A repost from CL- Bummer cancelled?

Sao Paulo 6:19PM GMT 18 Mar 2011
Barack Obama cancels Brazil speech on eve of high-security visit
President Barack Obama has cancelled a public speech in Rio de Janeiro on the eve of a visit to Brazil that will see a huge security operation involving military police, tanks, snipers and FBI agents.
Tens of thousands of Brazilians were expected to gather in an historic square in Rio on Sunday to hear Mr Obama speak but the US embassy in Brasilia said the speech had been cancelled.

Anti-US banners had been placed around the square by Thursday and some protest groups had declared Mr Obama a "persona non grata" due to a "bellicose policy of occupation" in foreign countries.

More than 800 members of the police and armed forces will be mobilised in Rio to protect Mr Obama including members of an anti-terror unit and of the Brazilian army's chemical and biological defence companies.

Elite snipers will be positioned at "critical points" along the route to be followed by Mr Obama and his own security entourage and four tanks and seven military helicopters will be available.

FBI agents have conducted inspections of the Cidade de Deus (City of God) favela, made famous by the 2002 film of the same name about Rio gangsters, which Mr Obama will visit on Sunday morning.

According to reports in Brazil, authorities in Rio wanted Mr Obama to visit a different shanty town but the FBI decided Cidade de Deus posed fewer risks.

The talks with Ms Rousseff will centre on trade while Mr Obama also faces pressure to voice support for Brazil's ambition of being given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, though there is little to indicate that he will do so.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil, said last week that the current structure of the security council represents the "political geography of 1945 and not the political geography of 2011".