Schools will be closed, public transportation diverted and both river and air traffic suspended on the day Bush passes through Mainz on a three-nation European tour that will also take him to Brussels and Bratislava.
Two highways will be closed to other traffic while Bush is driven the 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Frankfurt airport to Mainz. Should there be problems on the highways, two helicopters brought in from the United States will be used instead. Bush remains highly unpopular in Germany (Europe) despite recent efforts by Washington to move beyond Iraq and get the German-American alliance back on track.
In a recent BBC survey 77 percent of Germans said they believed his reelection made the world more dangerous. But U.S. organizers are still taking all necessary measures to ensure the German public's dislike of Bush does not mar his kiss-and-make-up session with Schroeder.
Initial plans for a "town hall" style meeting attended by local students, businessmen and Americans have been scrapped — to the relief of German government officials, who feared privately that such an open forum could backfire.
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