Atlantic Council

The American government appears unlikely to offer loan guarantees to the Big 3 U.S. automakers, despite the pleas of President-elect Barack Obama.  Meanwhile, European governments appear set to help out their competitors.

British-based carmaker Jaguar Land Rover is in secret talks with the UK government over a 1 billion pound ($1.48 billion) loan, just nine months after the Indian conglomerate Tata Group bought the luxury carmaker, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The request reflects the sharp downturn in the global car market which has already pushed a handful of big carmakers to the edge of bankruptcy, and one UK government source said Prime Minister Gordon Brown is studying the request, the paper added.

In a Jaguar Land Rover statement, the group said on Sunday it supported UK and European carmaker's industry bodies seeking help from governments but would not comment specifically.

Citroean, Pugeot, Fiat, and others are getting sympathetic listens to their calls for emergency measures.

Italy's Premier Silvio Berlusconi continues to catch flack for his quip Thursday describing U.S. president-elect Barack Obama as "young, handsome and even tanned."  AP's Slobodan Lekik writes that "Berlusconi was visibly annoyed when reporters questioned him after a European Union" about the remarks and said those who saw the remarks as racist were "imbeciles."

Given that Obama chose as his running mate who infamously described him as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" and who described himself as a "mutt" in his first press conference since winning the election, one suspects he got the joke. 

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi says that world leaders are considering a radical plan to deal with the global financial crisis, Bloomberg reports: "The idea of suspending the markets for the time it takes to rewrite the rules is being discussed."  He argues that the solution "can't just be for one country, or even just for Europe, but global."

Dick Cheney, speaking at an international conference in Italy, denounced Russia's aggression in Georgia, asking, "Does Russia really want to separate itself from the community of values that has fueled so much of its own economic progress? Does the Russian government really wish to operate in the modern world as an outsider, alienating free countries and trying to rally the world’s dictatorships?"  He added, "hat is no way for a responsible power to conduct itself" and "We know that if one country is allowed to unilaterally redraw the borders of another, it will happen and it will happen again."

In Moscow, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev dismissed such criticism, vowing that "Russia is a state that from now on must be reckoned with" and asserting, "hey are trying to put political pressure on us. We, of course, will not simply accept this situation. But they will not be able to do anything. And I would like to state as clearly as possible that this confrontation was not our choice," Steven Lee Meyers reports for the NYT.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Azerbaijan today on the first leg of a trip that will take him to Georgia, Ukraine, and Italy.

CNN reports that Cheney will meet Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to "iscuss recent events neighboring Georgia, along with Azerbaijan's cooperation in the war on terrorism and its troop contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan" and will also meet with local representatives of BP and Chevron to discuss matters of enegy security.

In Georgia, Cheney is scheduled to meet with President Mikheil Saakashvili to discuss the current crisis with Russia and look "beyond the immediate situation and discuss in depth the need for a comprehensive long-term strategy by the international community to help Georgia recover and rebuild, including the critical task of supporting the democratic choice of the Georgian people to integrate further with Euro-Atlantic institutions, including NATO," a senior administration official says.

The visit to Italy will include an address to the Ambrosetti Forum on the challenges facing the transatlantic alliance and meeting with both Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and President Giorgio Napolitano.