**Obama cancels trip to Asia on government shutdown** ________________________________________________ US President Barak Obama canceled a week-long trip to Asia to stay in Washington to press for a budget bill. Obama was supposed to attend two economic summits in Indonesia and Brunei during which he was scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, among other leaders. Next week’s trip to Asia was canceled because of the government shutdown. According to the White House, Obama prefers to stay in Washington to continue pressing for a budget bill that would reopen the government. The US is also facing the approach of the borrowing limit that should be raised by October 17 to avoid a debt default. Obama already canceled visits to Malaysia and the Philippines earlier this week because of the deadlock which led to the shutdown of non-essential government services and sent hundreds of thousands of workers home without pay. While President Xi Jinping did not comment on Obama`s decision, Indonesian Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring expressed his disappointment. “I think the summit will go on, there is a long-term plan. But without Obama, you can imagine how disappointed we are. We could hardly imagine he wouldn`t come”, Sembiring said.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 11:16:46 +0000
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