Germany's international motto for this month's football World Cup might be "A Time to Make Friends", but that seems to have slipped the minds of many involved in organising the visit next week by President George W. Bush to the country's windswept north-east coast.

The US president is used to opposition demonstrations when he tours the world, but his visit to the historic coastal town of Stralsund is something else. This time, besides the usual anti-globalisation and anti-Iraq war protesters, some of Mr Bush's hosts will also be mounting the barricades against him, in a political twist that is becoming em-barrassing for Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. She invited Mr Bush to visit during her trip to Washington in May, and proposed as the venue her eastern German parliamentary constituency around Stralsund.