell, the president of the conservative media watchdog Media Research Center.
