President Barack Obama kicked off his visit to Wales for the NATO summit Thursday with a trip to a local school alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron. Not everyone in the host city of Newport was pleased to see world leaders come to town, but the quiet residential street outside Mount Pleasant Primary School was packed with crowds behind a police cordon an hour before Obama and Cameron arrived in what the BBC reported was a 22-car convoy.
Anti-NATO demonstrations were expected elsewhere in the city as well as in Cardiff later in the day, but there was no sign of protests at the school on Thursday morning. The South Wales Argus newspaper reported that "half of the village" of the Rogerstone area of Newport had turned out. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen outlined the aims of the summit, highlighting the fight against ISIS and the crisis in Ukraine. Obama is due to later attend two NATO briefings, first on Afghanistan then Ukraine. He will then dine with the other NATO heads of state at Cardiff Castle.
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