[Civsoc-mw] BROTHER, YOU HAVEN'T SEEN NOTHING YET OF OB

[Louis Nthenda]

   1.
   Obama rests his head in Tuscan villa after sell‑out €3m speechBarack
   Obama landed in Milan on a private jet and headed straight for his
   €8,400-a-night suite ahead of a lucrative speech on his post-presidential
   holiday

   Barack Obama’s post-presidential holidays are officially over but from
   the look of his new working routine it’s hard to tell the difference.

   Yesterday he arrived in Milan on a private jet and headed straight for
   the Park Hyatt hotel, where the presidential suite will set you back €8,400
   (£7,100) a night. The former US president is in Italy’s business capital to
   deliver a sold-out speech today. Some 3,500 people have paid €850 each for
   a ticket, raising nearly €3 million for the Obama Foundation, which was set
   up to carry on his project of “renewal and global progress”.

   Mr Obama’s career in public speaking is picking up speed after his
   much-criticised decision to accept $400,000 (£310,000) for a speech to Wall
   Street bankers in September.

   In Milan, crowds lined the streets and traffic ground to a halt as Mr
   Obama’s convoy of 14 cars entered the city, escorted by a helicopter and
   300 police.
   His entourage took over two floors of the five-star hotel, according to
   Italian media, although his staff declined to release details. From there
   he was whisked to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, a gallery with works by
   Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and Raphael, before stopping by the city’s
   cathedral for a quick tour.
   The Milan trip follows weeks of holidaying since Mr Obama left
   Washington on January 20, starting with kitesurfing lessons in the British
   Virgin Islands courtesy of his host, Sir Richard Branson.
   He dropped in to California for a spot of winter golf and dined in New
   York with Bono, before heading out for a few weeks in French Polynesia with
   his wife, Michelle, where they were photographed on the deck of the Rising
   Sun, the 450ft superyacht owned by David Geffen, the recording mogul.
   If Tony Blair could only aspire to holidays in Sardinia with Silvio
   Berlusconi, Mr Obama has kept far more hip holiday company — he was joined
   in the Pacific by Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey.
   “What happens on the boat, stays on the boat,” Winfrey said after her
   return.
   In Milan, Mr Obama will give a speech at Seeds and Chips, a conference
   on the impact that technology, innovation and climate change will have on
   food availability and production around the world. His address will be
   followed by a conversation on stage with Sam Kass, the Obamas’ former White
   House chef who helped to run Mrs Obama’s public health campaign.
   One topic that Mr Obama is not expected to tackle is President Trump’s
   efforts to dismantle his legislation on climate change and healthcare.
   “So, uh, what’s been going on while I’ve been gone?” he joked at a
   public appearance in Chicago last month. In private meetings, the former
   president’s conversation will probably be strictly political.
   Yesterday he met Matteo Renzi, the former Italian prime minister, before
   a planned get together with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, in Berlin
   on May 25.
   Before then, he was due to get back in the holiday mood with a visit to
   Borgo Finocchieto, a hilltop hamlet in Tuscany which has been turned into a
   luxury retreat by John Phillips, the US lawyer who served as Mr Obama’s
   ambassador to Italy.
   In keeping with the former president’s taste for the good life, the
   44-bed hamlet doesn’t come cheap, costing up to €18,500 a night to rent.
   Mrs Obama is reportedly joining her husband for the stay at the
   800-year-old cluster of stone buildings which was abandoned by farmers in
   the 1960s before it was purchased in 2001 by Mr Phillips. He rebuilt the
   crumbling houses and added a pool, underground parking, tennis courts and a
   gym.
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